Most of the rating and the warnings apply to this chapter.

Additional warning: Lime is not my forte.

Forever Bound

Part 2

What good is it to kill the dead again?

– Sophocles, Antigone

When night fell, they made camp in the middle of the endless dunes. After making sure Lee was sound asleep, Neji stood and went over to Tenten, who had elected to take first watch.

He knelt to be on eye level with her. Deep amber burned into cool silver. Her gaze was conveying the message of, You don't have to say anything to prove it. I know.

Knowing he had nothing to lose, he placed his hands on her waist to steady himself. After a moment of hesitation, he moved between her legs and brushed his lips against hers briefly. She kissed back. His hand rose, and his fingers undid the knot that kept her buns up. She did not protest. Her long, luscious brown hair cascaded down her back and he was kissing her again whilst threading his fingers through hair that felt akin to silk.

It was like water, he decided, as he traced her lips tenderly with his tongue. Every strand of her hair slipped through his fingers like water, and those miniscule grains of sand could be the salt. Able to be felt and held, but some would always slip through one way or another... Just like her, he added subconsciously – and oh god, were those her fingers running up and down his inner thigh?

His lips moved down, and soon he was breathing harshly into the hollow of her neck as those nimble fingers – he was really lucky to have a weapons expert on his team – journeyed higher. His subsequent moan was muffled by her neck when her fingers tightened around his bulge.

He lifted his head and pressed his lips insistently against hers, trying and failing to stifle a moan into her mouth as he felt her fingers suddenly tightening again while exploring that section of his body through his clothes. Her tender lips moved in accordance with his (as if they had practiced this all their life), but within him, he felt that it was wrong... No, there was nothing inside him. Nothing could not be wrong. There was just an empty, hollow feeling because somehow this wasn't the same Tenten.

Wishing to voice this concern, he pulled a centimeter away briefly and started, "I–"

"It had to be done." Tenten repeated her words from the afternoon and quietly placed a finger against his lips, effectively silencing him before he could say any more. The fingers had stopped and were now resting on the sand beside her hip. The other hand that had wandered behind him during their intimate moment stroked his back comfortingly, almost absentmindedly. "Go to sleep, Neji."

He was still breathing heavily, but, much to his dismay, the cool night air along with her words and serious tone of voice had quickly eased his lust. He was disappointed, but it was hardly the ideal time anyway, what with their teammate (somehow) still blissfully asleep and unaware along with the troublesome, sandy floor Mother Nature had provided them with. The years he had put into training his self-restraint came to use.

The morning came quietly with a crisp, biting cold that was characteristic of the desert. Tenten had dozed off during her watch, but no enemies had bothered them anyway. They collected their provisions, along with the white bird, and forged onward in an unusual silence

Before noon, a dark speck loomed in front of them. Lee finally spoke the first words of the morning. "Is that the mountain?"

Neji replied curtly, "Quite possibly." Then they were silent, darting through the receding dunes. Slowly, gradually, the sand was replaced by dirt, the pine smell returned, and the day became darker. They arrived at the base of the mountain soon after. Using his doujutsu, Neji could see the faint chakra signatures near the summit, and the camp was just as the blueprint had portrayed it to be.

He motioned to Lee. "Leave the bird. It will be a liability, and it will not do well up there." He then gestured toward the mountain.

Lee obliged, saying a few parting words to the animal. The bird hopped around a bit and chirped while Tenten looked longingly up the slope.

"Ready?" Neji asked. He wasn't sure if he was even ready himself. The Green Beast grinned and punched the air, dispelling some of the tension with his usual enthusiasm. "Yes! Let us go."

They began the ascent, clambering up the steep path through the rocks. The air became chilly and, after half an hour of climbing, wet, sloshy snow dominated the ground. "It's rare to see snow in the summer," Lee commented. "Perhaps not up in the mountains, though. I wonder if any other poor soul lives up here? I do not think so." He began a chain of asking and answering his own questions.

Other than Lee's rambling, the air was eerily quiet. The gust of wind was prominent in their ears, except for a moment in which Neji thought he could hear the flapping of wings. He shook himself mentally – he needed to focus on the task at hand.

Lee stopped talking when the temperature suddenly dropped. A chill ran through Neji. He felt Tenten grasp his hand and hold it tightly as they soared the rest of the way up the mountain. A spark of relief awakened within him at the motion, and another chill, this time of warmth, ignited his senses and electrified his body like a bolt of lightning. Suddenly, he felt a deep, profound love for her. They had been with each other through thick and thin; distrust of teammates had never been an option, but both proved worthy of receiving the other's faith. Is it possible for me to live without you? Neji wondered absently.

But he could not dwell on that passionate feeling for long, as the path started winding and they were soon darting along steep switchbacks. They had to traverse carefully so as not to slip on the ice.

