Atychiphobia

: fear of failure

The clash between Neji and Sasuke immediately resulted in a couple small craters.

After the first needle was neatly dodged, Sasuke performed an extremely mean fire-jutsu producing a jounin level ball of flaming death that Neji felt obliged to do something about. He had to double the radius of his Kaiten just to keep the heat at bay. Then the fire-ball ricocheted off the spiraling wall of chakra and took a chuck off the river's cliff face some two-hundred meters to their left. In the span of time it took for the subsequent debris to fall, Neji and Sasuke had already starting a frightening and impressive looking amount of running in complex zig-zags around each other.

Sasuke knew the danger of bringing his chakra system's tenketsu anywhere within range of the Byakugan's Juuken techniques. Juuken, in its purest form, was a commonly known martial art from the mainland from which the Hyuuga predecessors derived their more literal version. The head family had no inhibitions about teaching him a fighting style and he devoured the freely given knowledge. AKA: Neji was good at taijutsu.

Between the two, Neji was probably the better hand to hand specialist. That explained why the Uchiha wasn't keen on unarmed combat. Like any other person he wouldn't risk getting his insides microwaved in a taijutsu contest. Likewise, Neji didn't fancy getting gutted on a sword, so attacking head-on wasn't gonna happen without a damn good jutsu to back it up. Problem: Neji didn't have good jutsu. It was hand to hand or nothing. Neji cut in; cat-like, but Sasuke remained forever out of reach, just beyond his fingertips, putting his blade up between them like a barrier to stop any ideas of getting in close.

'He knows Juuken,' thought Neji irritably as the boy jumped out of range again, keeping beyond the field of Hakke. Then as an after thought, 'Damn him.'

Sasuke unleashed another fire ball, this one less concentrated and more engulfing than the last. The Hyuuga contemplated at the speed of flight as he ran to give himself thinking room. Kaiten might just wrap the murderously hot flames around him and cook him in it. He needed another tactic. Neji experimented with a swift wind manipulation jutsu instead, beginning like a Kaiten but as an alternative of spiraling around him, he gained some speed and slammed to a stop, launching the spinning chakra charged air at his opponent. For all effects and purposes he sling-shot a small tornado at the rouge ninja. Sasuke, being an Uchiha and working with fire since he was small, knew exactly what was going to happen when air and fire collide and darted the hell out of there.

The tornado ignited; the entire thing erupting in a two-story tall twister of orange flame.

It spent itself swiftly, leaving nothing but scorched grass and smoke, smoke from which five Hyuuga Nejis leapt out. They all landed around Sasuke, each bristling with very real-looking senbon needles. Orochimaru's charge looked only dimly worried; his former teammates had once included Uzumaki Naruto, the boy famous for producing absurd numbers of his own likeness and having them swarm vaguely horrified opponents. The four jounin copies and their hidden blueprint lunged forward, each hurling or stabbing with their needles, flashing sharp and deadly in the sunlight.

This was about the time Neji decided the Uchiha Clan was secretly derived from some intoxicated Hyuuga and contortionist. Susuke twisted into an impossible position, one that required him somersault to the left, invert himself completely on one hand and somehow arch his back over the hissing flight path of three different needles. There was some kind of motion where Sasuke started kicking everything around him that wasn't air and needless to say three Kage Bunshin exploded almost simultaneously, leaving two very pissed off looking Hyuuga look-alikes.

The missing-nin righted himself with a nimble backhand spring and looked around, his thin black blade still in his hand, yet to be used. There was a thin scratch of blood across the side of his neck and he narrowed his eyes immediately at the twin with the bloodied needle. 'Damn.' Neji dismissed the clone, knowing Sasuke had already picked him out. In his mind he was already totaling his chakra against that of Sasuke and finding himself wanting. This wasn't a fight he wanted to start, but it wasn't necessarily a fight he couldn't get away from intact. If he just kept one step ahead, if he just didn't relent, didn't lose his focus then he could.

Barely…

Sasuke shot forward again, this time coming from head on, so fast that Neji scarcely had time to duck the straight fisted punch, shrieking and screaming like a flock of crazed birds as it tore narrowly over his head, the pure, unadulterated amount of chakra so great that the passing back-draft ripped Neji's head back and slammed him to the grass, his scalp tingling, a trickle of blood sliding through his hair.

