A/N: Sorry for the wait! I've been quite busy. As I will be for the next three weeks, because I'm leaving for England in like an hour! So no updates until at least July 29. After that, you can stalk me on livejournal, links on my profile. Happy Reading!

A Midsummer Night's Dream

Act III; scene iii

Hinata ran through the trees, ignoring the branches that clawed at her hair and clothes.

"I'm not going to fight you Sakura!" She screamed back at her pursuer. Sakura chased after the Hyuuga, panting slightly and sending chakra to her legs to increase her speed. Unfortunately Hinata had seemingly learned the same trick and used it with some degree of skill. Therefore, her speed matched Sakura's and the chase was yielding no results.

"HINATA! GET BACK HERE!" She cried after her prey. Hinata did not show that she had heard Sakura, and kept running.

Behind both girls ran Neji, highly disgusted with himself. He had caused this entire fiasco. It was his fault.

All because he was doing the right thing, for once.

Needless to say, Neji was very annoyed by this particular turn of events. He knew that Sasuke and Naruto needed no further prompting to try and kill each other and Sakura would never back down when she was defending Sasuke. All hope for these four was lost.

But was it?

Neji was suddenly struck by a brilliant, yet slightly crazy idea. He smirked, the half smile casting a look of superiority over his features. Without another thought he stopped in his tracks, turned on his heel and ran to find his teammate.

Lee backed away from the two boys he had been following. After a halfhearted attempt to stop their fight, he decided that it was in his best interest to keep as far away as possible.

Sasuke and Naruto were fighting quite an epic fight. They had not yet pulled out the Chidori or the rasengan but they were still doing a considerable amount of damage to the surrounding trees.

"You always want what I have. Maybe you're just jealous of me!" Sasuke shouted at his teammate as he gracefully twisted out of the way of several kunai, launching his own.

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu! Why would I be jealous of you, teme!?" A thousand Narutos shouted back as they attacked.

"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!" Sasuke took a deep breath in. Neji arrived just as the fireball obliterated Naruto's clones.

"Lee! I told you not to let them fight!" He snarled as his teammate.

"Forgive me, Neji!" Lee said with a bow. "It is not youthful to break a promise! I hate to admit it but I was slightly afraid to get between them."

"Okay, good point." Neji said, watching as Sasuke blew another fireball at Naruto. Neji smirked…again. "But I have a plan."

A minute later they were flying through the trees to the clearing where this all started. Lee's eyebrows pinched together in concentration.

"Let me get this straight…" He said. Neji twisted a little to face him, but did not slow his pace. "You turned two shadow clones into replicas of Sasuke and Naruto and ordered them to lead them back to the clearing. What about Hinata and Sakura?"

"They'll be fine. They'll try and kill each other for a little while but since neither of them is under a spell they should at least exercise some self control and stop before there are any fatalities." He said as they touched down in the clearing. "Now we just have to wait."

Sasuke stumbled into the clearing, dead on his feet. During his fight with Naruto he had used quite a bit of chakra and he had used even more of his physical energy following Naruto through the trees. There was also a slight prickling near his eyes that seemed to be draining his energy.

It was all very odd, he thought as he sat down on the ground, hard. He had been fighting Naruto when all of a sudden there was a flash and Naruto had run away from him. The coward. The scene before his eyes spun and he lay down before he could fall. He fell asleep immediately.

Naruto stumbled in a few minutes later, not seeing the dark lump that was Sasuke's sleeping form. He yawned, more out of boredom than physical exhaustion, since the nine tail's chakra kept him quite energetic. I am so bored. He thought, staring at the sky. Sasuke had vanished after that weird flash and Naruto had spent the last half hour searching the entire damn woods, following a weird disembodied voice. He sighed. Stupid teme...

Naruto fell asleep a few minutes later, leaning against the trunk of the tree, purely out of boredom.

Sakura and Hinata stumbled in sometime later. Both girls were exhausted and weary of their fight.

"Hinata? I'm sorry…" Sakura said as she lay down on the forest floor and fell asleep. Hinata nodded.

"I am too." She said, also drifting off to sleep. Neji stepped out of the shadows, rolling his eyes, followed by Lee. Neji slipped the flower out of his pocket, administering the antidote to Sasuke, but conspicuously leaving it on Naruto. He sighed.

"Okay. That should fix that. Now I have to find Tenten." He said to himself. He put the flower back in his pocket and started to walk out of the clearing. Lee lingered for a moment, awed by the simple solution to a problem that had seemed hopeless a minute ago. "Oh, Lee?"

"Yes Neji!" He said exuberantly. Neji smiled, not his usual smirk, but a full, evil smile.

"I am going to kick your ass later."