Journey of the Three Failures Chapter 27: Hinata and Neji, a naruto fanfic

J3F/ / /Journey of the Three Failures

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Hey! Sorry for the wait, but I'm here!

Another semester down :P I kind of had to forbid myself from working on this to make sure I'd actually get work done, lol. I've entered the honors program of my school, which offers the addition of some liberal arts exposure amid the regular engineering curriculum (this semester, my honors class was a pretty interesting American history course), but also adds a lot to the workload. Love it, though :D At this point, my plans are to follow a combined program to major in Engineering Physics and eventually get a master's in nuclear engineering.

But enough about me! Thanks for reviewing jgresidentevil, zigmas, kingdom219, castrjoa001, LordofDrow, awkarddnnja, Cuervo Blanco, Jrwest, Omega the darkness, KoreanGal5, adngo714, Malix2, soulofdragon1, RedRangerBelt, Chargone, AJ Katon, jesseternal, Veraozao, Guywithafish, amethystfirechik, Rosadpgeo, YouActivatedMyTrapCard, greaper3000, yusav, That Girl Gamer, clownerty, zyre13, UltimateRasengan, SunnyLunar, J R LeDoux, Lerris, demonliger, AnonOne, 9foxgrl, mundanebeast, and anons signing Dan, Midnight2, Nightwing, Wowza, and numerous Guests! Your feedback is appreciated!

A few notes on reviews: there's no need to apologize for leaving a long review! I definitely don't mind. Also, some new readers apologize for reviewing chapters besides the latest as they go - also unnecessary. I can't imagine an author who wouldn't appreciate feedback for any chapter or who would be annoyed by that, but maybe that's just me, lol. Though I guess a comment like this would be better placed at chapter one... XD Finally, you don't have to worry about spoiling the manga for me anymore, since I've been caught up for a good while and read the new chapters every week.

Questions and Answers: To help address some questions that might be common, I'll put some questions from reviews in bold, and answer beside them.

Is Hinata using her henge to hide her hanyou apperance? - Yes, as of now she is. Really forgot to mention that last chapter, but it'll be addressed this one.

Will being bitten on the neck cause Naruto to get the Blood Seal? - No; the seal can be transferred between two who 'share the same blood,' as it was put in ch5 I think. Also, remember Hinata has also bitten Naruto on the neck in ch 19 and 22, and several others in 21 to neutralize Kabuto's drug, with no other effects.

Why not kill off Shino OR Ino? - I feel like there hasn't been enough invested in them in this story that their deaths would have been very meaningful. Either would have been more of a shock factor death, its effect based mostly in people's feelings toward their canon characters and not how I've developed them in the story (since I haven't much). So though I don't particularly care a ton for either of them (or perhaps especially because I don't), it feels kind of cheap to kill off such minor characters whose deaths wouldn't even impact the fic plot.

"Will the series end with "the good guys" retaking Konoha?" - If you're asking if this battle for the village is the final story arc, it is :) Following the close of the action, just a conclusory chapter should follow.

Are Naruto and Lee going to do any more fighting before the end? - A bit ;) Though not another massive-scale battle like that in 26.

Why was Hashirama (Shodai Hokage) OOC? - Keep in mind that Hashirama's canon character being expanded upon is still relatively recent (at least to a fic that's been running 5 years). At the time 26 was being outlined and written, his goofball-ish, lighthearted nature hadn't yet been revealed or even hinted at; that was NARUTO chapter 619 in February, and his backstory was revealed in manga chapters over the following several weeks. That being said, with this story's course having been more or less fully planned out years ago, and with me having been in the process of writing chapter 26 (after Hashirama had already had his entrance into the fic in 25) at the point that those manga chapters were released, you can't really expect me to try to rewrite to incorporate his canon quirks. Some factors, like Itachi, have seen alterations midway from my original plans; some, like the Five Tails actually being a... dolphin horse thing? haven't and never will. In general though, trying to incorporate every newly revealed bit of information can get messy quick. In Hashirama's case, assume I was going primarily off what little we knew based on his one prior canon appearance in Orochimaru's attack on the Leaf that ended the Chuunin Exam Arc (at which point it's quite possible even Kishi himself hadn't yet put thought into Shodai eventually being revealed to have a 'true' different characterization or there being such a deeper scope to his powers).

Announcements: A poll is available on my profile page concerning the rate of release of the following two chapters, which are already complete and typed! I'll close the poll December 20 around midnight, so if you want to read 27 before voting, there is the possibility to do so.

-A 25-page mock-manga-chaptery thing, 'J3F Manga Special: The Return' is on my deviantART. Just a fun project I did during summer, I manga-fied a small part of 26 from the end of Neji vs. Hanabi to Hinata's appearance. Links can be found on my profile.

-There's also a Height Comparison drawing of the five main characters on my dA, if you want to see everyone's heights and final outfits, plus height and weight info in its description. Again, link is on my FFnet profile, at the top of the art section.

Sorry for such a long A/N! But updates are slow-ish, so it's not too bad, right...? K, here we go! It's an ambition I started this story with - I hope to give you one of the greatest Hinata vs. Neji rematches in the history of fanfiction! ;p

Disclaimer: I don't own NARUTO!

Somewhere, a great being stirred in curiosity.

"At last… it has begun."

One of her young, recently having returned from a spell of absence, studied her with eyes a ghostly red. He was displeased – openly dissatisfied to have been sent back here on the grounds of being 'too powerful a summon,' and quietly disgruntled that he could not peer through the bared black fangs of a cracking sneer and determine his Okaa-sama's thoughts.

"Why such a dour look, my child…?"

And why, indeed, the amusement glinting calmly in the icy eyes above her snout? Her calm at a time like this – it grated at the unhappy spirit, perhaps more than it should have. He selected another of the many reasons for his offending dourness, and voiced it. "This human-brother of hers – he seeks, yearns to harm her. I should be at the pup's side, to keep her from doing anything stupid."

"Quite the soft spot you've developed," she mused, almost chuckling as he fought not to bristle. "Have a little more faith in her. Our Koinu is a silly creature, certainly, but capable enough of watching her own back, I should hope… You taught her a good deal of that strength yourself, didn't you?"

His moodiness deflated to the slightest degree. Snorting, he broke his narrowed eyes from the greater beast's gaze.

"She will call on you at such a time as she deems fit. Until then, she will fight alone. You must humor mortals their wishes and pride, at times… This is the best way to deal with them…"

He shook his head. "Our silly pup, and her 'Brother,' huh…?" He would not say that he preferred to think of his concession as respecting her wishes rather than humoring them, with regards to his most unusual, undeniably human sister. However it irked him, she shared more history with a rotten mortal brother forever at odds than she did with her familiar. "I trust her," he asserted gruffly. "She'll show the fool her strength. Our strength runs through her as well; she wouldn't shame us with defeat."

"But winning or losing… that's not the interesting part…"

Half-substantial jaws clenched a bit too firmly. "'Interesting'?"

Gobi no Houkou peered loftily skyward, a smirk playing upon her great snout as her tails swayed, lax.

"Can she make him see the light… or will he drag her into darkness?"

Journey of the Three Failures

Twenty-Seven: Hinata and Neji

Part One: As Hyuuga

A trounced soldier lay prone on the side of a street in a quiet part of the village, burning with bitterness despite the great weight of her fatigue. Spared by the enemy, like some weakling without consequence… Of course a filthy dog would underestimate her strength.

But for all the justified indignation she felt, through all the offense, and despite a healthy and vehement urge to crush and thoroughly humiliate the ninja in question when next they crossed paths, something staunched her rage. That something stemmed undeniably from the small, steady whistles of breath that rolled from the tiny bundle of fur tucked carefully against the palm of her hand. He stirred feebly where he dozed against her, opening his mouth to expel a small, wet, trembling yawn.

The kunoichi's lip curled. Kusooo! Her thumb stroked the feline's cheek delicately. She momentarily broke her façade of death to curl more securely around her feeble companion, for he was precious. Her anger reluctantly crumbled away. Damned wolfpuppy…

I hissed and called you the worst… but I guess you're not a bad kid.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a wounded cry. Initially she stilled her breath and relaxed her face, shutting down the instinct to bristle as a potential threat drew near her and her dear companion. But then–

"Sis?! Wh-who did this to you…?"

Oh, for the love of… "What're you doing here, Takaki?" she asked flatly, opening her eyes to see the other Nekozaki jump. The mark of New Oto gleamed on his forehead; his large cat, three feet high at the shoulders and sporting a tuft of long fur that ran into a mane down its back, cocked its head and mewed in delight.

"S-Saeko-chan-nya?" he exclaimed, the verbal tic slipping by in his flabbergasted state. He sniffed momentarily, and abruptly flung himself upon the ANBU in a hug.

"O-oi – that's Koneko when we're on duty, you dolt – and get off before you crush Doumou-tan!"

He drew away, beaming like an idiot before he wiped his eyes. For all the stubble on his chin, Tataki had the heart of a kitten. In any case, Saeko mused with wry fondness, the great, gangly oaf was among few of their kinsmen who wouldn't judge her defeat.

"Hehe – I get it! Leave it to my Onee-chan to survive with her cleverness! You duped some Leaf rebels by playing dead, huh?"

What a nice assumption, she thought, scowling slightly. "I was… we were spared."

"Spared?"

"By a soft heart…" She sat up, slowly. She watched the black kitten snuggle again into her hand, seeking her warmth as she shifted. Tataki withheld a gasp as he caught sight of Doumou's tender form; quite a dent must have put into his sister's stock of lives. She sighed. "She's a funny one, alright. But strong enough… not someone I'd mind fighting as a comrade, honestly."

Tucking the little one against her chest, she looked soberly at the long hand Tataki offered. He smiled gently; sunlight glinted from the New Sound emblem he wore.

"In another life, huh?"

She took his hand. "Yeah…"

He hauled her on up, scooping her into his long arms before she could protest. "Go ahead and relax your chakra, too. You were holding onto your form in case you had to defend yourself, right? The fighting's still going on, but I've got you now. I'll get you to safety."

She groaned. "If the fighting's still on, you should be out there fighting." Nonetheless she did as told. Smoke enveloped her form; in a few moments it was done, and she felt her brother's arms lurch briefly upward. Too-large shoes fell from her dangling feet.

"And you should stop being so reckless, or you'll never hit twenty," he countered softly, looking her over and brushing back the loose headband that had slipped down over her eyes. "Set back to about thirteen again… Any chance you'll start calling me Onii-san?"

"Dream on, brat…"

What was it the Wolfpuppy had said? 'Not on the agenda'? Just wait, Saeko thought, the next time we fight, I'll be much stronger. You won't be brushing me off the agenda a second time… so you'd better survive until then. Calling me reckless…

She recalled the image of a cold young man seated across the bar, eerily heedless of any commotion in his vicinity but sipping his tea on occasion as his shrewd, unreadable gaze dissected every detail of a certain nukenin's wanted poster on the wall.

"Sis… there's a scary look in your eyes."

In response she shut them, nestling her head cozily against him but declining to speak. She stroked the fur of the kitten cradled against her belly.

You've got a soft heart, Wolfpuppy.

But keep it far from Hyuuga Neji…

…Lest it wind up on a spit.

Neji ネジ

"Come!" she challenged, so firmly that my heart jumped.

Through simmering rage, I grinned as I straightened. It was amusing, if anything, that she fancied herself such a match for me. In the end, this was Hinata – Hinata. The simple fact remained that she could not best me.

She watched levelly as I unfastened the clasp that held my cloak in place.

