Chapter Five: Battle of Hearts

Neji and the others had arrived a week after travelling across the Great Naruto Bridge in the Land of Waves. It was probably a week into Tenten's 8 month of pregnancy now, or at least Neji had thought this as he and the others started setting up their own little base camp in one of the small inns in the Village that the builder of the Great Naruto Bridge had lived in, along with his family. The Old man called Tazuna, had apparently died just recently, much to the sadness of Sakura who had remembered him pretty well.

Inari, who had grown up into becoming a strapping strong man had indeed remembered both Sasuke and Sakura, and had agreed to give Neji and the others a hand in finding the hidden base of operations here in Inari's village. Neji did not know Inari personally, so he had left Sakura and Sasuke to deal with the guy. Neji just attempted to keep to himself, fearing he might just break down and beat the crap out of the first person that ticked him off. No one ever threatened someone that Neji Hyuuga cared about, and got away with it.

Neji stood crouched in a nearby tree, his ivory-lavender eyes closed for the moment as he attempted to meditate, while his ANBU mask was on as well. He did not wish to be disturbed. He was also having problems meditating as he let out a sigh of frustration. He opened one of his eyes to look at the calm water in front of him. Nothing seemed to be helping him keep his focus. He could not give up though, no matter what.

He sensed someone's presence near by and spoke out, "Lee I thought I told everyone, I did not wish to be disturbed." He said this with slight agitation in his voice. He could feel his best friend pause in his step before he felt Lee's eyes on his own, Lee spoke up,

"Inari-Kun thinks he has found where this hidden enemy that took our Blossom away from us might be." Neji blinked a few moments before giving a slight nod, not speaking for a few minutes.

"Neji, myself, Sakura and Sasuke all are slightly worried, you have not been yourself since the kidnapping." Continued Rock Lee. Neji grunted and then said slightly angered,

"I have every right to be acting strange, I should have been more careful, I should have sensed a deception coming on sooner then later, Tenten would have not thought I cheated on her if I had been more careful!" "I may be too late as it is now, she probably will never forgive me, even if we can save her!" Neji was upset, very upset inside, but he refused to show his emotions to Lee or to anyone else except Tenten. Neji had changed a lot since his teenaged years, he felt like a lost puppy without the woman he cared about.

Suddenly Neji felt the branch slightly bend as Lee appeared on the same branch as him and felt his hand pat him on the shoulder, Neji looked at him for a moment, wondering what Lee was doing, "Lee what are you doing?"

Lee sighed and said, "I know you think she thinks that Neji, even though we once were rivals, I always found you as one of the greatest friends to ever have the pleasure fighting along side, and Tenten perhaps was just acting a little over hormonal at the moment that woman did that to you." "I know you are faithful to Tenten, because if you hadn't I would be the one right now wishing to kick your ass."

Neji watched him and listened to every word he was saying, slightly confused and yet in a way understood slightly what Lee was trying to say. Neji remained quiet waiting for Lee to finish what he was trying to say. Lee then sighed again and tried to continue,

"I guess what I'm trying to say is, that we will get her back, Neji, we've got two geniuses on this team, and I know and probably Sakura even knows this, that you and Sasuke can come up with any sort of plan or way to spring Tenten out of even the darkest, deepest, most heavily guarded prison, because your passionate love for her is what drives you Neji in wanting to get her back at all costs."

Neji was surprised at his words, Lee, goofy simple Lee. Neji began to chuckle, the stress definitely had disappeared. Neji closed his eyes, and being his stoic self though, spoke up, "I think I understand what you are trying to say, I have to give this rescue attempt my entire all, and your right about my love for her, it has always driven me since probably…" He paused as he thought back to many years ago, when they had been young. The first day he had met her, she had been cute, just simply cute. He had immediately felt something for her back then perhaps, but he had buried it away, he had more things on his mind back then. And then the spark had sprouted back up when he and she were 16 when he had saved her from Kisame's water prison along with Lee while their sensei had fought against Kisame alone.

