It seemed in this place, Neji was always sleeping or waking up, and every time the first happened, he woke to a brilliant golden light. After the first day back, when he was still so caught up in the fact that he wasalive and he had met Itachi again that everything seemed brighter and sharper; after all that wore off and it was very obvious that things had changed, and he began to dread the golden light of morning.

Things with the man who shared his bed had taken a decided turn for the worse. It iddn't manifest in fights, or anything like that; Uchiha Itachi (even a copy of him) and Hyuuga Neji did not argue or fight as normal couples would, nor were there any real harsh words exchanged between them. It was not that kind of 'worse'. Instead, where they had been tacit with each other before, they were even more so now.

"You've changed, Neji."

"Hm?"

"Since that incident on the lake. You've changed."

Neji could only smile, sensing it was a bit sad, and stroke Itachi's hair. The other's quirks had not changed one bit, and his eyes had closed slowly as he'd leaned into the petting heavily, one hand coming up to rest on Neji's upper arm to keep it where it was. In the Hyuuga's mind's eye, he could see that flash of red and black, of the Sharingan, and closed his own eyes.

In the intervening weeks, Neji had come to some of his own conclusions, especially since the moment he returned, the jutsus and the instruments that had been placed on and in the lake picked up a dramatic spike in underwater activity. The currents increased in speed and temperature; by the island near the middle of the lake, whirlpools formed and disappeared at random. Neji knew there was something in the lake; he had no conclusive evidence, no facts, nothing to base his thoughts on except faith and his experiences, which three onlookers debunked. He'd even drilled Itachi, after he'd woken in the middle of the night from a dream filled with light and gentle touches; despite the other's determination to be loyal to him, and to support him in everything, Itachi could not substantiate his claims.

At first, this caused him considerable trouble. Like anyone, Neji wanted to prove what he'd seen and done was real, and the fact that there was no way he could frustrated him greatly. The lake's antics, which he took as proof that his chakra was being used for something at the very least 'pretty' if not communicative, only got more and more elaborate as time went on. In the beginning it was small and not immediately noticeable; the current changes, the whirlpools. But slowly, it became more and more unmistakable as (at least to Neji's mind) manifestations of some higher presence in the lake trying to tell them something.

What erased the last vestiges of the thought that maybe he had been hallucinating after all was a display three days after his plunge. He had been staring listlessly out of one of the windows in the library, lost in thought, when a shadow passed over his face. Startled out of his daydreams, Neji looked up to see hundreds of huge birds, with wingspans of hundreds of feet, wheeling around the whole area. The library looked out over the lake; and there, he saw the most astonishing thing of all.

White foam wings, rising up out of the surface of the lake, spread their watery pinions, the tips of which reached from one side of the lake to the other. As if to acknowledge him, they pinioned up higher, reaching their tips to the sky as though a gigantic bird under the surface were getting ready to dive. They, and the birds flying around the city, remained until dusk. In a flash of golden light, they vanished, and water rained down from the sky.

---

In the middle of the night following the beautiful aerial display, Neji awoke to Itachi leaning through the door, talking softly to someone. He was still feeling lethargic from the extreme chakra depletion and couldn't get up to look himself. "Itachi…" he murmured, eyes barely cracked enough to see.

The Uchiha looked back over his shoulder suddenly, said a hurried goodbye, and shut the door. "Neji?" he whispered as he crawled back onto the bed and lay down on top of his lover. "What's wrong?"

"Who were you speaking with?"

"Nobody. I heard a noise."

Neji closed his eyes again. When Itachi lied, it was for good reason that he did not want anyone intruding into his business, and so the Hyuuga let it go and went back to sleep.

The next day passed long; Itachi insisted they get back into bed after breakfast, and they spent the day in each other's arms. Toward evening, they both lay in a pleasured haze, so satisfied and content with the world that words would only ruin it. Neji fell asleep wrapped around Itachi, head pillowed on his shoulder, and slept deeply.

In the middle of the night, he felt Itachi get up, but did not feel him return.

---

He ran into Anko alone in the kitchen, eating something that had had water added to it before cooking. "Anko? Have you seen Itachi?"

The tokubetsu jounin's face broke into a huge, sultry grin. "I figured he was with you. He was all yesterday, we could hear everything." She dropped her voice, cartooning his own. "There, Itachi! Right there—"

"Enough," he grumbled. "Where is he?"

"Haven't seen him."

Feeling a sense of dread, Neji walked up the stairs to Shizune's lab. There were less random noises from inside than before; in fact, it was eerily silent. Knocking, he was surprised when she opened the door wide with a smile. "Oh, hello Neji, what can I do for you?"

"Itachi. Where is he?"

Something in Shizune's face closed up. "He didn't tell you?"

"No. And it's not like him to just disappear."

"Neji, he… he's gone."

"He'll be back, right?"

Shizune shook her head, the straggly ends of her hair flopping over her shoulders. "No, Neji. He wanted to leave; he tried to write you a note, something to remember him by, but he couldn't. We tested out a device I created."

Neji wanted to cry; he knew he ought to, that it was what he should do, but no tears would come, and he realized that it was better off that way.