They arrived just below the summit an hour later. Tenten squeezed his hand once and finally let it go. Lee came up behind them with his teeth chattering. None of them had had the option of warmer clothing, after all.

"What's the plan?" Tenten asked over the howling wind.

"There isn't much of one." Neji scanned the area with his Byakugan. The guards were positioned in the same locations as on the map. "Tsunade-sama didn't give us any additional information about them, so I'm assuming they're just regular bandits. We'll just have to surprise them as best as we can and take them out. Don't make too much of a disturbance, as we are not authorized to complete our mission in the Land of Earth."

"Assumptions are d-dangerous," Lee chattered, at which Neji nodded solemnly. "Be careful, you two." He glanced pointedly at both of them. "I will take the right flank. Lee will cut through the middle with his speed. Tenten, you can cover us from the left with your range," he explained.

Lee's head bobbed up and down rapidly. "Simple enough! Shall we go? I need to warm up with some action."

"Ready?" Neji glanced at Tenten. She tightened her fingertip-less gloves and replied, "I'll never be readier."

He nodded again. "Leave your packs here. We'll come back to retrieve them later."

The other two obliged and, together, they made their way to the top.

They took their assigned positions effortlessly. Lee was in the middle, darting behind one of the sturdier-looking tents. Neji and Tenten lurked in the shadows on both sides, waiting to spring like hunters. The camp consisted of several tents around the perimeter of a courtyard. A heavy mist settled on the area. There are several bandits present, but the purge shouldn't take long, Neji thought. The mist will help us surprise them, but it will give them more cover from Tenten.

He glanced at both of his teammates, knowing they would come to the same conclusion. He waited until they made eye contact and gave the affirmative. Tenten would lead the offensive, as usual, with her Soshoryu, and the other two would leap in to finish off the rest with backup.

Having already gotten a thumbs-up from Lee, Neji gazed at Tenten quietly, waiting for her to signal. She had taken out a green and yellow scroll. Then she looked up at him, amber melting into silver. She nodded.

Her chakra suddenly flared up in preparation for the technique. Neji could feel his own eyes sharpen in concentration, as a hawk's would and how they always did before a battle. Lee bristled like an angry cat.

Then the weapons – kunai, shuriken, senbon, scythe, katana, naginata, chains, and the like – were flying all over the courtyard. He could hear the alarmed guards shouting to one another and the sickening squelch of a katana stabbing through the guard with the green coat across the field. The man fell to the ground, lying prone and still.

The Hyuuga had questioned the morals of taking another man's life before, and this was no different. He felt a chill, as he always did. But he couldn't deny that killing awakened a feral savageness with him – an animalistic hunger. He wasn't sure if he enjoyed the feeling or not.

Lee sprang into action a second later, scurrying around the tent he was positioned behind and knocking out one of the renegades who had appeared. Neji himself flew out of cover to take out another bandit. In his peripheral vision, he spotted an archer in one of the trees. But he knew the others would be careful.

Faintly, he heard a gruff voice shout, "Kuchiyose no jutsu!" Summoning, he registered in the back of his head. No matter. He kicked another renegade in the gut and closed several of his tenketsu while he was down. The man screamed as his chakra flow was disrupted abruptly.

Neji heard a bark behind him. Summoning dogs like Kakashi? he thought. He turned, and sure enough there was a huge black dog darting towards him, canine teeth bared. He saw a speck to his left and ducked before the eagle's beak could stab his eye. Birds too?

Kicking and forcing back the monstrosity of a dog, he saw Tenten hit the eagle square in its breast with shuriken. It tumbled out of his Byakugan's range and suddenly, a bear roared up in front of him and a squirrel clambered up his body to scratch his face.

Is this a battle against nature? he wondered as he mindlessly stabbed the squirrel in its chest with a sharp kunai and dodged the bear's paw. But are we the hunters, or are we the prey?

Then he heard a familiar whinny and the images came rushing back. Empty eyes...and the picture stayed prominent even as, in the midst of battle, he tried to remember her once radiant smile. He drove another kunai into a mountain lion and jumped to avoid a snake. And still he could hear the enemy's summonings being called out.

It felt surreal. Was he really there, fighting animals that were summoned by bandit shinobi on a mountain? His body moved in fluid, rehearsed motions. The only evidence of movement was the gathering tension in his muscles. He needed to find that summoner.

But suddenly, abruptly, the dream ended with a sickening squelch. He barely registered Tenten's scream, only stared at the x-ray image of his Byakugan as the bandit pulled his sharp saber, now slick with blood, out of Lee's chest. And, oh god, this was happening. It was real; he was leading them to their deaths. What happened now could not be reversed. The dream was endless. The Green Beast fell, out of sight among the hordes of animals.

