Disclaimer: I dont own the the Naruto characters.

A.N. So here we are, over a year after I published the first chapter; kinda embarassing isn't it? Thank you to all the wonderful reviewers out there that encouraged me to continue even when the story hadn't been updated in forever. Really, reading people's desire to find out how the story created in my weird little mind ended really pushed me forward. Well, here it is, I hope you enjoy it.

Neji couldn't tell what angered him more: what the man was saying or the fact that he was so nonchalant while saying it.

"Didn't I tell you that you were going to die today?"

In his smile was the confidence of foresight. Neji wondered if this is what his own face looked like many times in battle. The Byakugan was a powerful tool that revealed many things to the user. There were very few things that weren't revealed under its pressure. Neji reflected on how many times he told people of their imminent demise, and thought about how it felt here now.

"I've been watching you throughout the years," the dark eyed man continued. "I've been watching you deteriorate as a ninja. I've always wondered how 'geniuses' die."

The man walked around casually, taking in the surroundings. He inspected the fight from all angles, almost like he was going to critique. All the while, both Neji and his opponent were in a state of timelessness. No matter how much Neji urged his limbs to move, they remained unresponsive. The kunai held by his enemy remained a mere inch away from his exposed neck, and though it too didn't move, it was a constant reminder of what was to come.

The dark eyed man draped his left arm over Neji's shoulder like a friend would and leaned in close to Neji's ear.

"She'll die too, you know." whispered the man.

It was almost in an intimate tone, full of the seriousness that was lacking from the rest of his words. What was left unsaid was the name 'Tenten', the person to whom he referred. But it didn't matter, Neji understood it immediately. And now, given this moment before his own death, Neji was able fully grasp the weight of the concept. The image in his mind of Tenten dying was unbearable, and conjurered up emotions that Neji rarely felt; emotions usually kept in check from his restraint and ninja training.

The man slowly walked away in front of Neji. After a few paces, he glanced back over his right shoulder, his obsidian eyes connecting with Neji's.

"I wonder if he'll be kind to her, and give her a quick death too," he voice sounded absentminded, almost as if he was thinking out loud. It was only a second later that his voice turned devious with wicked thoughts. "Ho, ho, or I wonder if he'll be far kinder to her in other ways."

Neji screamed from the mental anguish he was experiencing. Inside his head, the scream was trying to fight against the images forced upon him, as if the volume woud shield him from the hurt and pain of the ideas. He was quickly losing any bit of control he might have still had. Neji had no chakra, and was exhausted from fighting so many hours in a row. He had no rest from the uncountable sleepless nights, where this man, the man from his nightmares, would terrify him awake. While they had only met recently in Neji's dream, it was obvious that this man was responsible for all the horrid dreams Neji had.

"What do you want with me?" Neji ask with eyes closed.

When Neji opened his eyes, the two men were face to face. The dark eyed man, place a hand on Neji's head, and spoke simple words plainly. "Neji. You live." It was the same words spoken by Neji's father all those yeas ago. The few words that had burned themselves into Neji's core. The words that gave him so much fuel in training, in life, and especially moments like these; moments of imminent death.

"Live, so that I can enjoy myself." The dark eyed man began to squint as his mouth formed a wicked smile.

Immediately, the man turned way from Neji and walked to the symbols surrounding him. The Taijitu, the symbol that represented both yin and yang remained around Neji, and this man began to alter select symbols. Each of the three lined symbols on the ground had meaning, and their placement in relation to each other was purposeful. When together, they represented unity, and more importantly, balance. The dark eyed man quickly altered the symbol for wind to mountain, marsh to water, and fire to the symbol for thunder. Under Neji, the Taijitu started to change.

Even without the dark eyed man's direct interaction, the symbols of yin and yang began to morph. Slowly yang, the white portion of the circle began to overtake the black side, till all that was left was the familiar black dot. The man walked to the symbol for earth, the ultimate sign for yin, three bisected lines stacked on top of each other, and attempted to alter it. As he connected each of the broken lines to create the symbol for heaven, the fullest symbol for yang, the black dot was gone.