Why hadn't he realized it back then, when they were 16 that he was really in love with her? Probably his ambitions had driven him to think of love as something foolish, something unimportant. But Neji now knew it was the most precious thing he had, and would not loose it while he remained alive. "Since our Genin days Lee, thank you, your right, you're a good friend, I needed this talk with you, and it has made everything come into clarity now." Finished Neji softly, suddenly he removed his mask to find his cheeks soaked, tears had finally started pouring down the Hyuuga Prodigy's face, the man who never shed a tear since perhaps his father had died, was crying.

'Father…she has become my destiny, she is the way to helping me become truly free…' thought Neji as he quickly wiped his eyes and closed them afterwards. He tried to choke back a sob and felt Lee's hand pat him again on the shoulder in comfort. Neji gave Lee a small smile and said, "We better get back, there's no time to waste, Tenten's life is in the balance here, as is the future of this world." "We never leave any of our comrades behind nor allow them to be taken from right under our noses!" Neji quickly got up onto his feet and quickly leapt down from the tree, landing on the soft ground.

Rock Lee nodded, "Hai Neji! This upcoming battle will probably not just be a battle for the safety of two lives, but a battle to determine if we can even hope to stop whatever this new organization is, let the Springtime of Youth burn bright!!" Lee quickly followed Neji off the Tree and took off with him at a running pace back to their base of operations.

The genjutsu that had gripped Tenten for what seemed like an eternity finally was broken. Tenten slowly drifted back to the real world, having dreamt of nightmares and dangerous things that threatened to harm her and that of the baby. Her brown eyes attempted to focus as she looked to see a stone ceiling above her head.

"Where…where am I?" she croaked, she wondered how many days it had been since she had been placed under the Temple of Nirvana jutsu. All she had remembered was one of the ninja that brought her here, had called out these words, and she had fallen into a deep sleep. She certainly didn't feel tired anymore. Suddenly it came all back to her as she sat up quickly, both her hands going to her extremely swollen stomach feeling her son stirring inside of her after a brief pause, Tenten relaxed a little.

But that was when she noticed also that she had been hooked up to a weird I.V machine of some sort. She blinked and then looked at her wrists; her right hand had the needle stuck into the vein in that arm. She wondered what they were trying to do to her while she was asleep. She was their enemy, why were they showing her compassion? Tenten tried to recollect her thoughts.

'Okay calm down Tenten, so far, they haven't killed you yet, they just put you under a genjutsu that seemed to have worn off. Now to figure a plan to get out of here. Damn it I wish Neji would have allowed me to keep some of my shuriken and kunai blades, at least I could try to fight them off…' 'But I know he was just looking out for both of us…' 'Damn it, Neji I miss you, I'm sorry…for blowing up like that, I should have detected something a miss the moment that woman started doing that…I'm such a baka.' 'I have to get out of here, I can't…ow…why is he kicking me so hard?''

The baby had tried to interrupt her thoughts by kicking her heavily upwards, which left her gasping for air. Tenten waddled over towards where she had been laying down, seeing she had begun to pace around her cell. "I have to come up with a plan…" She then sat down and rubbed her swollen stomach gently with both her hands. "I hope Neji is okay…I don't want anything else to happen to him because of my stupidity…"

It had taken her so many years to finally be able to have her own happiness, growing up an orphan from the age of 3 years old, under the care of the Third Hokage, she knew what it was like to be lonely, just as much as probably Naruto had no doubt. She had been so happy when she had graduated the Ninja Academy when she turned 12 years old, she had made friends first with Lee and then as the time past even with the Hyuuga Prodigy that was her lover and fiancée now. She had always felt something strong for Neji, but she didn't exactly know it was love until she probably hit the age of 18.

She also had always been trying to impress him over the course of their teenaged life, she was proud at how deadly her skills with projectile weapons had become, it was almost legendary too her accuracy. Neji had once teased her about this when they had been 17 years old, a year after the war with Akatsuki had ended and things seemed a little more peaceful. They had really become closer friends then she had with Temari or even Neji's cousin, Hinata.

