Pedophobia
: fear of children
'They look like Haruno.'
It was Neji's first thought; striking him with such disgusting simplicity he realized the resemblance was probably no accident. Kabuto was looking pleased with himself, a very slight tic of the mouth he only allowed himself when he wasn't bothering to hide anything from you. Neji had gotten used to seeing it by now.
"Shinobi," the doctor addressed them together.
They glanced nervously at one another and the rookie jounin felt himself sharing in their mixed apprehension. Butterflies was not quite a fitting metaphor, stampeding fire-ants seemed more accurate, but either way he couldn't let an iota of that onto his face The children blinked querulously at him, each noting their own detail of him: The boy's eyes bounced all over to the network of bruises and bandages spanning visible skin. The loud girl with pink hair was staring unabashedly at his seemingly blind eyes. The quiet girl was peeking at his forehead protector – her eyes told him she could tell it was brand new.
"This is Hyuuga Neji," said Kabuto conversationally. "He'll be your jounin mentor for the duration of your time as genin. That's all. Your first mission begins now." He handed Neji the mission scroll and as he passed him, clapped him on the shoulder – ignoring how it send an obvious ramrod jolt through the Hyuuga's body – and murmured, "Forty-eight hours, Neji-kun. Don't try anything foolish."
Then he was gone.
And three pairs of eyes ogled.
The three of them looked painfully small and skinny in the crisp six AM air. The canopy seemed to be miles up, the forest floor an open expanse of mossy carpet, deepening into tangled dark green undergrowth. This was the first of the outside world he'd seen in – hell – a long time and he hated that he was seeing it now under such circumstances as to be maddening. Most people would snap, any reasonable person would go utterly bug-whacked insane, but Neji prided himself on being resilient against what broke the minds of most and he'd be damned before a bunch of prepubescent little kids were the cause of his mental collapse.
There was a pause…then:
"Whaaaaat?! You're our sensei? You?"
"Oh dear."
"Who the hell is this guy?"
Neji had a migraine this morning. Also, he'd woken up with his Byakugan active and another line of nightmare script in his mouth, enough to make him suspect that Kabuto might not have been completely talking bullshit about his audible night terrors. Worse, he'd come to realize that his eyes weren't the only portion of him suffering some kind of damage in the wake of…everything…which in itself was an irritation when one is emotionally wrung one, physically exhausted, and mentally expended. That be might be splintering into mad little crazy bits as well was too much to bear.
He didn't need another line to his laundry list of God-awful problems.
"You are not a jounin!" declared the first little girl, flinging a partially gloved finger dramatically at him. Her bright green eyes glittered cat-like and keen. Half buried in the vibrant explosion of her bubblegum dreadlocks, the quarter-note of the Sound glittered from the hitae-ate. "You're too young! I've seen chuunin ages older than you are and you're too…" she floundered for a word vile enough, "girly!"
Neji restrained the urge to hurt her.
"Yeah!" bawled the only male member of the team. "You don't look old enough to be a proper chuunin, much less our teacher!" He was only slightly less scrawny than the girls beside him and, by wearing an enormous flak jacket, made himself look far smaller. Like most boys his age, he'd taken inordinate amounts of hair-gel to his head and achieved a level of anti-gravity that put even Sasuke's perpetual bed-head to shame. It didn't help that its color was 'shoot me now' orange, either. Eager for a fight he roared, "Kabuto-sempai is crazy if he thinks we're gonna listen to you! You're, like, only a couple years older than us!"
Apparently they spoke solely in exclamation marks.
They reminded him powerfully of Naruto.
Neji grimaced, rubbing one ear.
"Actually," he said tersely, "I'm a couple years older than a couple years older than you. And if you'd kindly stop screaming at the top of your lungs and I'd tell you that the Sound Five weren't much older than I am now." Neji tugged a string from where he'd tucked it in his belt, pulling his hair from his face and tying it back while he spoke. "In the Leaf Village, genin are rarely under the age of twelve and in the Stone they're typically over fourteen. All three of you are young by my standards."
