"Better make that two."
Shikamaru stepped into the room from the hallway beyond, and with the light was able to harness his shadow. Using his shadow imitation technique, he managed to pin the other three men and leave Neji with only his cousin. Neji realised he had control when the men stopped circling and stood as still as Shikamaru, and he took the opportunity to catch the other Hyuuga by surprise. There was a limit to the amount of time the Nara could hold multiple people with his shadow technique, but Neji was aware that they both lacked their usual stamina and speed as a result of the extended hours of surveillance. He had less than five minutes before Shikamaru was unable to hold them anymore.
Swiping out with his left hand as he stepped forward, Neji was blocked but feinted to the right only to swipe left again but with his foot. The two fell into a series of spiraling twists of blue chakra that looked something akin to an artistic dance routine. As one moved left, the other sidestepped. As the aggressor struck high, the defender dropped low. In his normal form, Neji would have outstripped the younger Hyuuga, but he lacked sleep and the evening's events, coupled with the understanding that he was now responsible for more than just his own safety or that of a team, had left him just a fraction less capable than he was used to. Despite this, Neji was the clearly superior fighter in strength and stamina, and while his cousin managed to land a number of painful but ultimately bearable blows, he was slowly tiring from the effort of constantly blocking and Neji simply had to wait out his stamina to prevail.
After the next rotation to his right, Neji saw an opening in his aggressor's stance and pressed forward to slam a chakra infused palm into his knee, forcing him to lose his footing and stumbled backwards. Neji followed rapidly with a series of moves that created a flurry of defensive blocks, but ultimately left him with the upper hand. He was about to knock his panting cousin down to his knees when he heard Shikamaru's voice,
"That's it, Neji. I can't hold them."
Shikamaru released the shadows of the three remaining men, two of whom immediately sought to engage him in combat, while the third went for Neji. The three accomplices were very capable but not as highly skilled as the ANBU captains, and Shikamaru wore down the two focused on him with far less effort than otherwise necessary. One had pulled out a knife, while the other, much bigger man appeared to be more comfortable relying on his hands and brute strength. They were both agile for their size and formidable in strength, indicating to the Nara that both men would be very capable brawlers in most fighting contexts.
Unfortunately for them, ANBU were a significantly more dangerous adversary than the average bar brawler and despite his diminished strength and stamina, Shikamaru immediately disarmed the first man of his knife by twisting his arm backwards and forcing him to release his grip. Slamming the edge of his hand into the thug's side, Shikamaru moved to attack the second man while the first doubled over gasping for air. He could hear the two Hyuuga in the background but was focused on his opponents. Moving between the two of them with as much speed as he could muster, he took down the first more easily, leaving him groaning weakly on the ground as he came down on the second man one last time.
He was quick but not quick enough, and as he dropped the second man's unconscious body to the floor he looked up to see that Neji was, for the second time, on the verge of disabling his cousin. Backed up to the wall with one arm hanging useless and immobilised by his side, Neji's cousin was all but finished if not for the third man. Shikamaru realised too late that Neji was so focused that even with his Byakugan activated, he had not seen the man line up a kunai right between the Hyuuga's shoulder blades. A frantic call of "Neji!" was all Shikamaru had time to get out in warning before it was thrown with deadly accuracy.
But the shrill sound of metal striking metal was the last thing anyone expected to hear and as the weapon fell uselessly to the ground, Shikamaru dispatched his remaining opponent with a hard hit to the head in time to look up and see Tenten in the doorway.
Deceptively pretty with her hair loose around her shoulders, her right arm extended and fingers relaxed from the perfect release of the projectile, Tenten retracted her hand slowly as she watched Neji turn to the sound of Shikamaru's call. His eyes widened when he saw her standing just inside the doorway, but he was still quick enough to catch the slight dip of her head to the left as she made to turn away. She changed direction at the last moment and as quick as Shikamaru could blink, Tenten had drawn another kunai, throwing again with her right hand at the exact moment that Neji dropped to his right, dodging her weapon and allowing it to imbed itself in the shoulder of his cousin standing behind him. The Hyuuga cried out in shock and pain but Neji and Tenten had already turned to attack the man who threw the kunai at Neji's blind spot.
