Thank you to everyone who read and liked so far ^_^ We only have three more chapters to go! I'm not quite sure when the next chapter will be, as I'm going to be out of town for the next week and a few days. I hope it'll be up by Friday.

Oh, do forgive me for any random code tags you find in this. I couldn't catch them all. ^_^

Dsclaimer: As always, I do not own Naruto.

Chapter Seven – Neglect

Hyuuga Neji was missing.

At first, his absence hadn't brought any particular reaction from the Hyuuga. When Hinata had gone to his room half an hour after sunrise, carrying a tray of food, she had found his room empty, futon unmade in the corner. The kind-hearted girl had assumed that Tenten had visited early that morning, to drag her cousin out once more. She was sure that those outings did her cousin good; he had thanked her only two days ago and had begun to perhaps nibble on something now and then. In fact, his morning absence had served as slight encouragement to his younger cousin; Neji's current inactivity had deeply troubled the kind-hearted girl, who had taken his uncharacteristic breakage of routine as very worrisome. Thus, she had taken the empty room as a sign her cousin was finally better and back to his daily dawn spars with Tenten, a routine the two had followed almost religiously for the past five years. Gently, she had placed the tray laden with appetite-teasing food on the low table in his room and quietly left.

An hour later, the same Hinata was worried again, looking at Tenten as she entered the Hyuuga compound, a slightly anxious frown on her face.

"Ten-Tenten-san?" she had inquired, the stammer making several fellow Hyuuga glance her way in discontent; Hinata's stammer had begun to retreat and, in fact, they hadn't heard in in a while. To see it return brought back painful times to those hard, lavender eyes. "Isn't Neji-niisan with you?" the girl asked uncertainly.

Tenten's frown deepened. "No." she had replied, her chocolate brown eyes meeting Hinata's all-too familiar lavender ones. "I only just came to drag him out of his room. Why?" her question had sounded guarded, as if she were afraid Hinata's answer would cause her fresh worry. She was anxious enough about her remaining teammate without wanting to add more to it and to her grief. Faintly, she began to fret about whether neji's gradual progress had just taken a turn for the worse.

"He's not here. He wasn't in his room when I looked in an hour ago."

The simple reply had made the tense kunoichi even tenser, her already anxious form tighten. "Then where is he?" she had demanded.

Hinata had only wished she had an answer to give her.

At first, the two girls had searched for him alone around the Hyuuga complex and the surrounding streets. Though Hinata's Byakugan caught faint chakra-imprints she was sure belonged to him, they were old. Her far-seeing eyes couldn't find any fresh traces of his presence, something that was deeply troubling her friend, who sped up her pace. Within an hour of fruitless searching, Shikamaru, Kiba and Akamaru had joined the search, having run into the two kunoichi. It took another hour for Tenten to despair.

"Where can he have gone?" she demanded, voice laden with worry.

"We still ha-haven't looked in the east side." Hinata suggested to her meekly.

"Kiba and Akamaru took that side. They would have notified us if they'd found him." Tenten replied. The four had split up into groups; her and Hinata together, Kiba and Akamaru, Shikamaru and Shino – whom he'd gone to fetch, in order to speed their search up. Every team had also promised to notify any other members of the Konoha 11 they could in the meantime; more numbers meant more efficient ground coverage.

"Y-you're right." Hinata stammered back. Tenten glanced her way and sighed; she hated to make Hinata so tense, but she really couldn't help her tone at the moment. She promised to herself to try and soften her voice. After all, it wasn't Hinata's fault Neji was missing.

"Do you think he's hurt?" she asked her worriedly. "Maybe he was out for a walk and got ambushed, or lost, or ill? He hasn't been well recently…" she trailed off, thinking of her teammate's pale, drawn face, his self-loathing eyes, his shaking hands.

"He'll be alright." She only replied.