He looked to the other pink-haired girl stepped shyly out from behind her sister (because they were sisters, Neji was gene-saavy enough to recognize that). Her long hair was rosy, but fell in soft folds down the sides of her head rather than coiling and exploding like her counterpart. She peered shyly up at the young Hyuuga. "It's nice to meet you, Neji-sensei." Then she whistled something at him, clicking her tongue between notes, then promptly blushed.
The other girl sneered loudly. "You said it wrong! You said it wrong!" She immediately whistled and clicked right back. "That's how you say it, Nishi-baka-chan!"
And then they both trailed off into a conversation of notes, harmonies and clicking. If body language meant anything, Nishi was still being teased mercilessly. The girl blushed harder but it was very obvious she'd just tried to throw him off with Sound field-code. Not that it mattered. Kabuto had managed to drill basics into him well enough that he'd understood the gist of what passed between the sisters, both of whom – apparently – were fluent in it. Also, he suspected Nishi had just made some kind of observation on his eyes…he didn't know the adjective pattern she'd used though.
His eyebrows lifted minutely. "Are you three going to make introductions or would you rather I just called you by numbers?"
The loud girl made a face. "Introductions? What? Like the name game or some crap? Psssh!You're not serious are you?"
He glared at her. "You're Three."
She sputtered. "Why 'three'?"
"Because I don't like you."
"What!" She puffed her narrow chest inside her flak jacket, bony cheeks puffing indignantly. "My name is Hebita Minami. I'm the strongest genin in the Sound and if anyone says otherwise I'll beat the crap out of them!" Here she glared around the group before looking back to Neji. "I don't like pickled anything and I don't. Like. You."
Neji nodded. "Thank you." He glanced expectantly to Nishi.
Minami's sister swallowed and stepped forward, knock-kneed and nervous. "I'm Hebita Nishi," she announced, as if she weren't entirely sure about that. "I'm Minami's twin sister…and I…I'm good at…stuff." She'd started blushing insanely by now, face lit up bright red. She kept fidgeting with the hem of her skirt and making distressed little clicking sounds, devolving into Sound field-code in her terror. "I don't like frosting and umm…I like…kittens?" She looked like she'd have a panic-attack any minute. Neji nodded gently, fearing for her nerves.
"My name is Aori Tachi," declared the boy aggressively. He was only just slightly taller than the girls by virtual of his spiked orange hair alone. Stepping forward, he glared hot sulfur-colored needles (Neji noted the iris mutation with third-party interest) at Minami. She glared back and made a fist-pounding gesture that alluded to previous rivalries between the two. "I'm one of the last members of my clan and Orochimaru-sama hand picked me, so I know I'm smarter than you!" (Speaking to Minami.) "I like strawberry ice-cream and I don't like pink!" Then he glanced apologetically at Nishi.
"Miniami-san. Nishi-san. Tachi-san." Neji tossed them the mission scroll and Minami snatched it deftly, scowling. "It seems our mission is one of utmost importance."
Neji was determined not to show the discord in his head. Despite the bone-grinding ache drilling through his temples and the feeling that a Sound Village B-rank wasn't anything like a Konoha B-rank, he managed to keep his voice even. His trio of would-be shinobi kept their quiet, albeit, reluctantly. Minami and Tachi looked ready to kick him in the shin and go find themselves some ice-cream, but Nishi, at least, was listening with rapt attention.
"There's a contingent of Cloud chuunin scouts who've recently overrun a small Sound base in the north. As far as we know, no reinforcements have been sent. It's presumed to be a stagnant operation." He let the scroll roll open from his hands, hanging in the air before the young ninja to read. "Our job is to get them out and dispose of the facility's contents."