It was the first time one of his teammates had actually fallen in battle. And a member of his very own Team Gai, no less.

Lee...wasn't he indestructible? How could he be felled by just one blow? Everything that Lee had ever lived for, the past sixteen years, was gone in less than three seconds because he had failed to dodge just one out of thousands of weapons that had come lunging after him. It wasn't fair. But life wasn't fair, after all.

And when had he been tricked into thinking so ideally? A voice at the back of his mind answered with the name of the person he had come to love. But didn't he remind himself everyday, as a shinobi, that this was reality? That this sort of thing could ha –

The trance of shock was shattered by a great force ramming into him. He heard the ferocious whinny as his body crashed onto the ground, and he felt an old wound reopen. But from a horse? He looked down and saw the arrow, wedged deep in his left shoulder. It was all going to hell. Everything right here, right now was going to hell, now that he had been forced out of his shock.

He felt that animalistic instinct surge within him. What was there to lose anyway? He pulled the arrow out immediately, barely feeling the pain, using it to impale that bear, whipping out a kunai to slice that fox, and suddenly he had launched into his Hakke Rokujuuyonshou.

His hands felt like lead but moved like water, again and again, forever again, speeding up, and again forevermore. The last 32 sent a pack of three dogs into what remained of the tent Lee had hidden behind. The horse who had rammed into him was long unconscious or dead with all its tenketsu sealed.

The summoner's voice was now pained, possibly from suffering an angry, vengeful, tear-filled barrage from Neji's very own weapons mistress. But he was still able to choke out, "Kuchiyose no jutsu," one last time, through bloodied lips, before falling motionlessly to the ground.

The hell intensified again.

Neji felt himself slipping away from consciousness as his joints stiffened with the cold and his muscles became taut. Only the gods of the heavens could have understood how tired he was – physically, mentally, and emotionally. And Lee. Yes, he could have, that damned fool. Yes, and there was another devilish-looking horse.

He could no longer stay on the offensive. He lifted his arms and tried to jump out of the way, still bracing for impact just in case.

It came with a ferocious whinny, slamming the breath out of him through his stomach. He was thrown, and suddenly he was flying through the air. He braced himself for impact once more, expecting it against the ground.

But this time, it never came. All he could feel was his body falling, and all he could see was the pure whiteness of the snow that was falling with him.

Tenten woke up in a dark, damp cell. She was lying on the ground. She started to get up, wincing as a twinge of pain surged through her leg, only to drop back down as the chains binding her arms rattled and voices resonated throughout the hall.

"Do you think I can release the jutsu yet?" a refined voice sounded.

"He's probably still up there searching," a gruff voice replied.

"I did tell you that my genjutsu could fool even the renowned Byakugan, didn't I?"

"Fortunately, you were right. The chakra-suppressing barrier I summoned around this place helped conceal us too. Don't take all the credit."

The footsteps were coming closer. Tenten shut her eyes as the first voice spoke again, "They put up a good fight, but I was able to get an arrow in the Hyuuga. The main loss was Haruki. No one else in our group could summon as well as him. But to think that just the illusion of a tattered camp would fool trained Konoha shinobi –"

"She's awake," the second voice cut him off.

There was silence other than the footsteps. The metal door of the cell opened and closed after the two men stepped in.

"Hey," the second, rougher voice sounded again next to her. Tenten opened her eyes and stared at him weakly but defiantly. He wore a cap with spiky brown hair peeking out the sides and a scar running down the left side of his face. The other had brown hair as well and a seemingly innocent face.

"Your arms must be cramped up, huh?" the man with the spiky hair asked, sitting on the ground a few feet away. Tenten thought sardonically to herself, No, really?

He continued, "I'll let you stretch them." Go to hell, she replied in her mind. She licked her parched lips.

"Get some water for her," the same man ordered in his monologue. The other, with the untainted face, nodded and left. "I'm not one for intimidation," the scar-faced man said. "Neither from myself nor from the captive."

"Why are you doing this?" Tenten asked, ignoring his other words. She could feel blood running down her face, barely missing her eyes.

The man brushed off some dust that had settled on his arm. "I hold a grudge against the villages. Corrupt government, they all are. And everything else that comes with being a large village. You know, the typical bad guy resentment? There's a reason these excuses are so popular."

"You don't have to trap shinobi for that reason." Tenten took the cup of water that was handed to her and drank it slowly. It was refreshing and, somehow, it made her forget how dire her situation was.

"Why not? It doesn't matter to you anymore," Scar-face said, effectively ending the topic as Tenten stayed silent.

He sent his comrade to take the cup back to the kitchen, or wherever in this hellhole that it had come from. Then he said, "I'm going to unchain you. Don't try anything. Your broken leg will prevent you from escaping." His friend returned rather quickly and stood as a silent sentinel by the door, with a leash in his hand that was chained to a black dog. Scar-face got up and walked over to her.

