Stage 5: Limitations

Tsuki had gone to bed that night in a frenzy. Her exhaustion caused her to react slowly, and she knew he took advantage of that. He left before she could get a thought together. He knew her stance, knew that she refused to give him what he wanted. He was bold, certainly. She had to hand him that.

She sighed. What was she supposed to do? Everything she had been taught, through mentor or life lesson, told her not to let someone get close to her. Neji knew that, yet he still put her in this position. She could feel the walls building around her inner self. The fear masked itself in anger; a bubbling, roiling ire. She grabbed the nearest item to her, and threw it. It happened to be one of the trinkets she had gotten from the Kazekage. The glass shattered as it hit a wall. The sound triggered more rage within her. Gaara's affections only added to the problem. She remembered how they pissed Neji off, and swore. Who is he to be jealous and possessive over her?"

Tsuki laid down in her bed, pulling the blanket over her chest. She turned out her light, and closed her eyes against the illumination of the moonlight on her ceiling. She forced herself into a meditative state. She didn't want to destroy the rest of the belongings in her room.

That morning came, and she didn't even realize she had fallen asleep. She woke in a trance, showered, and headed out the door with a rice ball in hand. It was still dark and misty, but she had a rematch to get to. She figured she'd work it out with Neji on the battle field.

No one was awake in the village, it seemed. Shops were still closed, lights were off, and she passed no one on the street. It was quiet. At least, now, she knew about Neji's intentions. For two years, he hid them well. Perhaps they just developed over time. They spent every day together. Their joys and sorrows were equally the other person's to share. Two years of guarding herself against him had been for nothing. She couldn't stop him from wanting something more, no matter how hard she tried. It wasn't as if she had the option to stop seeing him all together. The Hokage would never allow her independence for something so fickle.

Her feet carried her to the Hyuga compound of their own accord. Neji was just approaching the entrance when she arrived. He looked at her with a smile, still half asleep. From within the depths of his backpack, he produced a thermos and two mugs. He filled the vessels and stored the thermos away again.

"Good morning," he said. His voice was steady and calm, as though nothing had happened the night prior. He handed her the tea, which smelled strongly of peppermint and honey.

Tsuki stared at him blankly, half angry, half still asleep. She brought the cup to her lips and sipped, allowing the warmth to melt away her fatigue. "Morning," she mumbled.

They began to walk out of the village, passing the sleeping gate keepers as they went. Their slumped over state caused Tsuki to roll her eyes at their disregard for security. She still felt they were overdue for an attack. They were the first line of defence, and they were sleeping.

Together, she and Neji sipped their tea as their feet beat an unfamiliar path through the woods. They wandered, looking for a terrain that was suitable for them.

"Trees," Tsuki suggested sleepishly. They had been walking for half an hour.

Neji looked at her quizzically. "What about them?" he asked.

She looked at him blankly. "We should train in the trees."

He looked up at the tangled net of branches. They sloped, provided visual cover, and presented a new set of challenges they hadn't trained around before. "I don't see why not," he conceded.

Tsuki set her tea down, and dropped her backpack to the floor of the forest. She rustled around in it momentarily. When she straightened up, she threw several kunai in multiple directions. Light glimmered as they flew, and Neji could see the thin wires attached to them. They embedded themselves deep within the trunks of the trees, and she then threw the end kunai, so the wires created another obstacle for them to conquer.

"Feeling a little wild today, are we?" he observed. Not only was it a new terrain, but she was adding the razor sharp, near invisible lines to the battle ground. They would have to contort around them, just to approach each other. Luckily, there were only eight lines in a twenty foot radius. They weren't heavily woven together.

"We could use the challenge,"she answered flatly. "You're lucky I didn't add paper bombs to them."

Neji sighed. She was feeling sadistic today, as he was prepared for. At least she capped off her willingness to kill him for something so innocent as kissing her hand. "Game on," he answered, determined to keep his promise. No matter what she threw his way, he was going to win. He would be better than he was yesterday.

His pack joined hers on the ground, and he leapt to the boughs of the trees. He didn't wait to activate his Byakugan. Today, he would not be taken by surprise. She jumped to follow him, but as soon as her foot hit a branch, she deviate and took a different path.