"Chuunin, huh?" said Tachi doubtfully, glancing up at him. He scowled, jamming his hands into his pockets and looking defiant. "You sure you can handle it, Hyuuga-sensei? Most chuunin I know are older than you are. How do we know you're any good?"
Neji just stared at him, eyes white-out blank and unblinking until the little boy shrank under his stare and, properly cowed, didn't say anything else. "We have forty-eight hours to reach the base and one to get back," he said at last, tonelessly. "No exceptions. If we aren't back within hailing distance by this time Tuesday, we don't come back. We don't have time to argue about how qualified you think I am to take care of you. From what I've heard, the three of you should be able to handle yourselves."
Nishi raised her hand hesitantly, but Minami slapped it down and she recoiled with a whimper. Neji waited patiently while she regrouped. "I…I've never heard about such a time constraint on a first mission. Why…why did we get one?"
"You can take that up with someone after we get back, not now," he told her shortly. "Let's go."
He set off at a reasonably quick pace and like a pack of ill-fated puppies they fell in behind him. The out-of-sync clunking of their little sandals faded into perfect silence after a couple hundred meters, and soon the only sound was the occasional mumble betwixt Nishi and Minami, or the clack of the free-hanging kunai about Tachi's belt. Keeping his back to the three genin, he activated the Byakugan – with only the slightest of pains this time – and peered far into the north, pinpointing the coordinates on the missions scroll.
"We should reach the base around noon," he said matter-of-factly and behind him the trio startled unanimously. He kept running, looking imperiously ahead. "The front entrance is south-facing with a single back entrance and no windows. Familiarize yourself with the blue-print given there. From what I can see there are as many as five live bodies inside the labs and three scouts patrolling the perimeter. We'll be eliminating them silently. Then moving on the base itself."
"You can see that," Tachi ogled.
"Hyuuga, duh!" Minami leered.
"Less talking. More reading," Neji rejoined shortly.
The Sound students exchanged dubious looks, but studied the scroll between them obediently enough. The trees flashed by in quick blinks as they raced through the forest, Neji reaching up a hand out of their sight and laying it over the dark mark just below his collarbone. The skin was warm, almost hot to the touch. He closed his eyes, still feeling the process that put that heat there and knowing what the heat was burned deeper than flesh into his body and he shuddered slightly.
By virtue of Hyuuga linage, Neji was more than a decent expert in curse seals. This one, not unlike his own fluency with chakra manipulation, was a stimulation mark: allowing the user limited control over chakra movement within the body. Used correctly, it could do anything from paralyze him to put him to sleep. It could put him on the floor screaming in illusionary pain then dope him on his own endorphins. It could induce hallucinations and hysteria. It could trigger an orgasm. (Neji randomly decided he would have preferred another pain inducer. At least those were nice and straight forward.) Having oodles of prior and intimate experience with curse seals, Neji knew exactly what to expect and how to deal with it. He was trained for that.
Children – however – in any shape or form were not particularly a subject with which he had oodles of prior experience or ability with. Reading into and understanding the motivations of an adult shinobi who may or may not be about to put a kunai through your skull was not the same as figuring out why the hell your ten-year-old killer-to-be has smeared peanut butter on his or her face before a mission. (No joke. Saratobi Konohamaru was notorious for this back home.)
Furthermore, what kind of deranged psychopath decides to go through inordinate amounts of trouble and risk to procure themselves a rare clan prodigy, drag him to you secret lair and torture him briefly, just so you can give him chocolate and promote him to jounin mentor? None of this was adding up in any way what so ever and for some subtle reason Neji was getting the impression that was exactly what his captors wanted. This strange forced familiarity felt like a psychological attack, but Neji couldn't see the point in it. Was it chaos theory persuasion: completely random decisions to throw him off balance? Overwhelm him with forced responsibilities in order to integrate him into the Sound?
'Or it's just a distraction…and I'm missing the real assault completely.'
Which, given the circumstances, seemed perfectly reasonable.