After every inch of Konoha had been searched through and through, the search teams gathered to share information, then set out again. Shikamaru, with his characteristic "troublesome" attitude failing to hide his brilliance, had outlined a search plan for the surrounding area. They would spread out around Konoha's wall, each team at a different position around the circle. They'd slowly move outwards, spiraling around the village. For that purpose, those with the extra sensing abilities would be divided into each team so that they could cover the ground they swerved around: Kiba and Akamaru, Shino, Hinata and Hanabi, who had surprisingly joined the search, would have to pair up with himself, Tenten, Ino and Chouji.

"We're searching for Neji." He'd said. "Anyone to find him or any trace, intercept the team spiraling behind you. Anyone intercepted do the same." They had all nodded and set out.

That had been two hours ago. Tenten, who was glad to have been paired up with Hinata again, had insisted she was given the southeast forest area to check; that was where their team had trained in their Genin days, where her and Neji's training clearing still lay, just a few kilometers away from the village wall. She couldn't know if he would have headed there – if in fact he hadn't been abducted or otherwise hurt – but she had an inkling of hope that he would be there. He had to.

No one else had argued her choice, but had let her choose rather than provoke an outburst. Out of all of them, Tenten was the closest one to Neji, even closer to him than Hinata. If someone was to know where he might be, it would be her.

Minutes passed in tense silence as she and Hinata rushed from branch to branch, going as quickly as they could while surveying the area designated to them thoroughly. Tenten looked in front of them while Hinata checked the spiral space they were shading in with their trajectory. Often, Tenten found herself holding her breath, wishing to feel that familiar chakra signature close by that signaled she had found him. She couldn't bear to lose her remaining teammate, couldn't bear to lose Neji.

He wasn't in their meeting spot.

It was with a heavy heart that she shook her head at Hinata. "Not here." She said, looking down at the small clearing where Gai-sensei would have them gather each morning at absurd hours, just to initiate them in some new, eccentric training method, such as swimming with a backpack full of large boulders. It was with a sad, yet fond smile that she remembered Lee's steadfast exuberance at each new, posed challenge while she and Neji would stare in disbelief.

No, she was sure Neji would have headed this way. If he was driven by grief and guilt, and some part of her knew with certainty that that was why he'd disappeared, he would have headed this way. This clearing was heavy with memories of Lee.

With a last look, she headed on. "He'll be close." She told Hinata. He has to be.With that positive attitude in mind, she hurried onwards, eyes and heart straining to see her partner somewhere amidst the forest flora.

Five minutes later, they arrived at her and Neji's clearing. The large open space was where they had always practiced together, ever since they were eleven years old. It bore multitudes of evidence of their time there; there were still unhealed craters carved in the grass from his Kaiten and darker patches of grass where such craters had presumably been, as well as notches and wounds in the surrounding trees from all her weapons.

As she and Hinata landed down at the edge of the clearing, sje saw him at the same time as Hinata gasped and ran forward, her Byakugan showing her her cousin's chakra system. Both kunoichi rushed forwards, eyes wide as Neji, who was kneeling listlessly on the grass, clutched a kunai against his knee.

"Neji?" The tentative, frightened voice was Tenten's and she hated the frail quality it bore. He didn't answer as the two women approached him quietly, having slowed down when they saw he wasn't responding. Tenten saw that his eyes were half-closed, his face bone-white other than two patches of red on his cheeks. His hair was loose and falling around his shoulders, limp strands sticky with the sweat that was covering him. For a moment, she gaped at the unfamiliar sight of her teammate in worse condition than she could ever imagine him in. The only familiar sight was his gleaming hitae-ate, still shining brightly with the dark symbol of Konoha etched into it.

"He's burning up." Hinata said quietly, a hand on his forehead. Carefully, she grasped his shoulders and gently pulled him sideways so that first he was lying on his side, then she maneuvered him with Tenten's help so that he was lying on his back. Her nimble hands removed her cousin's forehead protector, putting it in her pocket. "We need to get him back to the village." She told the girl, then looked at her.