White eyes followed her movements as she circled around the wires. Her bright purple chakra illuminated his vision, marking her every move. Higher and higher she climbed, and he pursued her. Range would not be her advantage. Overhead, a falcon screeched. Neji pulled a kunai, and seeing her pattern of movement, lunged to attack.

Tsuki watched him closely as he came into range. She dodged his attack and spun right through two wires. She was baiting him. Focusing on her, he would be all but blind to the threads of steel as he followed.

He wove through the lines. It would be foolish to follow her without first looking to see what surrounded. He threw the kunai after her. It missed by a centimetre, lodging in the wood of a tree where her foot had been prior. Mid flight, she assaulted him with a barrage of weaponry: kunai, shuriken, and needles. Only one of the weapons hit their mark; a shuriken in the shoulder. He pulled it out, and continued the pursuit.

He picked up speed in a sudden burst, landing in front of her. Before he could even stabilize on the bough, he began a taijutsu attack against her, aiming straight for her chakra points. She countered at an alarming rate, but the famed Hyuga speed was faster. He pressed into her left shoulder, at the base of her neck, and her arm went limp.

Tsuki swore, clutching her shoulder. She was ambidextrous, but preferred her left hand. Neji used the split second to attack again, dislodging her right arm, then her hip. She lost use of her leg, and she collapsed off the branch. She fell through the air, unable to brace herself for the fall.

He jumped after her, forcing himself to fall faster than she was. He caught up to her, and pulled her to him, clutching her to his torso. His feet hit the ground, and his knees bent to absorb the impact. He stood up, still holding her. One arm was under her knees, one supported her back.

She glared at him openly. He smirked at her with amusement. "Don't worry, you'll get use of your appendages back before we get into the village. Until then, I'm going to have to carry you."

"We could just wait," she hissed. Her scowl deepened, and he knew she would cross her arms, if she could.

His smile broadened. "I'm hungry. I skipped breakfast." Almost on cue, her stomach growled, too. "I'm not the only one, it seems." He began walking back through the forest.

"I had breakfast," she protested. It would embarrass her to no end if he carried her all the way to Shushuya, the pub style restaurant they were due to visit, as they did on Thursdays.

"Grabbing onigiri on the way out the door doesn't count," he chastised.

His steady rhythmic gate lulled her foul mood, but the close proximity made her wholly uncomfortable. She was powerless against it, so she accepted her fate, and focused on trying to move her fingers and toes. It was an infuriating process.

After a while of infuriation, she gave up. The tranquillity of the forest eased her mind, and soon, hunger and fatigue overtook her. She began to allow her thoughts to drift off, resting her head on Neji's shoulder. He looked down at her, noticing the change in her demeanour. It appeared she was sleeping; her eyes were closed at least. It warmed him to see her guard down again. He rested his cheek against her forehead. The tickling on his chin told him her eyes had fluttered open. He waited for her to say something, to lash out at him, but it never came. Instead, her eyelashes tickled his skin again as she closed her eyes.

To Neji, it was a small victory, but a victory nonetheless. It wasn't long before her feeling returned in her fingers. She couldn't move the rest of her arm. She played with the ends of her hair, hoping the stimulation would speed up the process for the rest of her body.

It did help; she regained use of her arms quickly enough. Her leg, however, was still numb and immobile. After ten minutes of arguing with him to stop, and losing, she submitted. She wound her arms around his neck to support herself a little better, she he didn't have to bear her full weight in his arms.

He adjusted to the shift in her weight, pulling her tighter to him. "How are you feeling," he asked.

"Sore," she answered with anger. "Gentle fist techniques hurt a hell of a lot more than their namesake leads on."

He chuckled lightly. "Minimal external damage," he reminded her. "Your nerves, however, are internal."

She rolled her eyes. "Thank you for the anatomy lesson."

When he looked at her there was a playful fire in his eyes. "Here I thought you were a great medical shinobi."

She stuck her tongue out at him just as he looked away from her at a sparrow taking flight, inadvertently causing her to lick his jaw. The sudden contact startled him, and she immediately reddened. "I didn't mean to do that," she explained.