- - -
Ninja Information
Name: Hebita, Nishi
Registration ID: 000235
Hidden Village: Sound
Rank: Genin
Team: -
Element: Water
Physical Information
Age: 12
Sex: Female
Birthday: 6/21
Bloodtype: A
Height: 148.2 cm
Weight: 33.9 kg
Notable features Has achieved top fluency in Sound field-code. While lacking intensely in offensive taijutsu she exhibits understanding of defense and evasion skills. Student possesses high-chuunin level genjutsu abilities and a select few jounin-level ninjutsu techniques while working in tandem with her twin sister in combat. (refer to file ID#: 000244; attached data sheet) Has achieved high skills in genjutsu techniques and illusionary strategy in battle situations and been commended for level-headedness during high-intensity training missions and high effectiveness in target elimination. (Note: marked for assassination and reconnaissance training.)
Lacks in basic offensive taijutsu. Student's clarity during battle is nearly outweighed by intense emotional vulnerability out of battle situations. Student often bursts into tears when asked to do any act of public display (failed several Henge tests because they were done before her peers). Lacks physical strength and stamina.
- - -
Nishi bounded up on his left, blinking up at him. "Neji-sensei," she peeped politely. Neji notied immediately that she twiddled her thumbs in that horrifically Hinata-like fashion. He fought back a reflexive grimace. "Neji-sensei, Kabuto-kun said your family name is Hyuuga. Of the Konoha Hyuuga?"
He glanced at her, face neutral. "Yes?"
"So you…you've defected from Konoha?" she inquired hesitantly.
"One would assume so," said Neji dryly.
She frowned suspiciously, surprising him a little when she rebutted, "Are you head family then? Only head family can possibly defect. Branch family are killed if they try."
"You know Hyuuga clan divisions?" he inquired, mildly surprised.
"Well, yes. Kabuto-kun teaches a course on blood-line limits and inter-village relations. We have basic training in all known blood-lines."
"Really?" Neji said, but thought, 'Busiest spy I've ever heard of.' Jealousy was hard to combat.
"So are you head family?" She was eyeing his forehead protector, probably less sneakily than she meant, but he didn't call her on it.
'I'll have to watch this one,' Neji decided. "I'm only half-Hyuuga, actually. Have you memorized the layout of the base, Nishi-san?"
"Oh, yes," she said, blinking. "Minami and Tachi-kun are…um…almost finished."
"Are they?"
"…yes."
Neji could see without looking that they were, in fact, making faces at each other and had been doing so for the better part of ten minutes. He glanced surreptitiously at Nishi, who turned a distinctive shade of red and muttered something before falling back to join her teammates. She implored their attentions and got them to grudgingly look at the scroll again, glaring spitefully at his back from time to time. It bothered Neji only a little that their lives were more or less hanging in the balance and they were happy to make silly faces at one anther in lieu of focusing on their mission.
Also, these brats could very well be the reason he died… horribly.
'That and Kabuto's ditching the usual methods for me and mine' thought Neji tiredly. If the aghast look on Nishi's face was any indication, this was not the usual way of things in accordance to her studies. He suspected strongly the other genin teams would be taking a day to talk things over and brief for their assignments. Neji's team wasn't given that lenience. 'He doesn't want me to have any time to think at all. While the other teams are organizing themselves, we have to rush it and wing it. He's trying to run me into the ground.'
Part of him had to confess…he was very close to succeeding.
- - -
Ninja Information
Name: Aori, Tachi
Registration ID: 000239
Hidden Village: Sound
Rank: Genin
Team: -
Element: Fire
Physical Information
Age: 11
Sex: Male
Birthday: 7/11
Bloodtype: O
Height: 149.3 cm
Weight: 35.9 kg
Notable features Member of the Aori Clan, former Lightening Country bloodline. Student displays notable proficiency in persuasion and use of hypnosis techniques during combat and infiltration training sessions. Specializes in long range throwing weaponry in conjunction with doujutsu and cloaking techniques and has mastered an array of chuunin-level ninjutsu techniques such as Katon, Shadow Clone, and Hidden Mist camouflage jutsu. Works well with other genin, but displays signs of over-competitiveness with certain peers (refer to file ID #: 000244) and is inclined to lead rather than follow. Has achieved mastery over use of the Kingan.