I drew the outer garment sharply off and before me – and body flickered, leaving it behind. At her back I lunged, palm searing the air between us–

She flitted nimbly aside and back, arm slipping above my palm and her elbow cutting decisively backwards on a course with my skull–

And I spun from the path of a strike that prickled the skin of my nose, leaping back as I faced her head-on once more. Our eyes locked, and at once, without a word between us, twin pairs of Byakugan awakened.

My foot dug into the dirt behind me, and immediately I was upon her again, from a blinding leap, face inches from her own and glaring into her shocked expression as the heel of my left palm arced for her temple. She ducked sharply beneath the blow, not retreating but moving into me, targeting my exposed left side. Her left elbow popped me in the ribs an instant before my knee sank into her own ribs.

I cringed; she grunted. My right palm dropped to intercept the jab of her left in a crackle of light; we whirled out of the backlash, I to my right and she to her left, and I dropped under a sweeping palm that left an arc of hot chakra trailing through the air. I was striking to counter when her right fist dropped curtly against my attacking left hand's wrist, knocking down the strike – and her left darted for my other shoulder. My right rose to deflect this strike upward. I stepped back, leaning outside the swing of her right fist and blocking and deflecting another flurry of strikes. Her left, blazing with excessive chakra, zipped right and left again as I evaded, and it was poised at her side – as with a yell she shot her right in a solid jab to my gut.

Of course – while the Byakugan was drawn to the threat of her left hand, her chakra-devoid right, by comparison, became all but invisible with apparent insignificance.

Lucky, I thought with a snarl, back hunched as I retreated a step and shoved a palm directly into the incoming strike of her left. Chakra spiraled between our hands as we braced ourselves against a shockwave. I launched into a volley of palms, intent on overwhelming her, and she scowled, eyes wide as she evaded. You think you can keep up–?!

I lunged to throw a straight, powerful palm. She spun acutely on heel, and whilst in this manner slipping outside the strike extended her arm in time to hack the back of my neck with the edge of her hand.

Spittle was kicked from my mouth as I was thrown a staggering step forward, a knee hitting the dirt. Flowing out of the backhand strike, she brought her hands to the earth at my side, wheeling off of them before dropping a shin toward the back of my skull.

Before she could make me eat grass, I rolled aside and shoved to my feet; as I did she caught the momentum of her kick, sweeping her foot back instead of clean into the ground, and with an artful maneuver she threw her hands up, fell onto her shoulder, and rebounded onto her feet – already coming in my direction with a swing of her fist.

CRACK!

Her knuckles impacted a veil of chakra above my cheek, scraping aside as I began to turn. Her feet shifted, set, and she launched into a spin in the opposite direction of my own as we unleashed the Hakkeshou Kaiten.

Flares of chakra were flung, expelled haphazardly from the blinding plane of contact between the too-close domes that revolved and churned with shredding intensity. Both distorted hemispheres of light lurched to a halt, and the two of us with them, as tension seized abruptly between us; my stance was low, leading arm down before me and trailing arm at my side, and inches away she mirrored me as I squared my feet. Still molding our chakra in the air about us, eyes intently locked, we pulled against it – against each other, but without physically touching, with creaking and shuddering intensity – and yelled out, both giving a great heave that ruptured the locked and warring chakras between us. One distinct click sounded amidst the turmoil, and an explosion flung us apart.

I met the ground on my feet and dropped into a cartwheel before jumping into a backflip; she spun randomly in the air before collecting herself into a ball, spinning backward rapidly before unfurling her limbs to place her feet on the ground and hop back a few times. Teeth slightly bared on one side, she glared me down with belligerent temerity. My eyes widened; blood was rushing to my head at such a display of impudence. A weakling had no business giving such a look!

As if! I thought, charging toward her as she straightened. My palm flowed back. An even match?! There's no way I've become so weak!

–The pampered heiress, arms drawn before her in a panic of introversion, a finger trembling at her lips as my words alone send her mind reeling, her body into hyperventilation.–

She took one strong step forward, meeting my rush of opposition without faltering.

You, my equal…?!

–A truly pathetic soul, only able to shrink away.–

Her left palm, drawn back as I reach her. Her right foot slamming down before her, shifting curtly against the earth.

It can't BE–!

The earth, lurching and splitting at my feet, throwing me off-balance.

A Doton? I thought in bewilderment, eyes wide as a wave of crackling ground fanned outward from her planted foot. I should have seen her mold the chakra…

My eyes grew as her palm arced for my side.

No… Surely not…

With brute strength…?

"Here!" she barked, as I backed away and as her palm just missed grazing my side.

My open mouth twisted into a vicious smirk. "Still weak–!" She jumped seamlessly into an angled spin, swinging her feet forward and after one complete rotation lashing her foot out at a range exceeding that of the evaded palm.

The knuckle of her big toe bruised my back, and with its sharp connection sent a jolt of chakra searing through a tenketsu.

What...?

Wincing eyes blinked; a cry escaped from my grimacing mouth as my stance faltered, crumbled with the buckling of one knee. Hinata landed in a crouch – and before I could fall she leaped into a spinning kick, the great force of which, assailing my shoulder, carried me from my feet and sent me crashing top-first to the dirt.

"…Your feet?" I growled into the grass, teeth clenching. I planted a hand on the ground, sitting up and heaving to full height. "Don't screw with me. You use Juuken with your feet now?! Is this some kind of joke?" I laughed angrily, pointing at her, breath quick.

Her eyes were calm; she had hung back, allowing me to stand. "It worked, didn't it? Would you like to consider your sealed tenketsu a joke, as well?"

"Aren't you a backwards Hyuuga?" I spat, prodding my sore shoulder with two fingers. The stoppage of a blocked chakra point cleared; a similar jab soothed the wad of pain in my back, allowing the uncomfortable buildup of chakra to resume in its flow. "Still inconsequential," I noted. "Left alone for a few minutes, it might have done some damage to my muscles or organs – but as things are, your ramshackle, bastardized version of our arts won't do much."

Yes – what could she do to me, really? The outcome of this duel was already certain. An inferior Hyuuga, a weakling, could not best me. Never.

"So you'll be able to give me more of a challenge this time. Come on, then – entertain me some more, Hinata…"

The girl held a palm out before her, and tucked the other hand behind her back. "Very well…"

Naruto ナルト

I was splitting my attention between glancing at the duel and, if needed, helping Harumi-san and my clone work on Hinata's sister's injuries. But all things considered, Hanabi's wounds were patching up nicely, and her pain had evidently faded a bit for her to insist on sitting up rather than lie flat as her battered body was tended. She was pretty well out of the danger zone for the time being; therefore, I had no qualms with turning my attention to the pale Hyuuga who had called the start of the match.

My tongue poked into my cheek as I eyed him sidelong. "Your Neji-sama's looking a tad disgruntled–,"

"Silence, outsider."

So Neji couldn't understand it, and his lackeys couldn't begin to comprehend it either. All the better…

If he couldn't manage to see Hinata as a threat, and quick, this fight would be far more decisive than we could have dreamed.

Hinata ヒナタ

If he didn't face me with his best, there would be no purpose in defeating him.

He was furious, yes, and his way of fighting and trying to slip in attacks to my tenketsu sharp as ever; still, he couldn't quite seem to take me as a serious opponent. Confusion flitted behind his wide eyes as I wove from the paths of a series of strikes, as if the very notion that I could read his strikes and respond with evasion proved disarming to him.

There was no question that he was strong; neither was there a question that I could keep up. It was clear in any case that this wouldn't be like our previous clash, or the first.

My left intercepted a palm and shunted it aside, as my right seized the wrist of his incoming left hand. He snagged my left wrist as I tried to attack, and almost immediately we shoved apart.

Just as swiftly we were engaging again, blows flying. He dodged a straight kick, and the swinging strike that followed, and a sturdy forearm caught my backfist before his chest. His free hand, nearer to me, lashed in below my arm as a backfist of his own, which I caught similarly; his leading foot kicked sharply for my shin, but I lifted it out of the way, pulling him off-balance and jabbing his ankle and calf in quick succession with the knuckle of my toe as his foot met ground again. Scowling, he began to grab for my neck – and faltered as the arm I still had extended before him snapped its elbow into his jaw. I planted that hand on his chest, and shoved back while my foot remained hooked behind his, throwing him to the ground.

Promptly he kicked onto his shoulders and sprang to his feet, stance low. Eyes dark, he rushed forward to throw the first truly reckless move of the fight, kicking out with all his weight. Arms folding in, I leaned and rolled from the path of the vicious strike – and leapt in a low, lateral spin to fling a foot sharply into his supporting leg's ankle. The cutting strike snapped in and away, with enough sharp force to drop him onto his rear. I fell as well before I could catch myself; with my tail free I might have rebalanced myself properly, but as I was under the Advanced Transformation I slipped before springing up again and away from him. Still, having been knocked down awkwardly, he was clumsier in getting to his feet. His face was red, livid.

I studied him carefully. "Your taijutsu style doesn't generally incorporate kicks," I inferred with some confidence. That strike of his had been thrown with glaringly poor control. "So why would you use a strike you're not proficient in, and even knowing this do so without any anticipation for a counterattack?"

His eyes narrowed. Frowning, I continued.

"Unless… you're a person who's grown accustomed to striking the defenseless–?"

Sooner than I could adequately react, his knuckles were on my cheek. I glimpsed darkness ebbing from the sclera of his eyes as I reeled, nearly losing my feet. He was at my right side as he kicked for my gut, which I shielded well enough with my right arm as I hooked the left behind his knee – not letting him put his foot back down. I rose into him, lifting his knee, overbalancing him, and with my right hand's whacking into his collarbone easily enough encouraged him back onto the ground.

Again he scrambled up, and threw a straight palm clear toward my skull; I lunged under his striking left arm, slipping my left arm across his back and breaking his momentum over a leaping knee cracking curtly into his belly. I heard a sound of pain. His feet left the ground, his face and upper body meeting it before they returned. He surged into a single quick stride on all fours – away – and rose to face me again, teeth bared.

"Stop screwing with me, dammit! Wh-what's with that ridiculous style of yours, anyway?! Fight me like a Hyuuga, Hinata!"

A slight, wry smile rose to my lips. "Like a Hyuuga? You've said that one once before," I noted. At the time I had been more or less dying, and it had been a demand for me to endure his abuse rather than attempt to flee. "…Not as much fun to fight someone once they can hit back hard enough, is it?" I said, assuming my stance.

His lip curled at the light taunting; venom was on his tongue. "You're taking some damage yourself. Don't act like you're having a grand old time."

My calm smile didn't waver. Fighting Neji was exhilarating as it was terrifying. It inspired in every moment of combat, as if a constant realization, the thought 'I'm fighting Hyuuga Neji, right now.' Maybe it was an effect geniuses had on people. Even so… "I think that's the difference that's developed between us, Neji-nii-san," I said, shifting a little to the side. He moved in his stance, as well, and we began to circle, very slowly, every step measured. "I'm up for a challenge, because I constantly brace for them!"

We leapt, together, two palms meeting two palms and fingers interlocking between us. I was funneling chakra to my left hand, and continued to from the first moment of contact. Among Hyuuga, clashing palms in this way was known to be a tricky gambit; not protecting one's palm from the opponent's Juuken by pushing back strongly enough in the collision to match the strength of chakra used by the opponent (read priorly with the Byakugan, so that both adversaries' chakras were intense and attuned before meeting), could bring down a combatant in a purely Juuken duel, from the usually debilitating impact of the practitioner losing the use of one of the palms. Even having no doubt read my chakra ahead of time, Neji had instinctively pushed chakra from his left hand on my right as well, ineffectual, before getting his body to believe the unnecessariness of it and letting up on that hand, to better focus on drilling my left.