Shock prevented him from speaking. He'd never seen her blush like that before, and she had just licked him. He didn't know whether to be happy about it, or disgusted.

"You can put me down now," she urged. She wiggled her toes, showing him she had feeling.

He did as she asked, allowing her to stand freely. She seemed stable enough, until she walked. There was a definite limp in her gate, as though her foot had fallen asleep and it was now quite painful to walk. "Are you all right?" he asked.

She nodded, still red from embarrassment. "I'm fine."

He watched her hobble, and reduced his pace so she could keep up. "I could carry you still, if you'd like."

"No, thank you." She was going to allow her pride to get in the way of her appetite. The things she allowed to control her annoyed him.

"I could just paralyse you again," he offered. He quickly found out she was still capable of throwing things when a pebble collided with his head. Rubbing the bump that was forming, he glared at her. "What?" he demanded.

"You wouldn't dare," she growled. Noticing she had another pebble poised to throw, he laughed.

"You're in no condition to challenge me again." Folding his arms across his chest, he smirked at her. He caught the pebble she threw at him effortlessly. "This is silly."

Putting her hands on her hips, she stood in defiance. "You're not going to touch me."

The declaration touched his pride. "Is it that I won't touch you, or am incapable of doing so?" An eyebrow arched as he looked at her.

"Neji," she pleaded. "Don't you dare."

He stepped toward her. "You poor thing. You can't out run me, you certainly don't have the strength to fight me again."

"Neji," she warned, stepping back.

He smirked, then charged at her. He threw her over his shoulder, which knocked the wind out of her. She punched him in the lower back, but he was right: her strength hadn't returned.

"I think a fly just hit me," he prodded. "Come on, we're going to get something to eat."

XxX

Tsuki walked down the corridors to the adjacent labratory to her own. It belonged to Andoku, and looked completely different to the one she was accustomed to. There were machines she couldn't recognize lining the walls, and the ones she could identify were all for the study and development of chakra. That was his specialty and a difficult one if you weren't born with an ocular kekkei genkai that allowed you to see an individual's networks. It was only fitting that he led the team that tested her new drug.

"You've arrived," Andoku commented. "I half expected you to be a no show." Though his words were those of torment, he kept his voice neutral and bored. He watched the ire flood her eyes in her annoyance with him. Internally, he allowed himself a feeling of pride. She was such an easy woman to manipulate emotionally; quite hot headed and fickle. He found her amusing in his own right, but remained ever cold and indifferent to her, as far as she knew.

She forced a smile, though still fighting the urge to glare daggers at him. "It pleases me to know that I'm thought so highly of in the minds of my colleagues," she answered coyly. She kept her tone just as neutral as he had, though the word's meaning carried a razor's edge. She was still annoyed from earlier, and her right hand was still numb, adding to her irritable mood.

He contained his amusement at her reply. She was easily manipulated into showing her emotions, yes; her predictability, however, was far from stable. "I am in no way a colleague of yours," he answered as though he were saying nothing more important or interesting than mentioning the weather outside. Watching her eyes narrow, he knew that it stung her to know he was insulted by her assumed closeness. "Shall we proceed?"

She hardened her exterior against him, taking away his ability to gain any physical response from her. "Please do," she answered.

He directed her to a chair, noticing the shift in her façade. "You may sit over there."

She seated herself and pulled out her journal that she kept through the development of the product, for note taking purposes. She watched him go through a condensed version of them briefly before he stated, "I will require chakra midway through the testing process and refuse to jeopardize my own. Do you volunteer?" he asked.

She saw right through his motives. "I would be more than willing to offer myself as your lab rat," she answered flatly, "but there would be two problems with doing so; first, that would contaminate your results, and second, my chakra wouldn't respond to it accurately."

He bent over his microscope, studying the molecular structure of the cream. "Do you admit to creating a faulty product?" he inquired, not bothering to look up at her.

"I'm sure you've noticed in your study of me upon my return to Konohagakure that my chakra is unique. After all, you do pride yourself in being the top specialist in the village." Again, it was strictly a battle of words. Neither was willing to offer the other any sign of emotion, though their egos took heavy blows.