Is prone to showboating rather than stealth and possesses extreme over-confidence as a result of long time use of his doujutsu to get his way (often resorts to hypnosis when frustrated by peers). Sometimes temperamental and moody toward peers and superiors alike.
- - -
"Sooooo."
Neji looked away from the trees, deactivating his Byakugan as he did. They'd stopped for a few minutes to let Minami 'Take a whiz,' as she put it. Tachi had joined him while they waited.
"You're from Konoha?" Tachi said so conversationally as to be unnatural.
"Was," he answered tersely.
"The Hyuuga. Wow."
"Yeah."
"Hey," he ventured, glancing back toward his teammates (who were trying not to look like they were looking.) "I've heard a whole bunch of…of weird stuff about the Hyuuga. "That they have these…marks on their forehead and use brain control on their weaker members and stuff and the Clan Head has, like, twenty wives and…"
"I thought Kabuto instructed you on foreign shinobi clans," he said shortly, vaguely horrified, acutely annoyed.
"He… he did. But you hear stuff."
"Stuff?"
"Yeah." He was blushing now. "Stuff. So any of that true?"
"No."
"Ah."
Tachi's brilliantly marigold eyes were packing heat and if Neji had to hazard a guess, the boy's ability laid somewhere in making eye to eye contact with his victim, because he kept trying to angle himself around so Neji would look at him.
"So…how's it work?"
"Clan secret."
"Aww…why?" she whined. "You're a missing-nin now."
"Alright then, how do your eyes work?"
He stiffened; shocked that he'd ask such a thing. "I can't tell you! It's secret!"
"Ah."
Tachi grumbled and fell into step alongside him. "Okay, fine, but could you at least…I dunno. Tell me why I haven't seen you with all the other jounin mentors?"'
"I was in the process of defecting." And Kabuto was beating the living shit out of me for days on end.
"Is that it?" Tachi inquired earnestly, blinking very hard at him.
Neji held his gaze steady. "Yes."
Tachi's eyes were very wide now. "Really? That's it? Nothing else?"
"No."
"Really?" He was no longer blinking by then.
"Your doujutsu is some kind of hypnosis, am I right?" Neji inquired pointedly.
Tachi jumped guiltily, startled. "No, I…it was just…yeah, but…"
"That kind of thing doesn't work on the Byakugan. Sharingan hypnosis is the only doujutsu that does. You'd know that if you paid attention in Kabuto's lectures."
"Yeah, but how'd you…"
"I read your profile."
"Oh, well if that…Hey! Wait a second you already knew all our names then! Why'd you make us do introductions!?"
"…just to see if you would."
Tachi sputtered for a minute in childish chagrin, various oaths and profanities spilling out of the shinobi rugrat while Neji calculated how long it would take to get to a proper stopping place tonight.
- - -
Ninja Information
Name: Hebita, Minami
Registration ID: 000244
Hidden Village: Sound
Rank: Genin
Team: -
Element: Earth
Physical Information
Age: 12
Sex: Female
Birthday: 6/21
Bloodtype: A
Height: 148.2 cm
Weight: 34.9 kg
Notable features Has achieved fluency in Sound field-code. Exhibits understanding of chuunin level taijutsu and a select few jounin-level ninjutsu techniques while working in tandem with her twin sister in combat. (refer to file ID#: 000245) Individually, student exhibits talent for inventing offensive jutsu, some of which have received merit from members of the Sound elite. Notably: 1 – Hebita Bing-Bang; 2 – Firecracker Flash; 3 – Mum Technique (Note: names were of student's own invention)
Lacks in basic genjutsu skills. Student possesses a temper and has been reprimanded for rash behavior during practice missions. Student grows despondent when separated from her sister for prolonged periods of time and is incorrigibly competitive with male genin. (refer to file ID# 000239, 000251, 000245, 000255, 00232) Though student works well in a team, she displays signs of brass independence in regular situations. Lacks patience and ability to strategize on the fly.