All she knew deep in her heart, that she still loved him all throughout those years, and even now, even if he had cheated on her that one time. It was hard to live a life of a Shinobi; it brought stresses all the time to all people. She would forgive him, for both hers and the baby's sake, but she would keep him on a very tight leash once they got home.

'This, I feel like I am fighting an inner battle, as if like a battle with my own heart and feelings…in a strange way…' she thought to herself. Suddenly she could hear something coming her way. Quickly she tried to pretend to be fast asleep, as two guards walked past her. She called out to no one in particular, as the guards left, "Neji! Please hurry!"

"Pick up the pace guys, we haven't got all day!" Shouted Sasuke to the others who were trying to catch up to him and Neji as they raced to the Great Naruto Bridge. The end of the month that the enemy had given Neji had almost expired, and Neji was growing anxious as well, 'Not much longer until Tenten's pregnancy is brought to an end…Haruno told us that she could be due as early as the first week of her 9th month now.'' he thought.

It had taken 2 weeks of careful planning and much thought as to how they would be able to get into the secret hideout, they would have to capture whoever it was that would come to bring Neji to his beloved, by having Neji be indeed captured himself. But the others were to hold back until Neji gave them the signal to follow cautiously behind him while he was being captured. Neji hated having to give into not fighting them, but this was the only way to get into the secret hideout of this 'Dark Oracle' Organization or close enough to it.

Neji came to about a few meters in front of the other side of the bridge that lead back to the Land of Fire and just out of eye sight range of anyone watching from that direction, he paused and lifted his hand to make the others stay behind, he then spoke,

"You guys stay here, and be my back up, if something doesn't go right, you all come out and do your hardest to capture their contact and force them to bring you to their hideout, then make sure you bring Tenten out of there alive, got it?" "The point of this mission is to bring Tenten back to Konohagakure alive." "If they do take me directly to their hideout, you guys follow them at a distance, just out of their range of sight and detection."

Everyone quietly agreed, knowing that possibly no one would survive this rescue attempt if something did indeed go wrong, and they didn't fall for the bait, the enemy that is. Neji then whispered, "Good Luck to all of us, may Kami-sama favour those foolish enough to do something this stupid…"

With that Neji quickly took off in the direction of the bridge, praying silently his fiancée was alright and that their ploy would work, the kidnappers were about to have some problems soon that was for sure.

As he walked he could see a woman dressed in a silver robe with white hair and maroon eyes waiting for him at the end of the bridge. Neji tried to remain calm and collected as he took his steps, 'I can't let them know they are going to be ambushed…I just can't.' He thought to himself nervously, 'They will know if there's even a slight deceitful thought or action…' Once he was in talking range and earshot range he could hear the woman speak,

"Are you the one that killed Ryoku?" Neji stopped just a few steps in front of the woman as he made it to her, "Where is she?" Asked Neji through clenched teeth, "How can I guarantee that she's safe?" He waited for the woman to respond to him.

"Oh your precious little girlfriend is fine; don't worry your cute little head Hyuuga, because I know that you are a Hyuuga underneath that mask of yours your wearing." Said the woman. 'She's smart…I'll give her that.' Thought Neji.

Suddenly two shadows appeared behind him and he felt something hit him in the back of his head, right where Byakugan's weakness was. Neji gasped out in pain and fell limply to his knees. The woman chuckled as Neji then felt his arms being restrained by a pair of strong arms, stronger then his own.

The woman grabbed his chin and forced him to stare into her eyes as she knelt beside the Hyuuga man who was trying to fight to stay awake, "Hmm…you're lucky Kiran-sama wants you alive because I would kill you now for killing Ryoku." The woman then grabbed Neji's ANBU mask and threw it against the ground, lucky for Neji, the mask was durable enough to even withstand a pounding from a punch let alone being thrown against the ground like that.