Even with his Byukugan activated and focused on the attack, he would have missed that throw and he was aware how lucky he was that Tenten had arrived when she did. Ever since they were teenagers it had been Tenten who protected his blind spot, who always knew when he needed her, somehow. And despite his distress at seeing her here, their teamwork was as natural and familiar as breathing. They worked in complete harmony as they went on the attack, Neji forcefully thrusting a chakra infused palm flat into the man's chest as Tenten did a running slide to take his legs out from under him. She took Neji's other hand, which he had dropped in front of her as she slid under his arm, and used the forward momentum to pull herself up and into Neji's body as he turned toward her. She gave him a brief smile and they turned towards his cousin, preparing for a fight as Shikamaru secured the other men.
It was at that moment that the angrier of the two traitor Elders returned, possibly having heard the commotion, and quickly realised their plans had not gone as anticipated. He moved to stand before the cousin as he made a series of hand signs and suddenly Tenten felt Neji grasp her arm and collapse beside her. She looked down to see him gasping for air and holding his other hand to his burning head, and she knew immediately that the Elder had activated his curse seal. She froze for a split second in shock, having never seen it activated before but snapped back at the sound of his voice. The excruciating pain elicited a cry from Neji more terrifying than any sound Tenten had ever heard and she dropped beside him, as Shikamaru appeared at his other side.
"Not such a prodigy now are you?" the Elder snickered in satisfaction as he stood watching Neji collapsed on his knees, grasping at Tenten with one hand and trying to brace himself with the other as he gasped for air. When he was able to catch his breath it came out in an agonized whimper between screams. Tenten had no idea what to do to help and released him only slightly to stand and face the old man, a look of utter horror etched into her expression.
"What are you doing?!" The panic rose unsuppressed as Tenten realised she had no idea how long he might be able to withstand the activation of the seal.
"Stop it! You're going to kill him! Stop!" She half-yelled, half-sobbed over Neji, who cried out again as though trying to fight through the agony being inflicted upon him, managing only to rise to his knees.
"The intention always was to kill him you stupid girl, though I never wanted to have to get my own hands dirty. Clearly no one else was up to the job," his eyes surveyed the team of men who were now bound and unconscious, stopping on the other Hyuuga with a sharp nod before he started to walk away. Shikamaru had seen the old man turn away and released his friend's shoulder on impulse to cast out his shadow and stop Neji's attacker in his tracks. Preoccupied with restraining the elder, he barely heard Tenten yell out in panic as running steps sounded up the hallway, and Hinata and Hiashi burst in with Naruto and the rest of the Council in tow.
"Hinata! It's the curse seal, he's killing him…" she had unknowingly turned her back on Neji's other cousin as she watched Hinata make a split-second decision that went against every rule the clan upheld regarding the branch house. Making a series of gestures in rapid succession, as Tenten looked on, Hinata knelt beside him and removed the curse seal, negating its affects almost instantly and bringing a shocking and blessed silence from Neji. He took one slow breath before looking up just in time to see Tenten's whole body jolt and her mouth open in a gasp as her kunai, removed from her victim's shoulder and wielded against her, buried itself in the right side of her back before being removed and clattering to the floor.
She shuddered once and collapsed to her own knees as Neji acted on instinct and rose to his feet so fast that no one even saw him reach out and break the man's neck until he too collapsed to the ground. Neji was back in front of Tenten instantly, helping Hinata lay her down, while Hiashi assisted Shikamaru in restraining and removing the shadow-controlled Elder from the room. Neji made brief eye contact with Tenten for a moment before losing focus and he felt for a second that he had been stabbed in the chest. Tenten struggled to stutter out Neji's name as he quickly bound her wound, realizing it was bleeding too profusely to be stabilized without taking her straight to the hospital. The kunai must have hit something vital because the pool of red underneath her grew as though it were being poured from her body. Neji and Hinata wrapped his over shirt around her and tied it to put pressure on the wound before he slid his arms underneath her shoulders and knees to pick her up and rush her to Konoha's hospital. He watched her eyelids starting to drop and had to suppress his growing panic,
"Hey, Tenten. Stay with me…stay with me." She seemed to hear him but either couldn't respond or didn't try because all that came out of her mouth was strangled whimper.
"Come on babe, not like this…we are not going out like this…" she made eye contact with him that time but then her eyes slowly closed and her pale face relaxed into his chest.