Neji had never seen the Chidori in action personally before. Now that he had, he wasn't sure he liked it. He lunged out of the way before Sasuke could successfully put the spitting blue orb of lightening through his face, instead blasting a concentrated crater the size of Neji's torso into the ground, one that extended twenty feet deep. The long-haired Leaf ninja was up and running, darting around Sasuke, still holding onto his single senbon needle.

He threw it to buy himself thinking time, cranking out a quick set of Bunshin and running in sync behind the first, masking his location as three other branched off to attack. They were still at a stale-mate. Ninjutsu was out, obviously. Neji couldn't do any genjutsu on Sasuke as the Sharingan repelled them, but there were limited genjutsu that worked on eyes like the Byakugan, as few people understood the Byakugan well enough to fool it effectively.

Sasuke knew all the techniques Neji did. Probably more. He wasn't going to win with ninjutsu. Neji felt he was perhaps being toyed with. Undoubtedly Orochimaru had taught Sasuke ample techniques in his time with the young Uchiha, far more than Neji was capable of learning in all likeliness. It was common knowledge that Sasuke's true strength had always lain in his ninja techniques, the fact he was restricting himself from an all out ninjutsu assault said something.

The truth ran like a marquee through the back of his brain. 'Shit…he's going easy on me.'

Juuken was his only option and that would mean close combat and that would mean somehow getting the Uchiha to hold still a second so he could engage hand to hand. Neji molded chakra quickly to his feet and doubled his speed, zagging away from a series of jounin level ninjutsu that had the bothersome affect of turning the entire meadow into a small mine field. If not for the Byakugan foretelling the tell-tale patches of chakra in the dirt, he would have probably died two-hundred steps ago. But he stopped worrying about land mines a moment and instead, he worried about the glittering ebon sword – When had he pulled that kawarimi? – speeding for his throat. Neji's arms swung up and he blocked with two tightly gripped senbon needles.

Which were neatly sliced in two and Neji almost lost his arm. A partial Kaiten and a scramble save his life and he was facing his opponent again, heart batting rapidly against his ribs in retribution.

"Don't underestimate me, Hyuuga," said Sasuke, circling.

Neji pulled two more senbon from his sleeves. They flared with chakra.

This was bad. Even as Neji twisted, sliding away from the edge, he could feel the air itself split as it passed. That blade could cut through anything and a couple puny chakra-molded needles sure as hell weren't going to stop it a second time. He needed a new tactic now. Sasuke had the edge in head-on confrontation. Pride might have tried to protest, but Neji was better then believing he could take an Uchiha in a full frontal assault. No matter how fast he was going those mirror wheel eyes would pick him out and lay him low. Through the Byakugan the blade was everywhere, coming at all angles humming, hornet-like angry across the air near Neji's skin. Sasuke himself remained well out of arms reach, keeping his opponent at the other end of his weapon.

From time to time he could feel those eyes pushing through the Byakugan, trying to usurp his mind through suggestion but failing. He wasn't him; he couldn't do it without eye contact. Neji's palm turned the blade aside and barehanded he deflected, anticipating and pushing the blade inches off course, diverting its intent enough to escape with his skin intact. The black sword could cut anything, but Neji wasn't blocking it, just guiding it, moving it aside to spare himself the blow.

But hell if it didn't tax his energy!

Neji was reaching his limits rapidly. The sheer amount of chakra it took to block that blade was wearing out. 'Get some space!' Neji thought fiercely, throwing two senbon. 'Get away from that weapon!'

Sasuke diverted his attention a split second to block and Neji's kawarimi put him right on the Uchiha, slamming down a straight-legged axe kick meant to obliterate the collarbone. It didn't matter. The heel of his foot collided with the fore of the boy's arm instead and he was pushed off then immediately chased, forcing Neji in a chain of hasty back flips Lee would have been proud to cheer. A Dai Kaiten shoved Sasuke back to a manageable distance and Neji wondered when he begun to prefer long range combat to close range?