That was another intricacy of the palm-to-palm struggle, a duel within a duel and on a vastly more personal level. It essentially involved searching for openings in the opponent's chakra flow. Attempts to drill one's own chakra in to a weak point detected in the opponent's hand might indeed prove enough to penetrate and collapse his or her defense; conversely, such aggressive attempts tended to entail simultaneously the compromisation of one's own. It was also a stamina game, to push one's chakra steadily against rigid opposition and maintain its integrity, with a palm's chakra flow – for at least a good few hours – as the stake for losing focus.

It was in such a struggle that he and I now engaged, hands locked, knuckles white, and our burning chakras swirling about our palms in our unceasing attempts to attack each other. He was so close that I could see the finest beads of perspiration on his face, the franticness in his eyes and the determined opposition in the bared teeth of his snarl as misty breath shuddered past them. Our hair flapped and stirred animatedly with repulsion, but that aside the clash was probably quite unspectacular to any observer lacking the Byakugan.

In such a precarious position, even Neji, with his boundless aggression toward me, had no choice but to curb with reason his desire to attack and strike down; to some extent he had calmed. I squeezed his left hand more tightly, and it seemed in response to try to break my right. I grinned combatively.

"If I had to guess," I said, through the waves of chakra distorting the air, "I would bet that Orochimaru's precious vessel-to-be is entrusted with missions difficult enough to challenge or entertain him… but not so much so that someone of his caliber might face even a remote likeliness of death."

I ground my feet down, raptly focused on his wide eyes.

"Maybe I am just the pampered offspring of the Hyuuga's main branch. But while you were being coddled, I was fighting each day to survive! Me, and Naruto-kun, and Lee-kun were!"

He was trembling as he held my eyes, as the balance tipped and lurched haphazardly between us; there really was no predicting whose palm would be taken out.

"Get it? We are failures. The only thing truly dependable in our lives… was the adversity that served as our cruelest and dearest teacher!"

At once his eyes widened further; silently, his breath seized in his throat. Then, seeing that neither of us showed an advantage in the chakra battle, or perhaps at least realizing that he had more to lose here than did one accustomed to relying on alternate styles of taijutsu, he shoved on both hands with his physical strength, forcing me back as the ground gave at my feet.

I wondered if he wouldn't take me seriously now.

Neji ネジ

You're mad…!

I stepped forward and shoved again, overwhelming her in strength and driving her back on her feet, but she didn't lose focus on her chakra. I winced in discomfort as my palm prickled.

There was – was there? There was a chance. But at the same time, I couldn't lose this palm clash – not against her. I could not.

I dropped my right hand while shoving my left across above it, flipping her aside by her hands and gladly releasing her.

Though I had meant to throw her onto her back, she twisted flexibly to turn further than anticipated, landing not only on her feet in a crouch, but facing me. And she rose, driving an uppercut solidly into my stomach.

Crimson flecked from my numbly parting lips; my eyes moistened at the edges as true pain jolted nauseatingly through my torso. No perfect weakling's fist could have jarred me to such a degree, bending my body about its impact, firmly banishing my breath and softening my knees.

Wh-what…?

With my arms folded in shock beneath my ribcage, I grimaced, eyes bitterly squeezing shut.

If I don't take her seriously…

She'll do more than just 'keep up'!

Another fist cracked into my cheek before I could recover; I was thrown to the earth, and rolled twice before winding up on my back.

And a firm hand grasped my upper arm. She pulled as she stepped past me, dragging me a short way, and threw me onto my feet. By reflex I kept my footing, only to receive two blinding Juuken palms to the torso, and another punch to the ribs. I raised my arms to block two more attacks before a Juuken strike – a Juuken kick – struck into my gut, and the same foot's heel snapped wickedly into my jaw, disorienting, cracking my teeth shut. She turned, backing a quick elbow into my gut, and as she faced me again her right foot was darting out to seal a number of tenketsu along my shin. I grabbed for her, yelling out, and she danced from the range of my hands, retreating a few feet. Then she leapt into a spin – so sharply – closing the distance again with a strong kick that swatted across my face.

Again I was thrown. Interestingly, she fell as well, landing off-balance and slipping onto her backside.

She's clumsy, and her style is ridiculous…

Spitting out blood, I rose as she did.

There's no reason she should be this strong…

I rushed past her, claws protracting to slash her side, running beneath her blocking arms. My heart raced with the sure, familiar scent of her liberated blood, as she scowled with a wince of pain.

But with this unclean blood…!

I flung my arm back, hand pointing toward her, and unleashed the Hidden Snake Hand. Three serpents screeched her way, and were cut down by a flash of her own unsheathed claws.

If she defeats me…

Even as the snakes' bodies were fading, I was before her. She faced me fully, preparing to block my high feint – and receiving a stunning fist straight to the gut. I saw the focus thin in her eyes, before she ducked her head with a bark of pain.

If she proves me unfit to lead…!

My fist withdrew, and with a yell I sent my other fist cracking right into the same place as the first, savage. Her eyes stretched wide as she was rattled by the blow, her gaze rolling upward.

I stepped toward her, both hands drawn back, as she began to fall. I thrust my arms forward – left palm thudding against her belly, and two fingers of my right jabbing into a point beside her navel.

The bursting force of the chakra loosed from my palm sent her sliding rapidly back on her feet. She came to a halt, arms folded in tight and hands clutching her abdomen as hunched shoulders shook, and she raised her head, glaring at me with a shocked, apprehensive look in her cringing eyes. She knew what tenketsu I'd struck.

Smoke burst from her form, enveloping her. When it faded, her true nature was laid bare for all to see: the body of a human girl, but for the shape of her teeth, the uncanny smartness to her nails, the downy canine ears atop her head, and the furred tail, visible with the Byakugan, tucked down one leg of her pants.

Naruto ナルト

"ShXt."

Hanabi's head swiveled toward me in suspicion at this mutter, her mouth agape in utter bewilderment. Her jaw worked for a moment as she pointed at her big sister; I scratched my head, looking the other way, and Lee brought a palm to his face.

The girl activated her Byakugan with a scowl, turning her head toward the combatants again. Indeed, every Hyuuga on the sideline without their bloodline active already had by then done the same. I wondered idly if they believed what their All-Seeing Eyes showed them. Harumi-san, hands aglow upon Hanabi's chest, shook her head and refocused on her task with impressive vigilance, though her face was pale.

They don't know what to make of it, naturally… This is why Hinata didn't want to deal with this immediately…

"Wh-why… That's Nee-chan, but what…? Just…"

"It's a rather long story," I provided helpfully, before she could worry herself into a fit. "But you're right – that's still your Onee-chan. Can you accept that much for now?"

The kid cast me a surprising look, raising her nose slightly. "Of course it's Hinata-nee-chan," she said evenly – in perfect contrast to the majority of the still-gawking, speechless adults – as if offended that I'd suggest she couldn't see it. She had the kekkei genkai to tell her as much, same as them, but either way she knew her sister.

I almost laughed. Not a bad kid.

Hinata ヒナタ

I wheezed, hacking out a bit of blood that burned in my throat. Neji laughed aloud, practically radiating mirth with the accomplishment of disrupting my henge. Good grief, he hits hard… I thought, unable to help but flutter my freed ears a few quick times.

Neji's malevolent eyes were wide and fierce as he pointed at me, haughty. "I'd heard stories, but to see with my own eyes this repulsive, twisted form…" His shoulders shook with suppressed laughter, and with the heaviness of his breath, as he glared crookedly. "You think you still have the right, the strength to lead? You, who has diluted our revered blood with that of fiends?! You're no more than a monster! Bloody freak!"

I straightened slowly, my mouth shut. His gaze shifted to the witnesses of the duel.

"See what your 'Savior' was hiding from us, in shame?" he went on, sending me an accusatory glare. "Of what import is her noble birth? This person is no longer Hyuuga. Barely even human!" He faced me fully, his confidence restored. "So? What do you have to say for yourself, scum? What will you do now–?"

His demand was punctuated by the crack of my knuckles into his face. He was slugged off his feet, but sprang into a quick recovery despite clear confusion. He lifted a shaky hand, tenderly dabbing at the fresh blood trailing down beneath his nose, smearing it slightly. He looked at it, and then to me; his mien was perturbed.

"Excuse me," I said politely, smirking enough to openly bare my fangs. "But that's about all I have to say for myself. This is who I am now."

With two fingers, I fished my tail gently from a discreet hole near the top lip of my trousers, smiling as I flicked it comfortably side to side in the open air behind me. I bounced lightly on the balls of my feet, adjusting my balance.

"As for my fitness to lead…"

I sank strongly into my stance.

"That remains to be determined by the outcome of this duel, correct?"

Understanding sparked in his eyes as he regarded me carefully. "Your clumsiness… then…?"

I nodded softly. "It was about time I quit falling down."

His laughter was smooth, his eyes shut. "I see…" he said. "You've really changed a bit, huh? Who you are… So having that beastly form revealed won't make you waver. Very well… To purge your unsightly existence…"

He opened his eyes, slipping into a stance.

"It seems I'll need to expend a bit of effort after all!

"Hakke Kuushou!" he cried, thrusting out a palm that rippled the air around it. I cut to the side, escaping the first, and dived to roll the other way as a second Vacuum Palm pulsed by; I heard the force blasts tearing the ground at my back as I ran on all fours or moved in a low stance, closing in while he threw a rapid-fire barrage of attacks.

"This time…" he said, firing a blast that clipped my fingers as it hummed by. I leapt sharply over another shot, and he drew back to target me midair. "I'll gladly mutilate more than just an arm!"

He struck. Chakra blared from the tenketsu all across my back, kicking me to the ground before the Kuushou could hit.

I landed in a crouch, five yards in front of him, and lunged. With blinding swiftness, he brought forward a drawn-back palm with straight fingers pointing down, loosing a final, compact shot on a course for my head. But my foot had dipped down, catching on the earth, and with that and a strong opposing flick of my tail I spun aside in dropping evasion. The Vacuum Palm went lancing by as I stepped forward, low at his side, and lashed around an arm that had crossed my body.

"Yomikiri!" I snarled, as a scythe of black energy trailed and was flung from my bleeding fingertips.

Eyes wide, Neji turned and slipped agilely under the line of cutting power, and hopped to roll above another, toward me, body spinning once in the air. He grasped my wrist as he landed, twisting it and spinning me with him so as to redirect a third Underworld Slicer; the flung scythe flashed out in a ring, cutting the air and concussively slashing the earth in a long line that ran between us. As my captured hand was directed away from us and the blood-power of the move was fading away, he landed a sharp kick in the side of my ribs, eliciting a wheeze.

There we go, I thought as I staggered, a hand coming to my side. If we're going to fight, fight me like a shinobi…

He jumped in advance. My claws grew sturdier in the hand at my side, and nicked my flesh to whet themselves in blood.

…Not like the helpless little girl you knew!

My arm flashed out, sending another Yomikiri whistling up toward him. The Hakkeshou Kaiten sprang from his form, allowing him to pass through the splitting portions of the parallel, extending scythes of power that would have struck him – and he dispelled his Heavenly Spin, dropping a heavy but artful kick clean into the base of my neck as he fell. I grunted; he landed on his feet and surged forward, his lithe but strong frame supporting the firm elbow that cracked into the center of my chest.