Tenten heard the telltale slash of a chakra-infused katana and the chains breaking apart. She stretched her liberated arms and immediately went for her weapons holster, only to find that it was not there.

"Don't worry about it. We won't hurt you." Scar-face used his foot to gently push her over so that she was lying on her back. She winced at the pain in her leg. Ah, that's right...one of the bears shook the tree I was in and threw me off. I remember now. That's why my leg hurts so much. Another rush of pain surged through it.

Lee...

She willed the tears to dry. But, alas, she failed. They flowed down her face, mingling with the blood. She spat when some of the bitter solution reached her lips. The mix of liquids made its way to the dirt-covered floor.

It wasn't fair. He had worked so hard...what was his ninja motto? Never give up? He wanted to prove that hard work could surpass genius...she wondered if he had ever reached that goal. Gai-sensei would be displeased when they returned.

Hell, he would bawl his eyes out for days on end.

Neji...he would definitely mourn the death of their boisterous comrade as well. (The tears kept streaming down.) Those two had grown to become friends, although they still remained rivals, over the years. Neji greatly respected the spandex-loving man now, and Lee had returned the favor from the beginning.

And her? Lee had always been a strong boy with a kind heart. He inspired her to work harder in the face of adversity. When everything seemed hopeless...she would not lose hope.

Because with hope comes something to fight for, something to believe in. The memory of Gai's parting words during their first training session together resounded loudly in her head, reverberating off the walls of her mind, even though she had not paid much attention to them at that time.

The mysterious man took a step over her, avoiding the diluted blood on the floor, and crouched while adjusting his cap.

"This will be quick and painless. I promise." The chained black dog barked as he said the words.

Lee...Neji...

I...I still have something to fight for. Something to believe in.

She could feel the beating of her heart against an invisible, impeding wall within her chest.

Don't...

He placed two fingers against her heart. He breathed deeply, his own heart racing to match hers.

She allowed herself a small smile as her hope strengthened.

Don't they always say that love is endless?

Neji woke up shivering and partly under a thick bed of snow. He kicked out with his feet to clear the ice, feeling pain shoot through his left arm when he tried to balance himself on it. He remembered the arrow.

With a grunt of exertion, he lifted himself off the ground with his right hand and stood up. The snow was still falling and blindingly white. He could not see the ground a few meters from where he was standing.

Activating his Byakugan, Neji scanned the mountaintop. There was nothing except for two isolated pine trees scattered across the plateau. The camp was an illusion and a trap, then. They must have taken Lee's body...and her, he concluded in miserable defeat. Damn, this mission was destined for hell. I don't even know where they could possibly be.

He examined his shoulder. No...there was no way he could find the enemies and defeat them with that kind of injury. His breathing was hoarse; he scrunched over when another surge of pain almost caused him to black out.

Using his doujutsu and gripping his left arm, he slowly recovered and navigated his way several meters through the snowstorm, which was lessening in intensity. Pain rippled through his body and almost blinded him as he stumbled through the deep layers of snow. He must have broken a few ribs, too.

He stopped at the edge of the cliff and saw a ray of sunlight peeking through the falling snow. After a few minutes, which could have amounted to an hour for all he knew and in which he endured the pain of his arm, the snow stopped falling almost completely. His arm became numb and the sun reflected brilliantly off the snow.

Lee...

The fact that he was gone forever was hard to believe. He wouldn't trust his thoughts until he returned to the village with Tenten, and until they were assigned a mission that lacked a green ball of youth jumping excitedly around them as they left Konoha –

And when had he been tricked into thinking so ideally?

...Tenten.

That's right. But perhaps that moment between them yesterday (or was it already the day before?) was worth risking everything for.

Maybe...maybe it really was better to have it and be broken later than not at all.

He thought back to their conversation on the first night of the mission. What had he said? "A dream always seems far off, but it's just waiting to become a reality." At that time, he hadn't known what his true goal was. But, he realized, it had already been achieved.

Because they were there, still are there, lost, together, disjointed, united, separated, in what others call isolation but what they call loneliness.

'I-'

He finished the forsaken sentence in his mind. He was just disappointed that she would never hear him say it out loud.

But, of course, she knew. You don't have to say anything to prove it. I know. Words weren't always required to convey messages when it came to them.

Now, he detected the lone pine tree that was next to him. He reached an arm out to touch its needles. He could smell the fresh odor that emanated from it and he tasted some lingering snow on his tongue. Then as he watched the sky he saw a white bird soar through the air with a leaf in its mouth. It chirped loudly and clearly in the bright sunlight.

Yes. I...

He felt his heart beating against the chill of the mountain wind.

FIN