He had to calm down. Get a grip and think strategy. Quick kill. He never needed a quick kill like he did now – Sasuke would only play the cocky aggressor for so long – and the only way to kill quickly was Juuken.

He ducked a stab aimed at his face and was shocked to find himself in easy striking distance of basically all his opponent's tenketsu and furthermore most of his vital organs. (Neji might have grown up on the Hyuuga estate, but he didn't pass up freebies.) Chakra blazed through his fingers and he rammed the full length of his hand up under Sasuke's sternum, meaning full well to sever the inferior vena cava and aorta. What didn't get severed would most likely be cooked by the excess chakra. A sudden, unexpected and disbelieving voice pinged in the back of his brain.

You're going to kill, Uchiha Sasuke?

Then his arm went numb and Neji's hand spasmed like it was caught in an electrical current, stopping centimeters short of their target. It took him a full second to register that the funny blue light he was seeing was in fact an electric current. Somehow, his opponent was emitting a lightening chakra from every inch of skin and Neji had, for all intents and purposes, gone and jammed his fingers in an electrical outlet. The pain and the force of the chakra repelled his strike, putting him in a very, very bad position defensively. He sensed the blow, saw the blow, but could do nothing to dodge and the hilt of Sasuke's sword cracked down the back of his head. Neji dropped like a ragdoll.

For a terrible moment he almost passed out. But his Byakugan told him there was a second attack, this time from the blade itself and his body flung itself away on instinct. Leaping awkwardly from the blade, it hissed narrowly after him, slicing diagonally across his lower back and spraying the grass with red. His body was pickling every inch of skin with pins and needles, his legs threatened to buckle with each step and every part of his body ached numbly. Somewhere in the back of his mind something murmured warmly for him to just lie down and die, to just go still and accept it. But another voice smothered it, a cold, emotionless efficiency trained into him like genetics, coded into his brain.

"I expect you to do well. After all, you will be representing me, Hyuuga."

'Get up. Get up! Get up and move!'

Neji kept his feet through sheer force of will and got out of range before his ringing head could catch up with him and remind him people who get hit on the head aren't supposed to run in straight lines. He realized about then he hadn't been running in a straight line, rather a really precarious half-circle. His Byakugan – scrambled as it was from the head-shot – told him Sasuke was coming at him diagonally from his right flank, his blade angled to slide up between his ribs. Dazed, Neji fumbled to dodge, managing another graceless get-away by means of a high-speed burst that barely escaped the edge of the Uchiha's sword and landed him unpleasantly in the grass some twenty meters off.

'That technique…'

The missing-nin looked bored again. "I wasn't planning on using this…but you're more annoying than I thought you'd be." He raised a spark spitting hand, crackles of bluish light snapping all around his finger tips. His expression was deadened. "Your Juuken will never get through my Chidori Current. You're too weak, Hyuuga."

'I don't have any choice. I've got to use it.' Nejigrasped the edges of the Hidden Leaf head protector. 'If he's really neutralized my Juuken, I have to…' In the back of his mind a thousand screeching words slammed up against his decision, roaring at him to stop, to reconsider, to never use that jutsu! But he didn't see another path. Maybe if he had more time to strategize, but he knew Sasuke wouldn't give him any. His stomach churned, aching as fluttering anticipation bloomed up inside him, cold slimy fear congealing into a heavy pit in the bottom on his stomach. If he used it…there was no going back. If he did it – Neji shuddered – then there's no taking it back. I'll have to face it… He started to pull the hitae-ate off.

Sasuke seemed unconcerned. "Are you certain? That blindfold is the only thing keeping you from my hypnosis."

The young jounin hesitated.

"It was quite wise to hide your eyes. The Byakugan allows you to see through it without fear of my Sharingan and you've trained against indirect hypnosis. I don't know who taught you how to fight against my bloodline, but one instant where our eyes meet will be enough." The black blade swung elegantly up, readied for the next promised attack. "I'll kill you. Not even your Kaiten will stop this blade, I promise that."

Neji hesitated. For an instant there was nothing but wind, nothing but silence.