I was blown back by the strike; with a cry I struck ground on my upper back, rolled thrice uncontrolled, and pushed into a handspring before backflipping onto my feet. What strength… I wondered again. But even growing up, he was always physically stronger than most Hyuuga his age…

He had completed a string of seals while I tumbled, and now slammed a palm to the ground, eyes intent. "Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"

My own hands flew together, weaving hastily as a great crimson snake, wider around than an average person's shoulders, reared from a cloud of smoke to hiss and lunge toward me. I brought my hands down. "Kuchiyose no–!"

Out of time. I snapped the prepared chakra in place rather than release it, and rose as the serpent blasted in, slender-fanged jaws snapping shut. A cloud of dust sprang up.

But I had seized its long fangs, one per hand; my feet tore through the earth as I was driven back, and I steeled myself to a halt. The scaled beast screamed as I pried on its fangs, attempting to break them. Its body coiled a ways back, and it whipped to hurl me aside, driving my back down as I kept my grip. It snapped its teeth, lower fangs just short of grazing me as I held it off with shaking arms.

Teeth gritted in a grimace, I shot my refocused chakra down one leg, into the bare sole pressed flat to the ground.

A white wolf broke from the earth a few yards away, sailing toward the snake's side whilst fastening in its teeth the hilt of the crude-looking bone blade strapped across its back. With a haughty snarl he hefted the broadsword free of its binding, and slammed its edge down into my assailant's scaled body, cleaving it in two. The canine shut one eye in distaste as he was spattered with reptilian blood, and both writhing pieces of the enemy summon vanished.

I rolled aside the instant before Neji's feet crashed down where my head had been. I swept my feet around for his ankles, and he hopped back; any thoughts of attacking me as I rose were repelled as he leapt from the path of the wolf's blade, dragged along the ground and hefted to slash with the motion of his lunge. I leapt over the wolf to meet Neji with a sharp kick to the face, launched into his path of evasion.

My cousin reeled; the wolf slipped his weapon with practiced ease back into its sling, so that its hilt caught against the material and its weight held it in place.

'Well done, Naoki,' I thought, straightening at his side, and with a look of acknowledgement the old wolf departed in a puff of smoke.

I hadn't taken my eyes off Neji. Now I smiled reflectively as I faced his glower down. "Those good reflexes and combat instincts… Now that your low expectations aren't bogging you down, they're really shining through, on top of your skill. You weren't called the Leaf's most promising genin for nothing."

He eyed me, nose wrinkling. "…You've learned how to fight," he conceded. I nodded slightly.

"I found a reason to fight. That reason is finally standing right here in front of me, Neji-nii-san. I guess I have you to thank… for the strength I now know!" I said firmly, clenching my fist.

Something dangerous sharpened in his eye; his jaw tensed. "Me? I taught you to fight, did I?" he asked, lunging with a palm strike. I evaded despite the suddenness of the move, and he spoke as he continued to attack. "That's funny! Because if my existence taught you to fight, your existence taught me to hate!"

After dodging a palm, I tried to counter. He blocked my fist at his shoulder, and brought a hook sharply into my face. My cheek was throbbing as I twirled with the blow, reeled – spat in my hand, as my back was to him – and whirled sharply the rest of the way around to throw a spit-fireball with high speed from my hand. Neji stepped backwards with a shout of alarm as he jerked away, the devilishly quick bolt of flame grazing his shoulder as he did.

He batted embers from the singed shoulder of his vest. His lip curled in disdain as he refocused on me; I offered an even look in return, stance low as I wiped the back of my hand over the corner of my bloodied mouth. Neji growled.

"Is this all the 'demon' has got? Spit and blood as your weapons?" His hands clapped together, sending a shock of chakra through the air – rousing a huge sum of energy for molding. Eyes shut in focus, he raced so rapidly through his seals that his hands blurred.

My hands flew together. His sign-weaving speed… far exceeds my own!

I inhaled. But that sequence of his is too lengthy! If I can just interrupt him before it's complete–!

"Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu!" I cried, mouth opening to spew a sizeable ball of flame. It expanded to tear and scorch the earth as it blazed for its target; still weaving his sequence, Neji leapt strongly forward and over the blast, turning so that it only nearly grazed his back as he passed it. He descended in an axe kick, one that rang out with a great boom of force upon my upraised and crossed arms.

"Suiton…" he growled, and I found he had maintained the final sign – Tori, that of the bird. "Suiryuudan no Jutsu!"

Fifty meters behind him, a spire of liquid erupted from the lake, melting into the form of a dragon as it rose. It reared, body bending and slightly coiling as it began to fall – and rocketed toward us with a crashing roar.

I shoved upward on Neji's leg, throwing him back from his kick. He flipped back to land smoothly, lightly on his feet – and leapt gracefully into a lateral spin, an instant before the frothing dragon's head cut beneath his rapidly rotating form. I was for a moment face to face with the monstrous water dragon missile's snarling maw – and jerked backwards, shoulders striking into the ground with haste as it blasted by, its churning length passing beneath Neji and over me with such breathtaking speed that it almost couldn't correct its course within the short time it took to pass. Almost. The tail end of it flicked down as it flashed by, swatting into my front and smacking me flat to the ground.

My ears rang. I rolled aside as I found Neji had closed in to stomp for my skull; the hit evaded, I flung toward him with a wild punch. He danced narrowly from one strike, and leapt away from a palm as the water dragon returned, and I threw myself to the ground, rolling from its path.

H-how long can he keep control of that much water? I wondered with clenched teeth, completing a string of seals as the spiraling missile curved through the air and doubled back to close in again. It broke through a fireball with frightening ease, and grazed me as I tried to leap aside. I was thrown by the rough and glancing force, and cringed as I felt the pain tearing into my arm and saw the blood strewn from the side of it that had been caught.

This wound, at least, was shallow; a direct hit, and I would not prove so fortunate. I landed and raced on all fours, breaking into my fullest speed so that the ground blurred by beneath me – but in moments the dragon drew level at my side, still inching ahead as I stared.

I leapt sharply as it lashed its body toward me. It passed beneath me, and I landed on its other side – and braked, pivoted, and shoved with a great deal of chakra and all my strength in the reverse direction of my dash, splitting and rupturing hunks of the ground at my hands and feet.

It'll take it a moment to change direction, I knew, watching it turn as I sailed away, effectively launched. The Boar, the Dog… My hands meshed and flowed through a sequence of seals. The Bird, the Monkey… the Ram…! There's no choice…!

The Sign of the Wolf–!

I locked my chakra down inside me, lowering a foot enough to catch the earth with clawed toes and pull myself down – to the earth, and curling beneath Neji's shin that had been cutting level for the back of my neck. I held long enough to pass him, and lost control of my still great momentum, lurching backwards off my feet and slamming harshly to the earth. Seizing the force of a bounce, I sprang back and onto my feet, and received a strong boot across the side of my jaw.

Neji's hands were still locked in the seal, the Water Dragon still moving under his command. I had lost my own seal when he connected that kick, and now hit the ground with a gasp, kicked my legs around, and sprang in recovery with nary a moment to act before the dragon overtook me.

I slipped aside by a narrow margin, left hand extending as if as a barrier between my body and the too-close, surging beast. I screamed as the skin of my palm was grated raw – and loosed a burst of chakra from my hand. It was the first bit of chakra I'd employed since having my seal sequence interrupted, and it served to propel me away from the passing water before I could be dragged into its flow or glanced aside again.

I hit the ground and rolled into a crouch – ignoring the burning of my bleeding left hand – and tore seamlessly into a dash from the recovery, path swerving until I was barreling on all fours straight toward Neji. My mind raced; my breath came and went in gasps.

Though it's gotten stronger since… I've seen you use this jutsu once before, you know, Nii-san…

He smirked wickedly as I neared him, the dragon closing in at my back. It would be deathly close. But I knew its speed, and my own.

And I know… that you ought to have at your disposal one opportunity to, with a finishing burst of charka, exert sharply heightened control of its movement and speed, for a brief moment, launching it along one more course before it's dispelled.

The ground was torn out at my feet. Sweat rolled from my chin. My hands were back, feet coming forward outside them in my stride – and planting, just before Hyuuga Neji's tall form.

My eyes struck upward into his, my head low, teeth clenched.

Naturally, Hyuuga Neji wouldn't be foolish enough to be struck by his own jutsu as I led it back to him and dodged it myself.

I sprang upward, over Neji, with tremendous force. He whirled as the dragon neared him, his fervent eyes confidently tracking my flight, and his hand, breaking from the Tori seal, sweeping out and up, pointing toward me as his enlivened chakra blazed, intent on redirecting the dragon from its downward-angled dive and upward into me, where it would strike cleanly amid the inferior maneuverability of flight.

The water dragon's head exploded as it crashed in rapid succession into the unguarded back of Hyuuga Neji, and into the ground.

I saw for one instant the bewilderment in unsuspecting, impossibly wide white eyes as their gaze was torn from my own. Then he was hitting the earth, propelled by a direct, blindsiding strike of overwhelming force, and overtaken, tumbling uncontrollably along within the torrent that was the crashing length of the water dragon as it blasted him continuously down against the ground, flinging broken shards of stone wildly aside as it dredged out a straight swathe of demolished, cracked earth in its unchallenged path.

The dragon spent, Neji rolled wildly out to a flailing halt, drenched, eyes shut, clothes tattered, and blood beginning to pool and fall from his hairline, his cheek, and many raw wounds across his form. The scattered water left behind, rather than remain lifeless, swept away to pool together, amassing and rising with a spiraling motion.

I landed from my leap, feet cracking the earth – because I failed to break the fall as well as I could have. I swayed, lurching to one knee, breath labored. The collected water bolted toward me, circling three times with great speed before it poured itself into a swirling mass at my side. With a shock of energy, what had previously been a water dragon began to assume a new form and shake itself out, spraying me with water until a great wolf of dark liquid was left standing imperiously at my side.

I stood, and bowed my head, not meeting his eyes. Letting Neji think he'd disrupted my hand seals, activating my jutsu with the blood sacrifice procured as the missile shredded my palm, and predicting moves to trick my opponent into believing his jutsu remained his own was fine and well. I was less comfortable with having resorted to so powerful a spirit summon.

"I apologize for disturbing you… First Grand Ookami, Kurochi-sama."

The Mizu no Ookami cast me an appraising look, sidelong, but not one too indignant. "I came because I was surprised, little one. Knowing your ineptitude for Suiton… but I get it," he snorted, sleek voice low and amused. "To think you would have me possess an enemy's elemental jutsu!"

I raised my raw left hand to examine the palm, caked in dirt that clung to its spilt blood; it trembled steadily with stinging pain. I grimaced, keeping my voice level. Kurochi was not a demon who would stand to hear weakness from his sister. "Provided a suitable source, even the Kuchiyose no Jutsu itself can become the catalyst for the Reikuchiyose no Jutsu…" I bit my lip, cutting down the tremble that tried to trail in after the sentence.

Neji was lying on his front, hands fumbling over the ground as he stirred. He pushed himself up with one arm, looking in the direction of my voice to find me with eyes bloodshot and savage. He was nearly sitting upright when he shuddered, dropping his head to vomit a large deal of water over the ground. He coughed, a hand over his mouth as he spat up some more.

'I was hoping you would take it easy…'

'He's alive. If he's any kind of Suiton user, he'd better not perish from that.' The wolf spoke aloud. "Summon your familiar, would you? He's itching to see what that human-brother of yours is made of… How unsightly," he groaned. "If you call again, I shall ignore you, Kurogiba's Pup."

"Of course. I'm in your debt, Onii-sama."

He glanced at me. Though his look was distasteful, he lifted a liquid paw to bat down over my left hand. I yelped as cold water fell over my raw palm, but when it passed it carried the dirt and caked grime away with it, freeing the wound for healing. I blinked in genuine surprise, blushing.