"Take him to Lord Kiran, no…actually take him to the interrogation room in the hideout, we can have a little fun dissecting this puny Hyuuga man piece by piece, I'm sure that will fulfil some of our revenge on him." Neji then heard the two people who had grabbed him and hit him in the back of the head give a curt 'Hai' before he was dragged off to god knew where.

Before he fell into oblivion, seeing they had hit him pretty hard where the flaw of Byakugan was, he managed to give the signal for his comrades to start following from a distance after him. So far the plan was going perfectly. He then fainted after another few seconds more.

It hadn't been long before Neji was revived by someone's voice speaking to him loudly, "Neji! Wake up!" Neji fought back the pain in the back of his head as he slowly came to. "Lee…how many times…have I told you, to stop goofing around…" he murmured, as he immediately recognized the voice of his former team mate.

"Too many, we did as you asked and tailed you, we just couldn't let them take our best youthful friend directly in there, so we knocked them out." said Lee as Neji's vision finally cleared to see Lee hopping on one foot above him. Neji immediately tried to make a handseal and called out, "Byakugan!" His eyes at first pained him as he activated Byakugan but he could see the chakra points in Lee's head clearly.

"Good…at least that's not broken." He had remembered someone doing the same thing to him before, a year ago, and he had almost lost his use of Byakugan forever if it hadn't been for the Medic ninja on his team quickly reacting in time and healing his eye sight, he had become blind sighted by an enemy rogue ninja during a botched mission. He had been lucky indeed.

"Uchiha? Haruno?" he called out and tried to get to his feet slowly. "Hn…" was the response from Sasuke, who was leaning against a tree, keeping an eye on the building not far from their sight, they were still pretty much hidden from their view. "Yes Neji?" called Sakura as she had just returned from securing the small area they were in, to make sure there weren't any surprise 'visitors' that might try to come to the aid of the Dark Society's hideout once all hell broke loose.

"Okay, I need Sasuke and Lee to knock out the guards on the outside of the building, Sakura you will follow me, and all of you will meet me inside of the building and we will split up into teams and try to spring Tenten out of there…did you guys bring communicators with you?" He had made sure he had brought one for himself. The three of them nodded as they fiddled in their pouches for the devices, of course they would bring them on a rescue attempt mission like this.

Neji placed the volume control and the part you could talk into that went around the neck on his neck and the ear piece into his ear. He then watched as Lee and the others put theirs on, and immediately Neji snaked his hand out to Lee and quickly adjusted the sound volume control on it. Lee eyed Neji and Neji just quickly said,

"We aren't having another idiot escapade like back when we were 16 Lee; we need silence if we are going to infiltrate their hideout." He then turned to the others, "The frequency is 200 for our group." He quickly adjusted the frequency and did a test, "Can you guys hear me?"

The others quickly did as they were told and they all gave him normal thumbs up. Neji nodded, "Good, remember the plan, and stick to it, Lee, Sasuke go ahead and get to work, Sakura stay here while I remove the two guards in front of their door and check for booby traps…good luck…" Everyone made their silent answers back to Neji and quickly they went to work.

Neji got ready to pounce on the two ninja guards in front of the door. Pulling back his arm as he begun charging his chakra up, he then closed his eyes as he called out loud, "Hakke Kusho (Eight Trigrams Empty Palm)!" He then sent a blast of wind like chakra at the both of them as he thrusted his palm outwards, sending the ninja crashing into the walls silently without even making a noise, though Neji winced, he had probably broken their necks after hearing them hit the wall of the building pretty loud.

He quickly snuck out of the bushes and ran towards the unconscious men he had taken out and checked their pulse. One of them was dead, from indeed a crushed neck, and the other knocked out. They had every right to be dead, but he wanted to get Tenten out of this mess as quickly and as clean as possible, that was all he needed for the enemy to see and find out there was intruders here. He then made a hand signal in ANBU code that it was safe for Sakura to get over to the door.