"What do you think? Do you like it? It reminds me of your eyes."

Neji realized he was now standing on a pure white circle, and while there was definitely something wrong with that, Neji felt power stirring inside of him. While it was refreshing to Neji to feel the surge of chakra return to his muscles, the relief quickly turned to pain. The chakra began to boil over inside of Neji's chest.

Neji winced at the pain and shouted at the man, "What did you d-"

The question was cut short as time jerked to life. Without warning the blade held by the waterfall-nin streaked a trail of light and continued moving in a course across Neji's neck.

In the distance a man's scream shot out and was quickly silenced. With all of her enthusiasm gone from tirelessly fighting, Tenten summoned all of her will into believing that the shout just then wasn't Neji's. The enemy was slowly cornering her into a large grotto of rocks with small steams of water braided across the ground. Tenten stepped backwards, her feet splashing into a puddle as she tried to catch her breath before the next onslaught of attacks.

The crowd before her was a mass of men with evil orangish-yellow eyes; eyes that rolled in all directions for no apparent reason. They were a bloody group, with slashes that Tenten inflicted that cut through clothing and skin alike. She took a deep breath and readied herself into a fighting stance. Had the enemy not been blind from the poison that increased their strength and durability, they would have thought twice about fighting after seeing her. At a glance, Tenten herself looked like a weapon, with metal claws wrapped around the backs of her hands, spiked pads adorning her knees, elbows, and shoulders. She even had small, thin blades that ran the length of her shins and forearms that worked for both attack and defense.

No matter how deadly she was to them individually, or even groups of them, they had no fear of her. Their collective minds had only one thought: the destruction of life.

In an instant, they began to lunge at her, barraging her with drawn kunai and swords. She dodged one person who flew past her, and parried another who locked swords with her claws. She thrust her knee upwards to the center of one man's chest which stopped him in his tracks, the next moment that man was falling backwards with blood bubbling from his mouth. No matter how well she was doing, it was becoming apparent that it was no use. There were too many, and they were getting too close for her to defend them all at the same time.

From everywhere knives and weapons came in at her. Because she expected it, it didn't surprise her when a kunai dug deep into her skin; it hurt like hell, but it didn't surprise her. Her readiness to accept pain but not defeat allowed her to continue fighting and defending without skipping a beat.

She was caught by surprise when one of the men she didn't previously notice to tackle her to the ground. Quickly retaliating, she flexed outwards against his encompassing arms, burying the blades on her forearms into the insides of his biceps. It was a second later that she realized it was Neji.

"Neji?!"

Fear and panic hit her at the same time from both sides, and for an instant she was swimming in a sea of confusion. Little drops and streaks of crimson could be seen covering his body, the only exception being his neck where a good amount of blood was still flowing. If the Hyuuga's had a naturally fair complexion, Neji was almost a ghost.

Wordlessly, Neji stood up over Tenten, his eyes burning with determination. He jumped vertically in the air with a spin. As the enemies weapons rushed in towards him, intending on spearing him from all angles, Neji released one of his more taxing jutsus: Heavenly Spin. Tenten had never seen this technique from this point of view before, and it was quite the sight to see. Amid the pain of her wounds, and past the joy of seeing Neji alive again, slipped her instant reaction to the spectacle. She was in utter awe of it.

Tenten saw as visible white chakra puffed out of Neji's skin, and bloomed in a circle outwards, blowing away any person standing around him. Neji was like a large bird, being born from in the center of a protective shell, and it was amazing to her.

Neji's chakra not only pushed away the attackers, it also passed through a large portion of them. As his chakra moved through their bodies, it countered their energy, negating it. In this one move, he'd rendered countless numbers of them unconscious from instant chakra depletion. When he landed on the ground, he stood for a second, analyzing his opponents, before the strength in his legs gave out. Neji fell forward to his knees before dropping all the way to the ground.