"D-d-doumo arigatou gozaim–,"

The water composing him burst outward, dissipating. I had lifted an arm to shield my face, but was more or less soaked. I sighed.

"Disgraceful…"

Neji was getting to his feet, eyes enraged. "Running in the manner of a beast, fighting like an uncultured savage… calling and bowing to such unruly summons, associating with fiends and spirits… Such a wretch should prove me unfit to rule?!"

I clenched my mending hand. "I'll use whatever I have at my disposal, as it works. 'Running in the manner of a beast'? The curse lends us both an aptitude for it; if you're undisposed to lowering yourself to all fours, all it means to me is that I can probably outrun you."

He chuckled, voice high and unsteady. "Crude, unnatural creature… Such a creature, mocking my existence here… I'll have your head!"

SPLISH–!

I whirled, dodging the fast-materializing claws of the water clone that sprang into being at my back. My own claws raced first instinctively for its throat in retaliation – but even knowing it to be a conglomerate of water and chakra in Neji's semblance, I recoiled and dispelled it with a hard Juuken kick across the torso, effectively knocking it to liquid state.

An almost bestial cry warned me to turn and face the true Neji, whose manifesting claws nearly grazed my face. And while my eyes were drawn to the narrowly avoided strike, his other hand flashed in to impact and latch strongly about my throat.

"Sh-shimatt–!"

I gaped, blood flecking from my lips as his other hand slammed to join the first, brutal. Someone – maybe a number of people – shouted my name. Neji laughed aloud, smiling broadly. Triumphant.

"That's it, huuuh?!" he yowled in glee, as my hands rose, scrambling, and found and pried on his wrists, his arms. Unblinking in pain, I struggled furiously as I was lifted almost onto my toes. I couldn't break his grip – why couldn't I break his grip? No… of course…

His intent eyes brightened as he saw the thoughts play in my distraught eyes. "Get it? You must have noticed it earlier as well, Hinata!" he laughed, maliciously, with almost excessive volume. "No matter how skillful you may have grown, the fact remains that I'm still physically stronger than you!"

With the boast he tightened his grip in emphasis, crushing, sapping the strength of my hands on his wrists. My Byakugan failed as I threw my mouth open, gaze flung skyward, unable to scream. His thumbs, crossed over my windpipe, felt like they were pressing it flat. I couldn't break his grip…

"You're making such a nice face right now, Hinata…"

My vision was turning dim. I felt my pulse, pounding so fervently against his hands.

K-kuso… I pressed my left foot to the ground as well as I could, rooting it.

"You see? You couldn't change a damned thing! You can't even escape–!"

And I shut my eyes, bringing my right foot back before swinging it upward with all my strength.

By the solidness of the kick's impact, the squeak that spurted past his lips, and the immediate disappearance of the strength in his grip, I felt fairly certain I'd hit the mark.

Hanabi ハナビ

I looked quickly away, blushing.

"A coward's move!" one of Neji's witnesses was sputtering in indignation.

"As if strangling isn't?! Baka!" Hiryuu thundered back in his face, causing the smaller Hyuuga to shriek in surprise. Hiryuu-oji-san crossed his sturdy arms with a quiet 'hmph,' evidently satisfied with this response.

Hikujaku scratched his head. "W-was she even looking…?"

"Her eyes were closed," Hitaka provided in murmured confirmation.

The older boy whistled, impressed. "Well placed!"

Lee リー

A-ah… truly no avoiding it, I suppose… Well, that might be considered one expression of using all at one's disposal…

Naruto ナルト

"Right in the nuts!" I howled, in laughter.

Hinata ヒナタ

For a few moments he was rigid in shock, eyes bulging, jaw fully agape as I glared across the space between us. The roof of my foot fell from the juncture of his legs, and his hands slumped from my neck as an almost soundless utterance creaked at his throat. Blinking, coughing, I brought my hands to my throat and gasped for breath, sending relief flushing through my burning lungs. Twitching, Neji brought his hands to his… e-er… and toppled onto his shoulder and face as his inward-pointing knees dropped him.

I hardly had the time to be embarrassed over striking someone in such a place, though, as I concerned myself with straightening out my bruised windpipe. A moment's working of my youki snapped it into good enough working order. On the ground, Neji withheld a rather unhappy whimper. Scowling wearily, I straightened to test my voice on the first harebrained thought that came to my clearing mind.

"Y-you shouldn't strangle people, Onii-san. It's not nice."

"You b-bitch," he snarled out through clenched teeth, voice low in disbelief, his cheek pressed against the ground.

My eyes narrowed. I shook my head, scowling. "If I were a little more like you," I pointed out, "I would probably kick you while you're down; maybe stomp on your face, lift you by your hair to strike you down again, and laugh at your cries of pain." Bitter, I looked down. "But I'm not like you, Neji-nii-san. Will you settle for that? Be grateful that I'm not that pathetic…"

"Grateful?" he scoffed at a growl, starting to rise to his hands and knees. "Th-there you go, talking down to me…! I shouldn't be surprised, should I? That you would even play this game with me, and humor a low-born Hyuuga with a trade of palms, is more than my predecessors could have dreamed to expect."

"What are you saying?" I asked, watching as he stood straight. His silvery eyes were cold, but calm – or at least, calm as could be the eyes of one whose fury never abated. For the moment, he was lucid.

"Those born to the Hyuuga are strong of heart," he said, with a scornful sneer. "Have you ever heard that saying, Hinata? That joke?"

"What of it?" I had heard the phrase before, along with numerous other, thoughtless incantations, but never as a joke.

"It speaks not of our clan's honor or valor. Far from it – its origins are more sanguine in nature." He was still smiling, face pale with pain not all physical as he spoke. "It lies in our history – our history of strife!"

I held his gaze. My voice was quiet. "…You mean the feuds… the great rift?"

He nodded. "Do you know why we are considered this village's oldest family, more ancient even than the Uchiha and Senjuu who founded it? We can trace our existence to a time antedating shinobi, and the advent of ninjutsu itself. In the earliest accounts, our clan was a band of mercenaries – but noble warriors, blessed with the gifts of foresight and of the uncanny, strong vision granted by the bloodline of the White Eye That Sees the World. Enigmatic, more powerful than other humans, our ancestors were ahead of their time with their awareness, recognition, and command of their innate life energies. We developed our martial arts, and honed the kyujutsu that complements it at a distance. The Hyuuga households grew prosperous, and vast."

"But then…" I picked up, recalling the history lessons that had been drilled into me throughout my youth. "It didn't last, did it? A division was born when a leader's two children disputed the right to lead; the younger was more powerful than the sickly older, and in his ambition he sought to challenge the traditional line of succession."

Neji sneered. "And I suppose you were taught that it was the fool young upstart who carried out the assassination of his brother, and his family?"

I hoped he didn't notice my brow furrowing at that. The written histories that we kept documented as much, but by that sarcasm, could the Branch know otherwise? I considered, momentarily, that there was indeed no telling how much of the history I'd accepted might contain falsehoods.

"Relax," he spat. "No one knows for certain whether it was the frail elder brother and the keepers of order who struck to preemptively eliminate the threat, or the younger and his supporters who struck to overthrow the prescribed leadership. But it goes that one or the other wound up dead along with most of his family, and all hell broke loose."

"Then two houses came into being," I filled in carefully, "from the split along allegiance lines. And then…"

"And then," he said, thumping a thumb grimly against his vest. "The warring generations. Survival of the strongest. Who knows? With all else being essentially equal, neither side could claim an edge in the struggle. One side fought for retribution, the other for preservation, and both for dominance. The weak dropped like flies. This blood feud raged over the course of at least one century; it's said that in time, the average Hyuuga seemingly was capable of surviving more punishment than his progenitors. Perhaps our hearts are strong. A resistance to our own techniques would certainly have proven favorable.

"But it mattered not, ultimately, whether one side's warriors might have in some score of generations happened to outpace the other's. You know why, don't you…?" His eyes flitted to the side, landing on Hanabi. I averted my gaze, teeth clenched, and he continued.

"That's right… after the ages of endless bloodshed – then, it happened." Head down, he brought a hand to his face, chuckling, though something about him seemed to be coming unhinged. His wide eyes returned to me. "In a clan where humans could infuse palms with energy, there was born one who could turn energy to lightning! In a time before ninjutsu!"

In the corner of my eye, distant though she was, I saw my younger sister start.

"That's right," Neji hissed, "the first of the mighty Lightning Hyuuga, forever to be hailed as heroes favored by the heavens. But what did this first fabled messiah do with the power of storms said to flow with abundance from her palms, but to rain death where she pleased it? Championed by her house, she was a terror on the fields of battle; all who challenged her would drop into silent death at her touch. At this point, we know not even whether it was the older brother's descendants or those of the younger that procured such a beast, but the halting balance of strife was broken; the opposing faction was decimated before it surrendered, and at long last the fighting came to subside."

He had begun the tale with a voice slow, methodical, and detached, but had gradually grown more intent. Now he was coolly zealous, at once sickened and bitterly delighted, and racing smoothly over his words as if eager yet to reach the best of it. The best, or the worst? And still his eyes were full of rage.

"But the loss of life had been enormous. And so, to ensure that never again would such a catastrophic conflict arise, certain rules were put in place to govern us. Among them were the codes of succession, and the dueling protocol we now observe in the event of challenges to the leadership; any Hyuuga can rise to power by defeating the standing clan head, or a representative, in single combat.

"It was a reasonable measure, certainly; with only two representative combatants, it saw to the common interest of preventing excessive bloodshed. But in spite of such a decree's standing to this day, power has not passed even once outside the preordained lines of succession. Why? Of course… These protocol were established only succinctly after the development of – and branding of all the inferior house's warriors with – the goddamned subjugation seal!"

I gritted my teeth, refusing to avert my eyes from his vehement gaze. His shoulders shook with his breath.

"Before villages and advanced medicine developed, before there was risk, concern, or any widespread practice among the emerging shinobi clans of attempting to plunder each other's secrets – there was the seal, invented and implemented to serve its primary purpose. For it is a seal whose use is permitted – the use of which is unofficially demanded – in the event of any duel for leadership, to silence and cull the challenger! You tell me how that's fair!"

He rushed toward me, striking with two fingers – but his still-inactive Byakugan implied he sought a tenketsu based on memory alone. It also meant that he didn't detect my substitution until his fingers jammed hard against a log, the surface of which was considerably less forgiving than human flesh. He gave a wordless howl of rage as he recoiled, cradling his hand, and rounded to face me again.

I spread my arms slightly, showing that I meant not to attack, though my face was tense. "It's not fair! I would never claim it is!" I cried. The rage in his heart – it was truly dangerous. This hatred was everywhere, but if it were to assume such intensity in enough hearts, it would be unstoppable. "I know the Branch feared in me a weak future leader, one who would be forced to rely on the seal to command obedience. And the Main feared in me a weak leader who would be too hesitant to use the seal in just such a way, to maintain order. But forget the seal! I will not allow our houses to fall into unrestrained war! This alone is plenty of a reason to fight you without the juinjutsu, no matter how considerable the risk of my own defeat!"

My hands clapped together, and parted to sink to the level of my sides as I squared my stance, back angled forward. My Byakugan sprang back to full activation.

"I don't care what house a shinobi was born into – one full of hatred will not lead this clan. Not as long as I'm breathing."

My right hand crossed my body to hover above my left, leaving my right forearm level before me. Chakra rolled from and enveloped my left palm, flowing to encompass that hand and forearm in a cool, slow blaze of churning energy.