"It was painless, Neji. Just a pop, and then he was gone."

The Hyuuga nodded and smiled; indeed, rather than sadness, he felt profound relief, even joy. Itachi, or whoever he truly was, was happier now. "Thank you," he said softly, and went back to his room. He slept and woke up only in midafternoon, after the golden light he'd become so used to getting up with was gone.

---

Naruto burst through the doors of Tsunade's office, face drawn and flushed with anger. She smiled, seeing a redhead's face in him right now.

"Why didn't you tell us?" he shouted at her. "Tsunade baa-chan!"

"I'm sorry?" she said, quite calm. Of course, she knew exactly what he was talking about, but with Naruto, it was best to let him shout himself out before trying to talk sense into him at all.

"The team you sent out to get Neji and the others and to bring back Kakashi-sensei's body!" Hinata, looking flushed, and Sasuke came through the door at that point, and that only seemed to fuel Naruto more. "Why weren't Sasuke and I on it? We deserve to be!"

"Why is that?"

"Kakashi was our fucking teacher!" Naruto was shaking, and Tsunade could feel the beginnings of something stirring in the room, another force that rustled the papers on her desk. "Neji is our friend!"

Tsunade looked at him sadly, feeling his anguish for her own. She knew well the feeling of being left behind, left out of everything. She'd been feeling it here, in her perch in the Hokage tower, for a long time now. It was time to start training a replacement.

"I know, and that is why I did not send you. I know how you get when you are emotionally charged, Naruto, and I don't want you to hurt other people, or—" she put up a hand to still his outburst, as he looked startlingly like an angry pufferfish at the moment—"Yourself. It would take too long to pick out another candidate for Hokage and train him up."

"Look, Baa-cha—what?" What she'd said had registered with him finally. "Candidate…?"

"For Hokage," she finished briskly. "I can't have my candidates running across the globe and potentially getting hurt. Besides, you wouldn't want it to go to anyone else, would you?"

She gave Sasuke a pointed look; he blanched, and Naruto flushed, but broke out in a grin anyway. Tsunade felt better as she heard him begin to babble excitedly, and had to suppress a laugh as he left the Hokage tower, much more appeased. He was so like his sensei, she thought, and sighed, staring into the depths of her green tea. Jiraiya had been so easily distracted in the same way.

"Hokage-sama?"

She looked up to see Sasuke at the door, questions on his face. "Yes, Sasuke?"

He came back to her desk, standing in front of it and looking every inch the same 12-year-old boy she'd seen in the hospital those years ago. "The report Neji sent back… I heard he said that the lake generates someone from your subconscious."

"That's what Neji said, yes."

His hand had crept up to his chest, above his heart; as she watched, he kept moving it. "Anko-san was on the mission, wasn't she?"

Tsunade could see where this was going, and by the time she answered, Sasuke's hand had made it all the way to his shoulder. "Orochimaru is the person who appeared for her. But Sasuke, it was not your sensei. He had no chakra system, no sense of being—Anko kept him as she would have a pet. He was a being wearing Orochimaru's shape, nothing more."

"If… If I went, would he come?"

Tsunade sighed, getting up and walking around the desk to lean against it and look down at the last Uchiha alive, the one who had harbored hate and attraction in equal measure for her old teammate, and had lived with it in conflict since he'd killed Orochimaru and went off in search of his brother. "Perhaps. But would you really want to see him the way Neji described him? Brainless?" Sasuke shifted, looking away. Tsunade smiled. "I sure as hell wouldn't have wanted to see him like that. I'd rather remember him for the conniving, arrogant asshole he was."

Sasuke sighed, face taking that usual look of practiced indifference he had. "Che. Guess you're right."

"Still hurts, what you had to do, huh?"

"Yeah, it smarts."

"If he weren't dead, I'm sure he'd be amused at your deviousness." Tsunade grinned. "He liked things like that. Now, head off with you."

Sasuke smiled at her, a sidelong one that made her laugh a little, and vanished.

---

On the morning of the third day following Itachi's death, the ANBU team from Konoha arrived. They were not welcome.

Anko knew at once what Neji had said in his report when ANBU ringed her, pushed her against a wall. "Hyuuga!" she screamed glaring daggers at him as they put the chakra-suppressing bracelets on her. "Why did you open your fucking mouth?"

Neji stared at her, sadly. He knew she wouldn't forgive him easily, but he'd had to tell Tsunade anyway. It would have weighed him down even more not to, and it was the only way any of them would be able to return home in any good time. The Hokage knew of his visitor too, and so when the ANBU came to him with the bracelets, he put out his hands and let them lead him away after he'd packed up, having a last look at the room where things had very much changed for him.

The ANBU had wisely made camp five miles from the lake, out of the sphere of the lake's influence. They were heeding his advice as laid down to Tsunade by the letter, and taking no chances. Anko and Shizune were drugged, and Neji interrogated. He answered all their questions, unafraid. He had been here before, but this time things were different. He was changed, reborn almost, his old self already all but forgotten. Nothing affected him anymore.