He then called out, "Byakugan!" as quietly as possible. He then focused his sight inside of the building's inner walls. So far he could see a few guards here and there, and stair cases galore it seemed; this would prove risky in making this a quick rescue effort. Sakura spoke up as she reached his side, "Nice way to knock the enemy out Neji-San."

Neji just stayed silent as he continued to concentrate, he then stopped on a particular place, which he was staring into the floor of the building. He then spoke up,

"If my Byakugan isn't playing pranks on me, there seems to be a lone figure in a cell in the basement of this building, judging by this person, it could be Tenten, I can't really tell." Even though his Byakugan could go beyond the 50 meters of long range unlike the rest of his clan, there were factors that could screw up Byakugan even if you had the same kind of range of sight as Neji did.

"There's a barrier down there, that's the only logical explanation." Continued Neji as he then returned his eyes to normal, as he stared at Sakura for a few minutes. Sakura then gave her opinion,

"That or they got some form of seal on certain points of the wall, it could be that type of barrier jutsu, and we have dealt with certain types of Seals after all, Neji in our fights with the Akatsuki." Neji just nodded as he pondered, "I want you, Sasuke and Lee to guard the staircase that goes to the basement. I will go and investigate and free Tenten personally."

"Oh here by the way Neji, you dropped this…" Sakura said as she handed him his Peregrine Falcon shaped ANBU mask that the enemy kunoichi had taken off him when they knocked him out. Sakura immediately grabbed her own mask, that had that of a cat and placed it onto her face, she had joined the ANBU ranks probably around the same time Sasuke had over a year or two ago, in a way ANBU needed Sakura's skills in medical ninjutsu, there was never a dull moment when someone got injured on the squad.

Neji then placed his mask back onto his face and silently thanked Haruno for retrieving it. Sakura just nodded her head and as soon as Neji was ready, they carefully opened the door to the hideout of the enemy and snuck in as quiet as a mouse. Neji immediately snuck for the darkest shadowy part of the hall, lucky for them the place was poorly lit, and always had shadows it seemed.

He paused for a moment, quickly flattened himself against a wall as he listened to a conversation in the next hall close to them. "So Lord Kiran wants us to transfer the prisoner after we kill the Hyuuga?" said a male voice.

Neji heard the woman's voice that had attempted to bring him here said, "Yeah, he said that for me to take her to the Land of Grass and hide out there with her until we've dealt with those that are getting in the way of his Lord's plans." Neji clenched his teeth and attempted to calm himself, he had to stay strong, and they would not be doing any transferring of prisoners while he was about.

Neji then turned the volume high enough that he could speak into his communicator and low enough that those who responded back to him could hear him whisper and also without the enemy hearing him, "Falcon to Turtle and Reaper…give me your status…" He paused as he used Sasuke's ANBU code name and even though Lee was not of the ANBU corps yet; he had told Lee he would use this code name when addressing him whenever they had to use communicators for missions together. Why Sasuke used the nick Reaper, was probably because he was pretty fast at killing enemies, so apparently the Hokage had given him the Animal mask of a Reptilian type of creature that Neji had forgotten the name for, so Sasuke had said he wanted to be called Reaper and therefore it stuck.

He continued to wait for them to respond.

"Falcon to Reaper and Turtle come in…" crackled Sasuke's and Lee's communicators as Lee yelled out, "LEAF HURRICANE!" And executed his special move on an enemy guard as they had been trying to clear the area of enemies. Lee dodged a blow and back flipped away from another guard that came at him.

Sasuke on his part was using his kusunagi sword to decapitate one of the other guards. Once he was finished he fiddled with his communicator, "Reaper here sorry took so long, we…" He grunted as he tried to dodge a flying fist coming at him, "ran into a few problems…" He then dug his blade into the gut of the on rushing shinobi that had attacked his comrade.

"Report…" said Neji into the communicator back to Sasuke. Sasuke sighed and said, "We are almost finished cleaning up these guys, don't worry, we'll be in there soon, Reaper out!" He then quickly finished the last of the shinobi off, as did Lee with another of his special taijutsu moves.