"It was in some part my own weakness that engendered anxiety… and that magnified the tension and animosity in our generation of Hyuuga. That's why…"

More prepared chakra was molded for the controlled release from tenketsu across my palm and arm. The power grew luminous as it took form, fast-intensifying to the degree at which it would become clearly visible to the naked eye. Neji scowled; I held his eyes, clenching my right hand into a fist and tensing in my stance.

"That's why I'll show you not the strength of my birthright, but the strength of Hyuuga Hinata! Each as one Hyuuga fighting a single other, let us see who will claim the right to be called the strongest!"

He leapt toward me, decisive. His left palm, intent on disrupting my technique's preparation, sped for my chest.

My right arm further crossed my body, and the elbow, angling upward, snapped out and harshly into his wrist, knocking the blow aside. Without pause his right struck, only to be dashed aside by the chop of my returning right hand squarely into his wrist.

I whirled into the strike, turning to my left and sweeping my palm in a flash before his vest – and with an instant's delay the tough material was gouged by the glancing blow, the surface of his flesh invisibly ground by sheer intensity. He was starting to back away when my right hand shot forward, and smoothly seized the neck of his vest.

I took a strong step forward, and my left hand, drawn back, splayed its claws as a shock of chakra lit the energy about it blue-white, sharply solidifying its translucent form.

"Juuho…"

Neji's widening eyes traveled from my empowered hand to my determined face.

And my left hand, shrouded in translucent white chakra that blazed in the icy semblance of a striking wolf's head as it bared strong fangs and spread its fearsome jaws, plunged into his gut, striking at the heart of his keirakukei. My right withdrew as the hit landed, knocking the wind out of him, and the spread claws of my left seized, digging sharp, steadying nails into his exposed flesh as he began to be carried upward.

For a heartbeat, a needle-thin, flickering beam of light was emitted along a path stretching several dozen meters from his back. A droplet of blood spilled silently from his lips, drifting into the air between us.

"TENGAKEN!" I bellowed, and a shockwave burst outward from his body as tearing, coursing energy lanced from his back, denting the earth at my feet and firing him clean into the air, his face contorted with pain.

I swept into a crouch where I stood, head down, left arm cocked back and hand angled forward as it lit with swirling chakra once more. The cloak snapping acutely into shape around it, I thrust it forward again with a yell, loosing the roaring missile of swelling power in a blast toward Neji's launched form. It bared its fangs, and overtook him.

Heaven's Fanged Fist!

The impact was explosive, ringing out in a blinding flash of light. From a resulting haze of smoke shot Neji, stunned and singed, and he crashed heavily to the earth and rolled. He slid to a stop, grasped at his belly, and convulsed, hacking a harsh spray of blood upon the damp grass.

Exhaling slowly, I lowered my palm, and settled. "Do you understand? I won't allow you to win."

"I-it's… It's over!"

Straightening, I found Hanabi standing on her own strength on the sidelines; her eyes were bright.

I frowned. She would be disappointed, but Neji also had a body that shared the hidden aspects of a beast's. "It's not over," I said, looking to our cousin again. Sure enough, amid some groaning, he was beginning determinedly to rise. The Juuho Tengaken hadn't been enough for him. "He's too tough…"

"What?" she said, looking to him. Confusion marred her smooth brow. Gaze returning to me, she persisted. "Then strike him down quickly, before he recovers! This is your chance!"

Suddenly it was difficult to meet her eyes. The lack of a response brought renewed incomprehension to her voice – and in its shadow, panic, fear. Just like that, after months apart, she was reading me.

"Onee-san," she began hesitantly, elevating her choice of formality in the presence of so many listeners. "You've held the advantage multiple times… so why have you yet to strike a killing blow–?"

And the moment she finished the slow sentence, she realized that I fully intended not to kill him. Her jaw dropped in disbelief, a message leaping from the depths of startlingly sharp eyes: 'No!'

My jaw set. 'Yes.'

Her appalled expression spoke plainly enough of the idiocy she perceived in my goal, as she ascertained it – so many all but identifiable pieces, reflections of my own mind clicking so simply into place in hers it was almost frightening to watch. I could hide absolutely nothing here. She understood my intent, yet regarded it from a starkly different angle. I couldn't help but concede it was an angle only too reasonable.

Her teeth clenched. She saw the concession, and struck to appeal to it, desperate. "You must forget your feelings! Only misfortune will come of showing mercy to such a fiend – he's not a victim here! Whatever the cause, he's a traitor whose deeds cannot be excused!"

I shut my eyes, hard. That anger, that horrified disapproval – from her, it was too much. Or was that also what she was counting on? She had grown incredibly decisive. And if my sister had the strength in urgency to turn against me, to hurt me, what did it say that I lacked the will to kill our apparent nemesis…? "Hold your tongue, Hyuuga Hanabi!" I shouted harshly, even as my mind raced.

She barely even recoiled. Gods, this wasn't fair! "This isn't about the two of you anymore, Onee-san, and you know it! It never was! Everyone…!" Her eyes swept meaningfully over Hiryuu, Harumi, Hikujaku, and Hitaka – but fell short of considering Neji's witnesses. "Everyone's fate hinges on what happens here!"

"Our definitions of 'everyone' are different!" I cried. And those four, to whom she'd grown attached, undoubtedly meant more to her than the average Hyuuga – as did I. A nearby thought occurred to me, but I bit it back, and pressed on. "If I can't even save my brother… How can I presume to protect this clan?!"

She fisted her visible hand, with the right hidden in the tight, stained binding that held her right shoulder and arm; her face was concerningly pale with exertion, and still her voice was firm, brim with frightful power. "Listen to me, Onee-san! I speak the words of our Honorable Grandfather Lord Hikaru! 'You must not seek his redemption, for he is inextricably damned! Neji has chosen destruction, whether at the hands of the Savior or the Snake!'"

At her side Hiryuu gasped, surprised white eyes turning to Hanabi from me. I had blanched at her words. "Wh-what? No, that… that can't be it!"

"That's not all – he also foretold the clan's destruction. Our only hope is in the one of pure spirit and rightful blood, who will avert it! Do you see?" she snapped. "If you had any doubt in the possibility of that bloody history repeating itself, there's the proof! Through his victory here – that is the means by which the heretic will drive our clan to hell! You cannot save him! I implore you to reconsider such a goal!"

Neji, who stood catching his breath with minimal regard for our conversation, had started visibly in the corner of my eye, his attention snapping to her.

I was bristling at her words. She couldn't understand – what killing him would do to me. There was a way to help her understand, words that could do it, but again I suppressed the thought. "Why would his prophecy call for one of pure spirit… if killing my soul, and its purity, is the requisite for saving us?!"

A faraway look overtook her clear eyes. For that instant, incredibly, I couldn't begin to read her until she spoke the thought aloud.

"Could that purity… be the sacrifice that will correct this dire aberration of Fate?"

Oh, so now it called for a sacrifice?! I scowled, going so far as to openly bare my fangs at her, and the returned hostility finally made her flinch, disarming her with surprise. "I don't know about being your One of Pure Spirit," I ground out, "but I've already made such a sacrifice before! And when I did, I told myself that I wouldn't turn my back on one of my clansmen ever again!"

"So you fight for one, at the risk of all? To satisfy your own feelings?! That's just selfish–!"

She was silenced as Naruto's hand landed on her shoulder – probably because the light impact nearly made her stumble. The blond steadied her in surprise, taking both her shoulders in his hands, and she panted, faint. She had been pushing herself too hard.

"That's enough," Naruto said gently, earning a glower – a suddenly exhausted one or not. He looked to me, but his words were to her. "She knows she's hurting us; she doesn't need the reminder. And she'll only weaken if we stop believing in her."

Hanabi frowned, but had lost the fury that drove her on the assault. "But…"

I was halfway through a sigh of bittersweet relief when I snapped backwards, stumbling from the path of an arrow that clipped my hair. I rounded on Neji as he notched another projectile on his summoned weapon – the great longbow of the Main House. He gave a dispassionate smirk, unconcerned by the blood on his mouth; even the claw-print that had been seared by chakra into the flesh exposed by his ruined vest and shirt was already fading.

"Aren't you writing me off too easily, Hinata…?" he muttered. Nearly masked by his calm voice, a thirst for chaos flashed in his eyes.

I suppressed a shudder, unnerved as I considered Hanabi's words.

No!

I summoned back my simple bow, drawing an arrow. I won't give up…!

Twenty-Seven, Part Two: Formidable Resolve!

Hanabi ハナビ

"If you had to kill your big sister for the Hyuuga Clan, would you do it?"

My gaze snapped to Naruto-san, whose purple eyes remained on the ensuing clash. A distant crack, the collision of the arrows I'd seen the combatants flawlessly shoot, met my ears.

The blond looked to me from the corner of his eye. "She thought of saying that to you, y'know, but restrained herself at the last moment – sooner forfeiting in an argument she could have won, rather than hurt you."

My eyes grew – half because this man had read something I hadn't, and half because it clicked in a way that told me what he said was true. Always holding back on me… I looked down, glum. "There were two points at which she deliberately steered away from a certain thought, the same one… The idiot," I snarled, quietly surprising myself. "She's too soft! Even just now, shuddering and faltering because she doesn't like to argue with me!"

He sighed. "You've probably realized that you've got a lot more power over her than most; I do, too, and I had to learn not to abuse it. It's tricky, dealing with the people who matter most…"

I gazed ahead, silent. I didn't feel terribly well. "The prophecy is clear. What she aims to do is something that cannot be done."

"So share your view – but don't attack her with it. Manipulating her feelings… isn't that a bit cruel? But she might very well be making the wrong choice here, or taking too much of a risk. If you see cruelty as necessary to counteract this, I can't stop you."

"Why don't you try to stop her? You care about her, don't you?"

He smiled. "I've tried before. But I realized nothing I can say will convince her to fight that guy to kill him. And with that in mind, her best chance – our best chance – is to believe in her. Everyone's weak in some ways. One of Hinata's is the ease with which certain people's words can cripple her. So it might hurt us to watch her do this, and I might think she's a fool…"

He clenched his fist, shivering. I looked up again, and saw that, eyes intent on the duel, he was showing a grin even as a tear fell from his chin.

"But for her sake, I'll keep watching her to the end…!"

I looked away from him. So if we believed, she might succeed; if we didn't, she would almost certainly fail. "She's too weak for this, after all… I should've been stronger. If I possessed such power, I would have killed that man without hesitation!"

"Is it what you of the Hyuuga would call 'fated,' then? That the one with the will to kill him lacks the power to, while the one with the power to kill him lacks the will to? It's pretty rotten, all right…"

"How can you be so calm? That fool, with the power to save us all, would continue to risk our condemnation for him." I grasped at my chest, cringing. I was losing my breath. "He's d-doomed either way, so what worth could he have outside that of the destined sacrifice? To try to save us all, Neji included… No! She'll only destroy herself–!"

"She won't."

His steadying hand patted my shoulder, urged me to calm. I controlled my breath, feeling the pain in my chest subside before I spoke again. "How do you know?"

"I've watched her fall down and stand up again more times than you could believe. It might not always be easy to see, but Hinata is strong. What will break first – her, or your prophecy – has yet to be seen."

Neji ネジ

"Hakke – Rokujuu-Yonshou!"

We snapped apart, holding our stances but panting for breath. Our bows had been dispelled as we engaged in close combat, and after trading blows I had initiated the Sixty-Four Palms.