Then he shoved the headband from his face and opened his eyes. The Sharingan and Byakugan locked and Sasuke's gaze immediately pierced his; sinking his influence deeply into the intricate synaptic routes all through Neji's brain. The Leaf jounin jerked, startled at the power of it, potent as any genjutsu, the prelude to a Sharingan induced illusion. He didn't have much time. He could feel his muscles atrophy, his reflexes slowing, his senses dimming as the power of suggestion invaded him. Seconds more and he'd be good as a puppet.

Heat rushed up behind his eyes, surging into the optical nerve, up under the double lenses of his Byakugan where the energy pressurized like a carbonated soda, building until it felt like someone had pumped liquid fire into the back of his eyes. When he thought it would destroy every fiber of sanity in him, only then did he let it go. The secondary lens splintered, like a fracture in dam and released it all, firing like an air gun through his head. The muted explosion shuddered through his skull as his anxious eyes discharged enough chakra for over thirty Kaiten in a single burst.

The pulse rippled the air, an almost sonic undulation through the air that the naked eyes could almost see, sending ripples across the grass, turning leaves on the wind. Sasuke frowned as the swell of chakra vibrated through him.

Neji jammed the blindfold back on immediately. Biting back the scream of agony, digging the heel of his hands against his eyes behind the cloth – ''It…hurts! He didn't tell me…it's so much…' Tears slid in hot beads down his cheeks as his burning eyes shut tightly behind the dark of his head protector. Sunspots blazed there way through his optical nerve, branding hot rainbow after-images into the darkness, sparkling through his vision. His Byakugan sight was shot through with needles, each one white-hot and bright as the streaks they cut through his eyes. Was it conceivable to cry blood? Though the pain he let loose as many senbon needles as he could aim straight, emptying his entire hip cache into the attack.

Then three things happened.

First, Sasuke – looking bored, that bastard! – started to dodge the first set of projectiles.

Second, his Sharingan deactivated and he realized that it wasn't the first set he needed to worry about, but rather the ten behind them that he suddenly could not see.

Last, Sasuke got hit by a lot of flying needles.

The Uchiha didn't quite scream, rather issued a strangled growl, staggering back as crimson splattered the grass as his feet, gasping in surprise. Even from thirty paces, half-blind and in blistering pain, Neij could still make out the tell-tale give away: Sasuke's eyes were flickering, red struggling to come through, failing to.

"You will have only one chance."

This chance.

Neji snapped out of perception and attacked again, tearing a long kunai from his waistband and rushing the other shinobi. The sight of Neji's face (blindfold aside) was enough to get Sasuke moving, fast; despite the needles riddling his body and the agony they must have caused him. He cut the kunai in half, but the Hyuuga was on him before he could get his blade back up. Neji slammed it aside with a deft spinning kick, knocking the boy's arms wide and his revolving Sharingan, finally activating again, saw the whole thing coming too late. In his mind Neji was screaming, gloating, finally putting fear in those Sharingan eyes was akin to ecstasy and he knew he was starting to crash.

Too much chakra, too much blood loss, too much hatred.

"Not enough hatred."

And suddenly Neji had never hated a creature more than he hated Sasuke. His eyes behind the Konoha head plate were burning again, lit on fire, eager chakra rushing up behind his already aching irises, begging to be unleashed again. Hatred so strong it became power. "Lesson number one: Emotion is strength." It roiled inside him; a living thing, full of black fangs and spines that undulated and scraped the inside of his chest, scraping him raw. It was maddening, this thing in him, this black creature and he wanted to unleash it, had to get it out of him infect someone else with his disease and there was only one route.

Though his hands.

Neji transformed from a person to an incomprehensible blur and began to batter his opponent, index and middle fingers striking furiously. As his hands tore through the other teenager's tenketsu he felt strange, unlike anything else he'd ever done to a person before. He struck without feeling, his arms moving like separate, pitiless creatures, each blow another injection of hatred, the same toxin in his blood that was driving him to this. His opponent was reeling, staggering, jerking, slammed back with each and every strike. The electric energy jumped to stop him but its reaction time was not perfect, confirming Neji's theory: Sasuke was willfully controlling that barrier to parry attacks he foresaw with his Sharingan.