Tenten was up in an instant, with most of the enemy dazed or unmoving she rushed over to Neji and flipped him over to his back, to check on his wounds.

"Neji? Neji, are you okay? Speak to me. We've got to get out of here!" She spoke rapidly as she glanced over him. Most of the small spots of blood on his skin didn't appear to come from cuts or gashes, Tenten quickly assumed that they must have been from other ninja. The sight of red was a stark contrast to his pale skin, making Neji seem all the worse. Tenten's eyes were drawn the blood still dripping from his neck.

"No, no, no, no, No!" Fear had fully set in as Tenten was unable to do anything but imagine the worst. She paid no attention to the few enemy that had started to get up and stumble her way. She tore a few inches of cloth off her right pant leg and began to clean the wound to see how deep it went. It was the glint of light that played on the kunai in front of her face that made her look up. The arm holding the blade pulled back for room to gain momentum and thrust forward, aimed square between Tenten's eyes. Tenten winced her eyes closed, and waited for the end.

A second passed by. Two seconds. Three.

By the time she opened her eyes, the man before her was gone. It was then that she realized that most of the men who stood up were no longer there. In the distance she saw a waterfall-nin begin to stand, and that's when she realized the truth of the situation. A flash of green streaked in between trees at a blinding speed and with an impressive single punch, sent the waterfall-nin flying. Rock Lee, in his typical green speed suit complete with jounin vest, was here to save the day.

With the reassurance of their safety, she reverted her attention to Neji's neck. Gently, she wiped away the blood, expecting to see the start of a gash somewhere. More and more blood was wiped away until there was none left, and amazingly, there wasn't any gash. In fact, what was more puzzling to Tenten was that there wasn't a single wound on Neji's neck, and yet after a second, in the same spot blood began to flow.

"It's okay, I'm alright..." Neji replied to her concerns.

"Neji, looks like you and Tenten had quite the battle today without me." said Rock Lee who was now standing nearby.

"What took you so long..."

"I had to wait for an anbu squad to come with me. I heard from Akiko-san that these were quite troubling ninja, and after seeing what they did to Hiro-kun, we decided to pool our resources and send out the best." A self-serving smile crept its way on Lee's face.

"The best huh? Well the best has left a few standing off behind me and to the right."

"But, I..." Lee growled quietly to himself before speeding off.

"I thought you were dead." Tenten said choking back the sadness of the idea.

"I won't die just yet. It's not my destiny. There's still a few things I need to do here."

"Destiny again huh? I don't know about that but-" she said before she was cut off.

"I like you a lot Tenten; you're very special to me. I want you to know that."

"I-"

"Hyuuga-san, do you require immediate medical assistance?" The pair of leaf anbu interrupted her response. They stood there with their usual white masks designed to look like animal faces. White pieces of armor covered their chests and forearms, and while they looked plain by any usual measure of ninja, they were perhaps some of the most deadly men in the world. Despite their potential for death, these two were probably the only two people in all of waterfall country that were calm at this very moment.

"No, I'll be fine for now. But I'm ready to go home."

"Very well, Lee-san will be your escort. We'll clean up here." And without any flair or drama, they walked off. They walked through the piles of corpses as normally as one would walk down the street. When a waterfall-nin sat up suddenly near them, all that could be seen was the sword the anbu used being pulled out of that man's chest; the drawing of the sword was near invisible.

"Neji, can you walk?" Lee said as he got back, and before Tenten knew it, was already lifting Neji up.

"Yea, I think so."

"By the way, does that hurt?"

"A lot of me hurts right now Lee. What part in particular?"

"It looks as though you have something in your eye..."

"It doesn't feel like there's anything there, Tenten, can you see it? What's it look like?" He asked while turning to her. After all of the things that had happened today, and what almost seemed like a confession, it was hard to look Hyuuga Neji directly in his eyes. She just didn't expect to have him make the first move.

"I don't see - wait" she stopped herself. Plain as day, in the eyes that were so special to her, there was something different. Something had changed.

"I looks like a little black speck."

End Part 1