To think… I thought wryly, glaring at the sweaty face of the little girl who eyed me so determinedly. Both of them, immune to the great offensive technique of the Main House… Hinata moved less like a Hyuuga than did her sister; rather than mirror my every move, her dead right hand and arm had resorted to mere blocking at times while her left properly intercepted the strikes. Evidently, she cared only that the result was the same, in that not a single active tenketsu of hers had been sealed.

Clearly we were at a level exceeding that of the Rokujuu-Yonshou. Its speed wouldn't be enough to overwhelm her now. And in that case…

I grimaced.

Something of greater speed, power, and severity would be demanded to break through that tenacious guard. Unlike before, she was a worthy target for my ultimate barrage – an opponent who warranted it, but who would nonetheless buckle in the face of its perfection…

"Neji-nii-san."

Her eyes were closed. Still holding my gaze through our Byakugan, she slipped into a stance I could only find bewildering. She then opened her eyes.

"Let me show you the strength of my will. I'm going to connect the Sixty-Four Palms now. Every strike of it."

Hinata ヒナタ

To an untrained eye, the unconscious flicker of his gaze toward my right arm would probably have gone unnoticed. His subsequent snort was more overt.

"You can't do that."

"I can."

"You tried it once before, and got those pretty little scars carved into your arm for the trouble."

I returned his smile pleasantly. "I'm not joking, Neji. I don't plan to take back my words."

"You may have acquired the capacity to attack at the required rate, but as fate would have it, it matters no longer. You really think you, with that defective arm, can do something I just failed to?"

"I challenge you to stop me."

He bristled, and the flash in his eyes guaranteed he would do everything in his power to prevent my from satisfying my words. It shone from his posture, his affronted glare as his Byakugan intensified to its fullest:

'Bring it on.'

This ensured, I attacked.

Neji ネジ

I took a ready stance as she dashed toward me with a cry of war. Did she presume to have mastered it off of what little instruction she'd begun receiving so long ago? Having the physical capability for a technique and attaining the skill and mastery necessary to execute it correctly comprised different matters entirely. There was no way that a move of such complexity and demanding precision, that I had honed from genius, concept, and effort, could be perfected through brute, excessive effort alone – not by someone like her, let alone with that disability…

Here and now, I'll show you…

She whirled strongly forward, swift steps carrying her into the opening strike – right arm angled over her left as her hands neared me at once, two fingers apiece poised to jab.

It's futile!

I saw her leading foot turn curiously, as her hands neared me. I was preparing to engage, to break her strikes, when my counterattacks fell short of her retreating hands. I watched her left drifting away, bright with focused chakra but fading back without landing the soft jab it should have, the jab meant to send chakra into the first tenketsu, and she instead reversed the opening spin.

My head snapped back, as I leaned outside the path of a wickedly swung backfist. Cheap–!

And as her bruising knuckles grazed past my chin, a pair of quick jabs was landing at my torso – closing tenketsu with the rushing injection of two precise knives of chakra.

"Hakke Nishou!"

Wh-what? The backfist was the feint?

No – if I hadn't dodged that misleader strike, it would have hit and it would have hurt. The threat had been as real as that of the initial move of her left, but the transition between Gentle and Strong had been disorientingly smooth. Even so, if I knew her goal was to land Sixty-Four Palms…

Intermixing Gouken, merely as a cheap diversion? I thrust the heel of my palm for her now unguarded head. A broken Hyuuga who can't even attack head-on… But with only one hand for your Juuken, this is doomed from the start to be an inferior attack–!

She dropped under the path of my palm whilst continuing to spin out of her dodged backfist, rolling tightly on her feet and rising to send her knuckles cracking up into my jawline.

A true backfist from her right, connecting while I had remained wary of her left.

The hit spun me around, setting pain leaping through my jaw. I staggered briefly, coming to steady my feet but still facing away from her, eyes shut and back hunched.

Behind me she had leapt, and was kicking sharply into the Konoha Senpuu. My right arm snapped up to block beside my head, braced by my left, as her shin drove in.

She turned her foot, and slipped it by as it met my arm heel first – not so much to strike as to catch. She swung her trailing foot forward, cutting a kick over my ducking head as she pulled hard against the arm she'd hooked, to fling herself curtly forward and to the ground before me.

After landing on her feet, a quick twist and reverse in direction sent her charging straight from close and low, clawed right hand clenching firmly into a popping fist as she turned to lead with her left.

Such a direct charge… this will be a Gouken strike–

"Yonshou!" Hinata cried, drawn-back fist holding my eyes as her left hand turned outward, sweeping from her right to her left and dotting my body with a zigzag of blurring, pinpoint jabs as it went. Her fist had been the diversion, while her left struck earlier than her anticipated, trailing right could have. My focus was darting unavoidably toward the hot flares of chakra punching into my torso, my arms instinctively trying to shield my body, when her delayed fist – delayed, for just such a purpose – zipped in to claim a clean strike across my cheek, splitting the inside of it against my teeth and snapping my head aside.

"Ugh–!"

Her two styles were opposed in essence, soft and strong. Out of this dissonance was born some strange tandem, concert in which a feint and strike could be thrown at the same time – or indeed, even potentially from the same hand. She was adapting, constantly, slipping through my defense.

"Hachishou!"

Without pause, her left foot snapped around to land flat at my midsection with staggering force, the strike doubling to seal another tenketsu with a controlled chakra spike. The blow lined me up in front of her, to be followed swiftly by her right sole, infused with Juuken, jabbing into my gut. The kicks were trailed seamlessly by the closing of her left hand; the tenketsu strikes landed even more intensely as she cleared the remaining points of the Eight Palms stage. Her right fist, preparing for the followup Gouken strike – I knew better than to ignore it again.

I dodged, ducking sharply aside, so that her opening hand slipped past my face – turned to catch at the back of my neck – and pulled to smash my nose into her knee.

Maddened with pain, with rage, I screamed. I couldn't let her get further, I had to stop her, and yet–

"Juurokushou!"

Yet I couldn't react, as my body was riddled with jabs from one blurring hand, and jolted with each one. Even as the rapid-fire hits landed she was smoothly drawing back her right.

As she cleared the Sixteen Palms, her left drew back to leave both her hands equally prepared to strike at me.

Moving her left and right at different speeds and rhythms, their movements out of concert, should have been impossible to do effectively. The way a body ideally moved, and coordinated its motions, wouldn't normally permit it. Such movements, so unnatural to her and counterintuitive to the observer…

Her hands shot forward together, her eyes meeting my own with shocking aggression. I flinched away, eyes growing wider.

I see… Her left palm edged forward, ahead of the nearing fist, but faded back again. Even the Byakugan won't reveal how to react, if I can't distinguish the immediate threat!

Her fist halted not fully outstretched, a centimeter before my mouth, and cut aside to grasp her left wrist as her feet caught on the ground. With my flinching, if she had simply struck I might still have been moving with the punch, and thereby dampened it. I realized this in the instant I had to wonder belatedly why she would just now be stepping; then the strike of her left elbow whipped in beside my eye, propelled by a shove of her planted feet. My mouth fell open; my head was light.

Was this technique… honed for me, particularly…?

"Sanjuu Nishou!"

Fluidly she regained her stance. At this point I could only cradle my skull, hands grasping at my face in defense as I endured the storm of Thirty-Two Palms, the fastest level yet, her left's flurrying strikes burning with fervor as her right arm held fast. My determined defense of my face made it only too easy, as the barrage snapped to an end, for her to grab the neck of my shirt in both her hands and drive a crushing foot into my gut.

I lost my breath with a cringe, an uneven grimace baring my bloodied teeth on one side as I shut my eyes, fighting momentarily.

…Th-that's it, I thought, hacking out blood as I gave and began to lurch double, to drop my head, as hollow pain spread in my gut. I was almost relieved, in spite of myself. She'll never hit Sixty-Four… not with one hand–

CRACK!

Her headbutt was thrown with a roar – up, at somewhat of an angle, across my dropping skull, decisively forcing my hurting body to straighten again.

Chakra blazed from her left hand and entire arm as she drove in again, sharp teeth gritted in resolution.

What? WHAT?!

Her left was truly flying, hitting points at twice the speed either hand would have required for a regular Sixty-Four Palms. This was mad.

"Hakke–!"

Her right was drawing back in a motion strong and sure, as her blurring left determinedly churned the air before her, peppering frozen fire across my form. I withheld cries as I was battered by the high-speed barrage. The finishing palm strike was drawing near.

As if to scorn… all who would say you couldn't…

The final blow, which would normally throw the Sixty-Four Palms' victim away, was left off – pulled, at the last breath, to land as any other, fleeting tenketsu poke and flit away as she stepped forward, murder on her face. Her face…

–"Neji-nii!"–

Growling, she ground her foot down.

You were always…

–"Don't cry, Hina-chan…"–

–"I love you! Neji-nii-chan!"–

…So frail…

And she slammed the weight of the haymaker she'd prepared full and savage into my face. The shattering blow, which I might sooner have likened reasonably to a sledgehammer at full swing than a human's punch, met my cheek with enough clean force to shoot a few teeth free and sailing past my slack jaw and stained lips, as I began to be torn from the earth, entire body steeped in pain.

"Punishing Sixty-Four Palms!" she shouted, and I was hurled, twisting, through the air.

My landing was unceremonious, painful. I was for a moment breathless, speechless, wide-eyed and choking and shuddering. Then I opened my mouth to loose a distraught cry, struck hard by two utterly, brutally undeniable facts.

She had connected every strike of the Sixty-Four Palms, and I had been dominated.

Naruto ナルト

Neji hit the ground hard, and did not try to stand. He'd been beaten black and blue, left spitting blood and unable to move. He gave a woeful, broken cry, almost a whimper, and continued to lie prone.

"Do you think…?" Lee began, a trace of sadness on his face, but his eyes were critical.

I nodded, a bit shocked myself. I found I was suppressing a grin, as hope dared to rise in my chest. "He's done."

Neji ネジ

Unable to connect Rokujuuyonshou in the conventional way… so simply manhandling the enemy into falling in line with your strikes? How crude…!

And therein lay the terrifying strength of her technique, the nonsensical paradox of compromising out of refusal to compromise that it was. The goal of her 'Punishing Sixty-Four Palms' was itself to connect every strike of its parent technique; its danger arose in the unbending fact that Hinata, from the moment she resolved to use the technique, would do so by any means necessary – an ace as she willed it, as if to spite all who would assume she could not or deem her unfit.

I had stepped into a trap, in accepting that challenge to stop her. Calling out a warning, and then setting upon her target like a beast upon prey, leaving her victim to either receive the Sixty-Four Palms quietly or resist and be bludgeoned into submission… There was no real compromise on the matter, even as she was forced to work around opposition or give up on strikes to ultimately stand her ground.

So with that fixed destination, you would venture to challenge Fate…

She was speaking – saying that since I was like her, she knew this wouldn't kill me, but that I wouldn't be able to move for a good while, either. I ground my teeth, watering eyes narrowed.

Damn it all…

The strength of your 'will,' huh?

Hanabi ハナビ

"This is Hinata's technique," Naruto-san said, "one that grows more powerful the more resistance it meets."

Then, theoretically… the tougher the foe she's faced with, the more of her strength she's able to muster and pour into that barrage. I shut my jaw, still amazed. "But for even Neji to be rendered wholly unable to defend himself against it…?"

He smirked. "Of course, she's worked out some method to the madness. Hinata's honed the strength and body control needed to move her left arm rapidly while her right is acting independently, even if their motions are disjointed from each other. It's confusing as heck to follow, when your opponent's body stops moving with logical coordination – since every bit of the body's framework is connected in some way, there are ideal, efficient sets of ways it becomes accustomed to moving, and that we – especially as martial artists – in turn grow accustomed to seeing one move. Basically, it's tough to read, and if her opponent can't adapt and break away from his assumptions quickly, he's screwed."