But the Sharingan had to see it first. Sasuke was looking ahead like Kabuto, staring randomly off in the wrong direction and in this quarter-second epiphany Neji realized the Sharigan's one weakness: It's full of blind spots.

'And if he couldn't see that.' Neji flickered, stepped low and too the side, a half-moon slide and he was under Sasuke, behind him. 'He can't see this!'

Neji's stance was horrific. Hyuuga Hiashi would have cried; his own father would have rebuked him and he didn't care. Forget the Sixty-Four Hands. The Chidori Current twitched then arced toward his movement like a precognitive, electric version of Garra's sand, desperately racing to defend the open spot. But it wasn't fast enough. Not faster than Neji's hands moving at the speed of the One-Hundred-Twenty-Eight Hands of Hakke. His warped trump card.

Neji hit him… two-hundred-fifty-four times exactly.

No Kage Bunshin this time.

The Uchiha was knocked back, staggered, reeling, his blade loose in his limp fingers, whetted point scraping through the grass. Under the skin, blood welled in mottled bruises ominously circular and spotting up and down his pale arms. His breath rattled, wet and ragged as he growled through the agony of it, thin features contorting, twisted and made forcibly mortal. Neji similarly was panting, breathing heavily, body strained to the bleeding edge of his limits, his breath coming in shallow mimicries of laughter: 'Ha-ha-ha…' breathy and strangled. His body, every technique geared for quick deaths, was not designed for stamina battles. His chakra was almost spent. He had nothing left and his world was falling into the melting world of blood-loss.

A younger Neji would have been appalled at this state, but the sixteen-year-old was not flinching now. He knew he had one more shot, one last chance, something the Chidori's defense could not repel from the vital spots. The Hyuuga expended one last burst of speed, one last and final blast of chakra burning like fire in his finger tips.

The Uchiha saw him move and lashed out with the Chidori, but Neji was moving faster than he could ever hope to do again and by sheer brute force got through. He was still out of arm's reach but that didn't matter anymore. With a shout Neji slammed one hand forward, palm straight at Sasuke's chest. For this attack, it was point blank. The lightening seared his palm, burning, numbing his entire arm but a blast could not be stopped by mere electricity. The Hakke Kuushou discharged his remaining chakra into his opponent's ribcage with all the force of small freight train, one giant burst of merciless power. He felt something give under his hands, calcium framework cracking and Sasuke was blasted backward…

Then Neji was screaming; an aching guttural sound.

Sasuke's blade rammed straight through his shoulder.

'I didn't…even see him…'

Sasuke's skin was a mottled blaze of blue-chakra and setting those tomoe-ringed red eyes on fire. There was blood behind his opponent's teeth, revealing the internal wreckage, the Byakugan showing the damage to the inner coil system that had activated the cursed seal on his shoulder. Black etchings were crawling across the Uchiha's skin like dark worms, blacking the white of his left eye until it was a pitiless black socket. Neji screamed again, a strangled, dying sound as the blade twisted; driving him to his knees. Fingers tore the Hidden Leaf head protector from his eyes.

"You won't need this anymore," Sasuke said softly. And out of pure spite, he tore the remaining headband from Neji's forehead, laying bare the Cage Seal hidden beneath it. "Or this."

Neji grabbed the hair at the base of Sasuke's neck and jerked himself close.

"Itachi says 'Hi.'"

Red eyes twitched toward him and there was more emotion there than any expression could have captured.

Electricity jolted along the length of the weapon, electrocuting him, setting every nerve in his body on fire. His head snapped back, his spine arcing into a grotesque parentheses and that raw, clawing scream burst out his mouth, garbled and sick. Sasuke followed him to the ground, straddling him and every inch of contact blistered and burned, filling his senses with the noxious stench of ionized air, Sasuke's blood, sweat, and ozone. He cried out, clawing, his body twitching, shuddering, curling and snapping around in violent random motion. Like it would stop it somehow. His skull felt like it would rupture, his nervous system shorting out, his blood heating, his chakra sucking away in the effort of keeping him alive. There was no end.

Worse of all his eyes... He was screaming, screaming until his voice was running out, until he couldn't taste, touch, hear or perceive anything.

Until the world splintered into nothing.