It took me a little while to figure out how I wanted to approach this. Hope you enjoy what I got going on in this one. Again, thanks for the reviews and all opinions are appreciated.

Chapter 3

"What the hell happened?"

Asuma couldn't believe what he was looking at. Neji stood before Asuma bloody and almost having no chakra in his body. On Neji's back was an unconscious Shikamaru in worse condition than Neji. The Hyuuga held a guilty look on his face, unable to look at the Jounin. Asuma didn't say anything. He just got the boys to the hospital for treatment.

Once Neji was taken care of and stabilized, the Jounin went into his room to find out what was going on. Shikamaru was still out of it so he couldn't get the information from him.

"Neji?"

The Hyuuga looked up at the door. He didn't react. He just looked at the man with a blank expression on his face.

"Can you tell me what happen now?"

Flashback

The mission was simple. That's what they both thought. Go to someplace, get some thing, and bring it back. Nothing easier than that.

Shikamaru and Neji started out as soon as they received the mission details. They stood at the edge of Konoha and looked how far they were traveling.

They were traveling through a major amount of woodland area which was a breeding ground for traps, ambushes, and sneak attacks. They both realized this somewhat but neither of them made a comment about it to the other.

In fact, there was complete silence between them.

After a bit of walking, Neji started to pick up on some traps yet he didn't say anything to Shikamaru since Shikamaru was pretty much a waste of space to him. The other ninja was only here because it was a two-man mission. Nothing more.

Trusting that Neji was guiding them away from the traps, Shikamaru focused on other things…until he ran across a seal on a tree. There was an explosion. Both went flying. No serious damaged was done.

"You are useless. There was obviously a trap there…Go back to Konoha. You're only slowing me down. I could have completed this mission already if you were not here."

With that, Neji walked away from Shikamaru. Shikamaru let out a sigh and kept walking.

Neji, after a bit of walking, was nowhere near Shikamaru and was pretty much alone on this mission. As if on cue, "Where's your partner? This might have actually been fun if it were two of you. You have no chance on your own."

Neji looked about for the voice in the trees and saw that he was thoroughly surrounded. He frowned, and got into his fighting stance. How dare they underestimate him! He was a Hyuuga after all.

Shikamaru walked through the woods, slowly trying to catch any traps that might be planted. The lazy ninja frowned when he heard a sizzle nearby. That could only mean another explosion. He jumped away and this only began an endless chain of traps complete with explosions, snares, flying kunai, spiked areas

Neji was much more powerful than all of these ninjas but they were so many that it almost made power irrelevant. The Hyuuga fought them off to the best of his ability using his kunai and everything else he had at his disposal. Neji wasn't able to systematically take down his enemy like he enjoyed, he had to just fight it out. The numbers started to overwhelm Neji and he soon found himself cornered by the enemy. He was in pain but still had too much fight to just give up. Like a cornered rat with no options, Neji lashed out in a blind rage, punching and kicking at blinding speeds. The fight was over and Neji had come out victorious. The problem was that…he was barely able to move. All parts of his body were in pain and he would not be able to complete the mission. He had to find Shikamaru after all. The Hyuuga altered his path a bit so he would hopefully run into Shikamaru before they reached the location of the scroll they were to obtain.

Shikamaru jumped and avoided the blasts, only getting caught by a few flying shards from explosions or a few cuts from flying kunai. "Shikamaru!"

Neji could see the lazy ninja jumping from tree to tree and had called out to him to get his attention.

Unfortunately, that one momentary distraction was enough to get Shikamaru tossed from the top of a tree into a large boulder. Needless to say, Shikamaru was out of it. Neji stood stunned. He just watched that happen. There was nothing he could do. The Hyuuga felt something he hadn't felt in a long time. He felt guilty. He felt responsible. He…caused Shikamaru to get hurt and he caused himself to get hurt.

End of Flashback

"Neji. What happened?"

"We split up. I got ambushed and Shikamaru was caught in a lot of traps."

Asuma looked at the Hyuuga for a moment. "Why did you split up? The difficulty of this mission was fairly high. That's why we trusted you two with this mission. We felt you two would work out your difference and accomplish the mission."

A nurse walked in just as Asuma finished speaking, "Nara Shikamaru just regained consciousness. You may see him if you would like."

At that point, Neji didn't even want to face Shikamaru. Knowing he basically caused those injuries…he couldn't face him.

Asuma got up, "If you want to go see him, you can. Your injuries were taken care of and you aren't forced to stay in bed."

Neji didn't respond.

The Jounin started to walk out of the room.

"Will he be upset with me?"

Asuma stopped in the doorway and looked back to Neji. The man smiled and started to chuckle gruffly.

"Shikamaru? No. You obviously haven't been his partner long enough."

Neji wasn't sure what Asuma meant. He would be upset with a guy who almost got him killed. Why wouldn't Shikamaru?

After a while of just sitting in bed, Neji decided he might as well go see Shikamaru instead of just thinking about what would happen when he first saw him. The Hyuuga gave Asuma enough time to leave Shikamaru's room before he went to Shikamaru's room and knocked.

"Eh? Come in."

Neji opened the door apprehensively and walked in.

"…Hey."

There ya go. One more chapter. Not too long but if I kept going…where would the suspense be? Exactly. Thanks for the reviews. Hope everyone keeps reading. I'll try to get those two together some kind of way. They're kinda stubborn…well…Neji's stubborn…and Shikamaru just doesn't care…about anything. Anyways, it should be a little more interesting next chapter. Till then.