Tenten was kneeling next to her, staring into her friend's ashen face. In her hand, she held the kunai she'd carefully taken from Neji's hand; he'd yielded with thankful willingness. Her eyes were gazing down at her partner's face, wide in shock. Hinata couldn't blame her, really. No matter what they'd expected to find, Neji's condition was still startling. She knew Tenten was worried, hurting because of it.

"I'll go intercept the next team." She offered, though, as a med-nin, it made more sense for her to remain. She wouldn't have been able to do much for her cousin, but she decided that that little difference she could have made wasn't enough to send Tenten away, to wound the kunoichi's heart any further. Tenten only gave a small nod as a sign she'd heard. She'd taken Neji's sweaty, cold hand into her own, her fingers unconsciously rubbing his.

"Hurry." Was all she said, and her voice carried the wounded quality of a child. Hinata only nodded and, with a chakra-enhanced jump, was in the treetops in the blink of an eye.

When the others arrived, team by team, they found her still in the same position in which Hinata had left her; kneeling by neji's side, her hand holding his. She didn't move at first when Kiba gently pried her limp teammate out of her grasp and slung him over Akamaru's side. "Come on, Tenten!" he'd told her. "We're getting back!"

The next half hour was vaguely blank to the kunoichi as the rescue team rushed back to the village. After some debate between Shikamaru and Hinata, they took Neji to the hospital instead of the Hyuuga compound. Secretly, Tenten was pleased. It seemed unbelievably ironic to her, but she was sure that the hospital staff of plain ninja and nurses would see far more into the situation than a hundred, flawless and all-seeing Hyuuga eyes. After all, hadn't Neji's eyes been just as blind once?

Please let him be alright… she prayed silently in her head as the medical staff placed Neji in a bed and Sakura began to examine him. She could hardly feel her fellow shinobi around and behind her as they all waited on Sakura's diagnosis. The pink-haired woman looked up after several minutes, green eyes seeing the small crowd in the small hospital room.

"He'll be fine." She said calmly. "Just a fever. Really nothing to worry about." There was an obvious air of relief, but no one moved from their spot. Sakura sighed. "Most of you should go. I doubt either Neji or the other patients would take well to being crowded." She added, glancing at the other two patients in the room – a twelve year old who must have been a Genin and one of the Jounin. When she didn't look away, some started to mumble and the group thinned, those who'd participated in the retrieval leaving. A 'troublesome' was heard through the sounds of muffled footsteps and the scratch of claws on the tiled floor. Only Tenten and Hinara remained, who promptly took a seat on either side of Neji.

"Will he really be alright, Sakura-san?" Hinata asked her fellow med-nin, fingers twirling together in a gesture that usually annoyed Neji. Now, however, his face was just as pale and blank as if he were dead. The thought made the Hyuuga heir shiver.

"Well.." The slight hesitation in the med-nin's voice had Tenten's rapt attention in the blink of an eye. She looked up from where she had been holding Neji's hand again, gazing intently at Sakura. "I didn't lie before.. But I thought he wouldn't have wanted the others to know." Her words didn't exactly reassure the two women. "It's true that he's only got a fever, but his condition is very alarming. His system is exhausted, and not from the extensive use of chakra. He's weakened from malnourishment and.. I could only wager to say he's depressed."

"With.. with what's happened in the past few weeks.." Hinata said softly, leaving her sentence unfinished.

"It's fully understandable." Sakura said, glancing at Tenten. "He should stay here, overnight at the very least. I can combat the fever and the rest will do him good. However, he'll need you." The last comment was directed directly at Tenten. Sakura thought she and she alone could bring Neji out of his self-neglect and loathing, not only because they had both suffered the loss of a teammate. She had seen the look on the kunoichi's face when she looked at him. Besides, she was the only other one among the Konoha Eleven who could understand his pain. Though the pink-haired kunoichi didn't mention it, this had been what she had feared from the very beginning; a breakdown.

She was sad to say she'd been proven right.

"What can I do?" Tenten demanded immediately, her grip around Neji's hand tightening.

"Help his heart heal."

If only I knew how…

Author's note: Please look forward to chapter eight, Explosion!