- - -
"Yo."
Minami had moved away from where her genin teammates were pretending to eat their sandwiches and talk about the weather (they were, in fact, watching every move Neji made) and was currently standing precariously close to Neji's lunch. Not that he was particularly hungry, but that idea that his student might think it acceptable to very nearly stand on his food seemed rude so he was inclined to be curt with her.
"Yes, Minami?"
The little girl made a face and jammed one finger in her ear, wriggling it about thoughtfully. "I just wanted to tell you…" she said, flicking whatever she'd excavated from her eardrum into the bushes, "make one thing clear."
And then she went on to make more (far more) than one thing clear. By about the twentieth thing – including the three times she'd called him 'crap' – the young Hyuuga's attention was drifting. Neji tried very hard to look as if he were taking her seriously…but he wasn't. Her hair was just so damn bouncy and it was distracting his skills at politeness. Hell, even Sakura's bubblicious frock behaved itself; Minami's was a frothing mess of Valentine's Day ribbon curls exploding out of her scalp like frosting. She was a jabbering cupcake. She stopped finally to take a breath and he managed to interject: "Mmmhmm…" with great sincerity.
"I also think you're crap," Minami said, as if for the first time.
"Mmmhmm…"
"And I think you're a jerk."
"Hmm…"
And I think, this mission is gonna be…kinda tough."
"Mmmhmm…"
"Me'n my sister are like this, okay?" she crossed her middle and index finger. "And she's real important to me."
"Mmm…"
"So if things get really tough, I can take care of myself. Don't help me. I don't need your stupid help."
"Hmm…"
"You…you help Nishi-chan. Okay?"
Neji glanced over to where Nishi was twiddling her thumbs and smiling shyly while Tachi serenaded her with tales of his many exploits as a first class genin (which included taking down three missing-nin while blindfolded apparently). The teen jounin turned back to Minami and nodded, feeling all the more like a monster as he did.
"I can do that, Minami-san."
"Thanks, Neji-sensei," she said with an uncharacteristically soft smile. Then she glowered and added, "But I still think you're a jerk. Tachi told me about the genin files you cheeky bastard."
He took a small bite of his sandwich. "Yes, but now I know you won't steal my pickled plums," he replied.
"Eeeeeeeew!"
- - -
That night, while the three Sound shinobi-to-be sleep peacefully around the embers of their small fire, Neji sat with his back to the base of a trunk. Watching their eyes twitch in their dreams – seeking out enemies in fantasy tree branches, hurling kunai into the throats of faceless goons, chasing cupcakes through fields of daisies – he rubbed his dry hands and tried to decide if he could kill them to save himself.
Author's Note:
I am more than painfully aware how thinly written this chapter is! THANK YOU! I've failed. Sorry to everyone who reads this. I'm sorry.
Thanks to Katterree Fengarifor being so nice and observant. As to your question about that 'ultimate move never used on humans' if you've ever seen the Neji vs. Kidomaru fight (the episode, not the managa) it's the move he uses on the spiders. My shtick is that move is not a traditionally Hyuuga move, but one he developed on his own and only he can do. It's like his trademark technique to himself. As usual Beboots andDayadhvam have been ridiculously supportive. And to answer some of Dayadhvam's questions: 1 – Yes, Itachi should pop up again. 2 – Because crazy likes company and Neji is so pushing crazy by now.
Next chapter: fear of committing an unpardonable sin