"We're clear now, let's go…" said Sasuke, "Falcon's getting impatient with us…" Lee shook his head; "He must have found Tenten…" said Lee as he began running for the door that Neji had gone through.

Sasuke just replied like he always did, "Hn…"

Neji hoped that Lee and Sauske weren't messing this mission up, he would be furious at them if they did something stupid that got them injured. Neji had started sneaking towards where he had thought he saw stairs that would perhaps lead him down to the basement, where he could get to Tenten and free her.

Neji paused as he sensed chakra coming their way, "Kitten!" He called to Sakura in her Code name, immediately the two quickly attempted to hide their chakra presences as well as themselves from view. Neji waited for a brief moment or two, as he watched a man with jet black hair and white streaks walk pass where Neji and Sakura had disappeared into.

Neji counted to 5 as he then heard a man's voice, "Where is Meidia?" Someone else spoke in a shaky voice, "She went to go get the prisoner…she told me that you gave her an order to bring her to the Land of Grass." Neji peered every so often around the corner and stopped when he watched the man with the strange colored hair lift the man into the air with just one hand, and pretty much snapped the man's neck in two.

"You fool! I gave her no such order, she was to bring our arriving guest here, which I have just found out she did not do properly it seems!" Neji winced and quickly moved his face out of range and back towards where Sakura was hiding and made a few gestures to her with his hands. Sakura just shook her head quietly; Neji gave her a silent look. He was trying to tell her to stay here and Neji would go after the man, who was now storming down to a room at the far end of the hall.

As soon as the man was out of earshot range, Neji spoke, "Sakura, I want you to wait here for Sasuke and Lee to get here, I'll go after the man, and he's obviously going to check on their prisoner, and this also means she's here then!" Sakura then said back, "Neji, we should wait for the others, that man's chakra, something's odd about it, it seems extremely powerful, more powerful then some of the Akatsuki we faced long ago. You'll need all three of us to back you up if that guy finds out we are here…"

"What's this about tailing someone?" Whispered a voice, as a cloud of leaves suddenly appeared to be replaced by both Rock Lee and Sasuke, wearing his reptilian like mask. Neji was glad that his friends were alright, silently of course, and without letting them know he had been worried for them in his own stoic way.

"Haruno, I have to do this alone, you guys, yes are here as back up, I can not risk you getting killed or badly injured, Haruno, you are the only medic here, even though I'm sure myself and Uchiha know a few medical ninjutsu, it's best…" Neji trailed off, as something came into his thoughts. 'I'm acting like a fool…I have to start being the Genius here, instead of a lovesick puppy…' he growled inwardly to himself.

"Fine…let's go…" sighed Neji in defeat, as he quickly peered around the corner to see that the man had disappeared into that room. "She must be somewhere that way, if that man went down there." He pointed with a gloved finger. Quietly they began sneaking down the hallway, making sure to cover each other's backs and keep an eye out for the enemy.

"Hey Falcon, wait…" said Sasuke as they managed to reach the door, "Check for booby traps, I just got this bad feeling…I'll use Sharingan also." Sasuke quietly activated Sharingan to check for anything out of the ordinary, anything that might be a genjutsu or some other deception. Neji was glad he brought the Uchiha along with him.

Neji quickly reactivated Byakugan and looked from bottom to top for anything out of the ordinary. Suddenly he saw what looked to be paper bombs plastered to the walls going down the stairs. "Hn, seems that you're right Reaper, though these aren't paper bombs, they look like wards. We will have to be careful; this is what probably was screwing up my Byakugan."

Mumbled Neji as he deactivated his Byakugan, he then said, "We will have to remove the wards as carefully as possible, without wasting too much time, the more we waste time, the more chances they will have to move our target out of this base of theirs."

Everyone silently agreed and as silently and quickly as possible, they began to enter into the dark depths of the Base of the Dark Oracle Society, knowing that they would not return to the outside world until they brought Tenten back out of there or they would die trying to.