"I have seen thousands of networks," he informed her blatantly. "Do you honestly expect me to remember the specific network of one outsider?" He had crossed a tender line within her, and he knew it, but he wouldn't allow her the satisfaction of knowing that he did in fact remember her chakra, nor that it fascinated him to no extent. After having done all of the observational study he could get away with, he took his extensive and precise notes and studied them almost exclusively for months. To this day he had no idea what caused it to appear pale violet, run backwards, or resonate at a higher frequency that all the rest he had seen.

It would seem that she couldn't bring herself to correct him. She could sense his lie, but didn't press the matter. It was a small satisfaction to know that he had to lie to her to protect his pride. "Be that as it may," she answered, bringing him from his reverie that she had permitted, "I suggest we find someone else to substitute as your lab rat."

He adjusted the focus and turned to flip the power supply to the wall mounted monitor. It hummed to life and showed the cream on the slide on a microscopic level. "You are correct; and I believe Hyuga-san would be more than willing to cooperate with us, if you think you could persuade him."

Tsuki had to repress a snort of laughter. As it was, a smirk touched her lips. Andoku could see her confidence in gaining Neji's help. "If anything were to happen to him," he continued, implying a threat, "It would fall on your conscience." He turned to observe the image on the screen, showing him the pale, green hued cream she had procured for him. He shuffled his paperwork into order, reading the questions out loud for her to answer. It would annoy her more, and saved him from looking up the answers himself. "How is the product to be administered?"

"It is to be applied to one or more of the 361 chakra points directly," she answered.

"It is safe to assume that you have correctly identified each and every one of the chakra points in your notes, then?" he inquired. He allowed his eyebrow to arch in her direction. He was satisfied to see her forehead twitch in agitation.

"Are you audacious enough to question the validity of the Hyugas' ability to identify chakra networks?" she inquired boldly. "I used the same medical journals that you reference every day. Unless you've secretly thought that for generations they've been lying about the abilities of the Byakugan, we can assume that my work is anatomically correct."

He became annoyed with himself for walking blindly into her argument; of course she would use the medical journals he had readily available to him. Being so close to the source, it wouldn't be difficult for her to get her hands on copies of all the Hyuga's works, even if it was an arduous task for any normal person. "A simple yes would have sufficed," he stated, not allowing her to phase his cool façade.

They worked like this for hours; him asking her loaded questions, attempting to back her into a corner she couldn't escape from, and her countering him expertly. Try as he might to invalidate her work, she always found a way around him, or saw though him in a way to make him feel childish. They bantered, bickered, and bashed each other blatantly.

At the end of the evening, they packed up their things and prepared to head their separate ways, both glad to finally be rid of the other. By the end of their workings together, they had both calmed down a tad; his attacks were more subtle, and her responses were less catty.

"When will you require Neji?" she inquired, picking up her notebook.

"Not for another three days, at least," he informed her. "I have a bit more work to do on a chemical level beforehand."

"I would like a copy of that list," she demanded, referring to the written set of chemical compounds her cream was to be added to, to test the reaction.

He shuffled through the file of paperwork in his hand and handed her the sheet in question. "Is there anything else you require?"

She shook her head in response. "If I think of anything, it can wait until tomorrow," she answered. She filed the paper away before she left him alone in his lab.

XxX

Neji watched Tenten tentatively. She was sharpening a dozen kunai in a contemplative state. He felt disturbed; something was amiss, though he couldn't quite think of what it was. Whatever it was, it unsettled him, and he didn't agree with it.

Tenten had long caught on to his discomfort, but her inquiries were dismissed immediately. He tried to put the feeling out of his head; his attempts failed desperately. "I'm going home early tonight," he informed her. "There's something I need to look into." He left before she could even protest.

He approached Tsuki's apartment complex and took the exterior staircase to her front door. She used to keep the spare key in a knot in the wood, but he knew it hadn't been there for years. He fished the tiny brass key out of his pocket and unlocked the door.