The next morning, two ANBU left and came back with a small urn, all that remained of Hatake Kakashi. They slipped it into a bag and secured it inside one of their gear packs. Around noon, the captain of the squad came over to Neji and released the bracelets. "We no longer have reason to suspect you still under the hold of the lake, comparable to genjutsu. You are free to go; we leave tomorrow at dawn." Nodding, Neji waited until the captain had gone to focus on other matters, and left the camp.

His feet took him back to the city, past the water runoff where once there had been a dead snake, past the house where part of himself that had been carefully shuttered away was now free. Neji realized he didn't mind so much anymore.

He went east along the lakeshore, coming to a low point. Going right up to the water, he stepped on a rock overhang, looking at the sandy bottom. For a moment, his reflection changed, became that of someone else, and then it was gone. With a smile, Neji reached into the water, submerging his hand entirely. The water brushed over his hand, gentle and caressing, like a lover's fingers on sex-warmed skin.

"It happened to you too."

Neji stood, turning. "Yes, Kiba," he said, looking out over the lake.

"But you're not like them anymore." The other shinobi, his dog beside him, walked up and sat beside Neji on the rock, taking his shoes off and dangling them into the water. "Nah, you've changed."

Neji sat too, mimicking Kiba's movements. "You can tell?"

"It's obvious. You even smell a little different."

They laughed.

"Yes, I've changed, Kiba." Neji pulled his feet up. "So did you leave the base because you didn't want to have a visitor?"

"Actually, I was the only one that didn't." Kiba laughed. "And I've been wandering around in the forest ever since I left, trying to figure that one out. Near as I can tell, it's because I don't have anything to hide. I let it all out and don't keep anything inside like the rest of you, I guess—no offense meant—"

"No, it's understandable." Neji thought about this explanation and nodded. "I think you're right."

"Might as well write it in a scroll and put it in a library." Kiba laughed. "Though I don't think anyone will be visiting this lake in a really long time."

"I hope not," Neji said. It was calm on the surface, but underneath, he knew the currents were churning. "There's a team of ANBU five miles south of the lake. We're leaving tomorrow morning."

"I'll be there." Kiba grinned.

---

The day they came home, the dawn was golden. Neji woke with a start and sat up, staring at it in something like fear. But it was gone in a moment, and he got up and helped the ANBU squad erase all traces of the camp. Three hours later they were in Konoha.

---

"And that's everything?"

Neji nodded. "That is an accurate record of events from my last report to you up until the day I left with the ANBU squad."

Tsunade had before her a written report, her notes on Neji's oral report, and the recording scrolls he had from Kakashi (he'd found it while packing, tucked away between two books on the shelf he hadn't thought to look at) and the one he had worn when they had gone out on the lake. "You realize how this is going to sound to the Elder council?"

"I know. But it is the truth."

"You would not lie." Tsunade smiled. "And if you were to lie, I can think of a dozen other things you would have rather written about than this." She leaned forward. "Was it painful, to see him again?"

"Yes." A brief crack in Neji's calm, the barest flicker of a wound that, while it was healing, was still a vulnerable scab. "Even though it was not Uchiha Itachi per se, but a being created by the lake and my own subconscious, it was emotionally wracking." Neji looked up, a sudden smile reaching the corners of his mouth. "Hokage-sama, I have one more request."

"Yes?"

"I wish to be put back on the active duty roster and allowed on long-distance missions again."

Tsunade raised a blonde eyebrow. "Why the change of heart?"

The smile on the Hyuuga's face turned secretive. "There's still some work to be done."

---

"You don't believe him, do you?"

Tsunade leaned back against the chair, glaring at the paperwork on her desk for a moment before turning her gaze again to two of the five Elders assembled before her. It was such a bother to have your assistant out on psychological leave.

"Of course I believe him. Why would I not?"

"His story is, frankly, fantastic. A lake that conjures images of past lovers, past friends? Ridiculous."

"Flesh-and-blood summoning is not unheard of," she said drolly. "Nonetheless, I am sending messages to the other Kages. We are going to cordon the area around the lake for a distance of ten miles. And ye of little faith, maybe you would be interested to reexamine what Neji brought back with him?" She pushed the box containing two Akatsuki coats (both with no visible fastening or opening), the reports, and the recording scrolls toward them. "I find the recording scroll he took with him onto the lake rather interesting, myself."

"And why is that? It recorded nothing but their voices at the beginning, and then silence."

"The silence is very interesting, Councilors, because the scroll records silence almost to its limit of twenty-four hours. At the very end is the sound of a great breath being drawn, and shouts from Tsunade, Anko, and someone we can only presume to be the conjuration of Uchiha Itachi."

She grinned at them and stood. "I am going to retire for the night. Any questions may be submitted to Haruno Sakura, or the Hokage-elect, Uzumaki Naruto."

"There are doubts concerning his appointment, as well, Lady Tsunade."

"As I knew there would be. But that is the prerogative of the Hokage."

"The rest of the Council will never believe the Hyuuga's story."

"I don't care what the Council thinks." She tilted her chin up proudly. "I, for one, believe him." And on that note she turned on her heel and walked out of the room. She was smiling.