He stepped into the darkness cautiously, closing the door behind him. Tsuki wasn't home yet, he could tell, but he could clearly see the outline of the figure sitting on her sofa. Neji raised his fingers to his lips and whispered, "Byakugan," but was a moment too late. Though he could see the three men, he couldn't stop their advance.

Wires surrounded him, restraining his arms to his body. They were tightened painfully, and in an instant he fell to the floor as his knees were pulled out from under him.

"Restrain him well," one of the men spoke to the others, "And be sure he cannot speak." To Neji, the voice was unknown, but as soon as the order was given, a seal was placed over his mouth to keep him from making any sound. Not only that, but his entire body was incapable of movement. He knew, should he make the tiniest of movements, the faintest of flutterings, and the seal would detonate.

He found himself hastily shoved into a corner where his scent would not resonate to warn Tsuki of their presence. All Neji could do was wait for hell to break loose, and hope she would catch the warning signs early. He prayed to the fates that her life would be spared.

XxX

Tsuki walked away from her lab after locking the door. The moon was high; stars were struggling to shine through the glow of the village. The hospital doors latched behind her as she walked into the cool night air. A breeze played with her hair, flirting with the tresses as she sensed her day coming to an end. She wanted nothing more than to enjoy a cup of tea with Neji before he departed, leaving her to sleep the rest of the night away, if he left at all. She was more than aware of the nights when he pretended to leave, then snuck through her window hours later when she was sleeping. The small noises were still enough to wake her, but upon realizing it was him, she didn't mind. His presence often brought comfort to her.

She took the back way home, passing the academy. She kicked the swing as she passed, faintly remembering the night she met Sasuke there prior to the Chunin exams. She quickly pushed that thought from her mind and moved on, forgetting that it even happened. No one crossed her path on her way home.

When she reached her apartment, Neji's scent reached her nose, and she could smell his stress. She opened the door slowly, expecting to find him there on her sofa, glaring up at the ceiling, angry at something or other that would wind up having no importance to anything, waiting for her to come home.

The smell of burning paper woke her from that image. She quickly jumped off the balcony in time to see her doorway explode from both sides of the door jamb.

She darted to her left before touching the ground, sensing the pressure plate where she would land that would no doubt activate another trap that was set for her. She quickly ran the perimeter, scaling the back wall to her bedroom window, her mind in frenzy over what could have happened to Neji, and who was waiting for her in her apartment?

Upon looking in the window, she could see the trip wire below the pane, set to catch should she cross the sill. There were several interlaced a few feet apart, each running in a different direction, each crossed over another wire. Her bedroom had been turned into a minefield.

Her kitchen window showed the same scene. Her home was now a fortress, with her being on the wrong side. She could feel the edge of panic in her mind, not for herself, but for her comrade who had to be inside. She found herself making the hand seals to produce the earth hiding technique and buried herself inside the wall, emerging on the other side in silence. The kitchen itself was not heavily trapped; the wires she saw had just been a rouse to get her to try to enter through the bedroom. The traps didn't extend past three feet beyond the window.

She could not detect a foreign scent anywhere, only the water on the floor, which told her that she was dealing with familiar opponents. She picked her way to the living room cautiously, where at her feet she could hear the sound of releasing gas, hissing on the floor. The smell was unfamiliar to her, and she couldn't see the colour in the dark. It wasn't the usual poisonous gas, nor was it the kind that made you fall asleep as soon as you inhaled it, but she wasn't sure if it was safe to inhale in large doses.

She took in as much air as her longs could hold before she surveyed the living room. She searched for every detail until she finally saw Neji, restrained in a corner, watching her closely through Byakugan eyes. She quickly attempted to cross to him, intending to unbind him when the fear and dread in his eyes stopped her in her tracks.

"I have found you, child," a cold, ruthless voice whispered from behind her. The voice sent shivers down her spine as she felt a hand at her shoulder, binding her in her place. "I have found you, and I intend to be sure that you will never evade me again."

A second man's voice chortled cruelly behind her, and she knew this was not another nightmare; they had finally come for her, and now, it seemed, her comrade was doomed to pay the steep price for attempting to give her freedom.