"And then…" I muttered, wincing, "pulverizing her opponent with punches and kicks, while his internal organs are being weakened and weathered down…" No ordinary person would have survived such an onslaught.

"It's sick effective, all right," he piped in. "Anyone sustaining that quantity of abuse is liable to nerve out; you want to avoid the impending pain, but have no idea what actions to take to do that successfully, what pattern to go on or how to react. By the time she's halfway through the barrage, interspersing Juuken with crippling blows, she might throw any type of attack at you – and you'll second-guess yourself into getting hit by it."

"I see… quite a fearsome technique, against someone with the confidence and control Neji boasts," Hiryuu observed, having listened in as well. "So Hinata-sama's victory was in her ability to adapt…"

Naruto-san grinned, his voice proud. "When there's not a path, we make one! Hinata, Lee here, and I – that's how the three of us operate. And it's a skill bound to sorely lacking in someone who's only ever taken the opportunities handed to him."

Neji was trying to push himself off the ground, to little avail. His face bruised and bloody, the area around an eye turning black, his uniform torn and beaten body quivering with weakness and frustration as he wept – indeed, it was shocking to see the tyrant's apprentice in such a humiliated state. But an excess of adversity, surpassing his comprehension, had soundly crushed his will to fight.

In her gentleness or for fear of cruelty, Nee-chan may have hoped to avoid doing such a thing, but as her last resort this was what she had counted on. She at least had the fortitude, I noted with some approval, to willfully break a man's spirit, shut him down, and worry about the rest later.

Making your enemy into a wall to knock down… I don't completely understand it. But even so…

"Have I proven it to you now?" Hinata demanded of him, voice stern. "People can change!"

Among shinobi, is it honor or weakness… that you couldn't bring yourself to beat him down until he would defend himself to the best of his ability?

Hinata ヒナタ

He had gotten to his hands and knees, breath labored, watering eyes boring through me with new vigor as his bared, gritted teeth began to lengthen, sharpen. Shakily, he continued to rise.

"Don't do it," I breathed, holding a palm out. Does he intend to defeat his fear with that madness?

"A-again, you c-condescend me, Hinata…!" A cough sent blood spurting from his lips.

My brow furrowed. His chakra flow was a trickle, not nearly enough to sustain him through any degree of exertion. His arm draped across his middle, his back hunched, he croaked and coughed raggedly and continued to add to the thick blood trailing from his lips. His heart was struggling in his chest.

Neji…! A Hyuuga Clan duel of this nature ran to submission or death. He needed to verbally surrender. My palm shook once. Even if I knocked him unconscious, I would be obligated to kill him if I hoped to secure the Main House's victory. "Stop this! Please…!"

His eyes were mad, their sclera darkening rapidly as his face paled. He was all but gone. His shoulders shuddered. "You think it's still about whether people can CHANGE?!"

I blinked.

Na…

His power exploded, from the mark on his neck.

Nani…?

And he yowled, curse fading, hands flying to his forehead as he screamed and crumpled gracelessly to the ground.

My gaze snapped dangerously onto Hanabi, but she and the entire line of witnesses were no less shocked than I was.

Neji was writhing on the ground, body tense and convulsing before he seized up and flung out a tortured howl. He clawed at his headband without managing to dislodge it, grasping wildly for the mark I knew to lie beneath it.

This had happened before.

"N-Neji!" I cried, running to him as he flopped onto his side, sprawled facing away from me. This couldn't happen now – not in the condition he was in! The damned Branch seal – was it reacting adversely to Orochimaru's mark, again? With his body so battered, with his chakra flow blocked, he wouldn't hold out for long. My hand plunged into my tool pouch, snagging a brush, a flask of ink, as my mind raced. "I'm here, Neji-nii-san! I'll stop it–!"

And as I reached him and knelt, hand grasping his shoulder, I heard my sister's voice screeching out.

"Nee-chan, DON'T!"

It was as I pulled on his left shoulder to turn him onto his back, as his Blood Seal activated cleanly and he whirled toward me in a flash of shrewd black-and-white eyes, that a right hand now sporting claws whipped around, a strike leaving his arm suddenly extended across his body and his hand resting by my side.

And my jaw fell slack, as five lines of pain split themselves across my middle to sear as spattering crimson, in the wake of his raking black claws, was flung through the air and dashed a good way across the dirt.

He held my shocked eyes, emanating chilled relish from the corner of his own, and a vile, radiant grin of exuberance blossomed slowly upon his lips, baring a row of black fangs.

A-ah… ouch…

"Look out!"

WHAM!

He had gathered himself, feet coming to plant steady beneath him, to propel him into the harsh right shoulder he lodged sharply up beneath my ribcage. My eyes snapped shut, my head down, as the flattening force landed with a crack, the impact short but firm enough to hurl me upward from my crouch and onto my feet. My arms wrapped instinctively across my middle, as my feet met ground. My eyes cracked open.

And before I could fall he rose and started toward me, turning his body as he drew back, and stepped hard to meet me with the savage blow of his hand across my face.

Something like a shattering boom jolted at my ears. The world flashed white with the stars that burned profusely across my eyes; my head hurt, my neck hurt, and my shredded midriff felt like it might easily fall apart. I landed badly, maybe on my face, and had the sense of rolling more than once. I coughed, choking for breath and jarring my injuries in the process. Blood was gushing, slipping thick past the hands and fingers I was pressing against my gut. How much was I bleeding? Gods…!

A laugh met my ears, from the one who towered over me; his face was stark white and splayed with black markings. The first ring…

"You fell for it, you fool!" he hollered, and force slammed down onto my skull. I grunted. After a moment's pressing my cheek into the grass, he moved his boot away. "Sure enough, you dropped your guard the second I turned my back on you. A fighter wouldn't consciously make himself vulnerable by turning away from his enemy, so my unbearable pain must have been genuine, right?" he sang, and stomped on my back.

"Guhf–!" I blanched, sickened, and kept my arms, protective, tight against my belly. I withheld tears, my breaths uneven and quick. He took a handful of my bangs on one side, chuckling softly as he dragged me up enough to examine my face. I scowled through the pain, my eyes disbelieving. "Y-you were – f-faking?"

He smiled peaceably, though his eyes remained vicious with amusement. "You're soft," he explained. "However you've 'changed,' I knew you would never attack an opponent unable to defend himself; thus, through the ploy, my safety was assured…"

I shut my eyes bitterly, breath shallow as I fought to mend the gouges.

"Ah… What was that, about your not hitting people while they're down? Oh, that's right – you're not that pathetic."

As he let go of my hair, his boot met me at full swing, smashing dangerously at my gut just below my arms. I screamed. Did he know I could focus and accelerate my healing? Was he knowingly keeping me in enough pain to disrupt my concentration, or simply striking at random? Thrown, I landed with a cry.

"But you know what's truly funny? Even so, you seem perfectly pathetic to me! You're a fool, Hinata, a damned fool who trusted her heart over her Byakugan!" he taunted. "Someone so disgustingly weak has no place in this world – no place at all!"

He thrust out his palm, and I flung myself aside. A Vacuum Palm blast tore, compacted, and burst violently against the earth where I'd lain; the pressure explosion threw me further, and I rolled to halt on my hand and knees, one arm still folded across my front. His curse chakra… it's forced his tenketsu open so quickly!

"Hinata!" Naruto cried. "Use your power, too! There's no other choice now!"

My neck throbbed at the thought, power pulsing on the edges of my perception. I flinched, hesitating.

"Too slow!" Neji barked, three snakes shooting to extend from his sleeve. But the taste of my own blood was thick in my mouth, and with its power I hacked out a rough burst of flame, engulfing the serpents before they could reach me. I shoved backwards and to my feet, staggering, and narrowly dodged a whistling swing of claws, ducking and leaning and stumbling from harm's way as he pressed on with a flurry of arcing claw strikes, brimming with ill intent.

I was nearly losing balance, in my haste to evade a swing that nicked my cheek.

Then I caught myself on a foot thrown back, shoving toward him, lifting the blood-stained arm I'd wrapped across myself, and with that hand deflecting a lunging strike.

I turned, so that the back of my shoulder was planted under his outstretched arm; I grasped his forearm, lowering my stance and attempting to lever him over myself.

But as I heaved, his weight proved too much for my injured abdomen. I stifled a yelp, mouth popping open and head tipping back as blood spurted from the tearing of a half-closed wound; lifted but an inch, he smirked as the surprise faded from his face, and he broke from my faltering grip to seize my arm himself, lining up a backfist for my skull with his free hand.

K-kuso…!

And my distraught, pained eyes grew wide as I chanced to see before me, though some distance away, a certain young man leveling a spear to lunge from the line of spectators, his eyes hidden in shadow.

In crystalline detail, I saw Hanabi's eyes grow as she began to turn her head toward him; Lee was lunging, a cry starting on his lips, as his hands came within an inch of catching him. By the time Lee's arms snapped shut, the blond had already vanished.

Pop.

And amid the insane speed of it all, as Neji's knuckles neared my face, my mind was working automatically to tally up cues, from long practice in reading them, that foretold the course of a naginata set to promptly pierce my cousin's heart.

Somehow, I…

With an eerie calm, mind all but blank, I ducked under the path of a screeching backfist, already whirling, lunging, as I did so. The wraith was materializing, flowing into existence at his back.

Without even meaning or trying to…

I had broken and reversed Neji's hold on my arm, shocking him with strength, to pull him aside and release him.

I factored Neji into the calculation…

SHLUKK!

Neji staggered to a halt behind me, head turning in something like bewilderment meshing into morbid fascination as his face was sharply spattered with flying blood.

And Naruto's head rose, the passion of burning rage melting from his appalled face as a lance of wind exploded from the curved blade I'd all but thrown myself onto.

My left hand had been occupied in throwing Neji behind me; my right would never have been fast enough to reach and redirect the blade in time. It was for that reason, I guess, knowing that anything in its path would be blasted through, that I jammed the inner side of my left shoulder onto the incoming weapon in the course of lunging forward and to my left, and carried its path aside with my own weight. The polearm was thus turning in Naruto's strong hands as the bolt of wind projected, its slicing energy punching through me and clipping the outside of Neji's arm.

I clenched my teeth, hard, biting back an impending scream. Jaw tensing, I struggled to breathe, consumed by the knives of pain that hung permeating in my shoulder, and the inches of steel barely but nonetheless sticking through it, protruding from my back. Behind me Neji was quiet, fixated on the turn of events, stance loose but having steadied after his reflex of jolting aside. Before me, a stark-faced Naruto gawked.

Then, with a harsh breath in the cold silence, I pulled back to half-free the spear. A stream of spilling blood plitted to the ground at my feet.

The horror on Naruto's face was overtaken by disbelief, and with it rising fury. "You idiot–!"

My growl was feral; teary gaze slamming into him, I seized the naginata in my left hand, tearing it from my shoulder with undue haste and a degree of force that wrenched it also from Naruto's now-shaking hands. It wasn't until after I'd slammed the shaft across his head, knocked him flat to the ground, that I even recognized my own great rage.

"This is MY fight, dammit!" I screeched, eyes screwed shut against my tears, and against his wounded glare.

"Hinata…"

My breaths were hard, rasping; they caught short, as my left arm and hand froze up, twitching. My vision was momentarily hazy. Trailing blood had webbed down my arm, and clear, crimson veins of it glistened on my fingers, flecking as I shook. My fingers were pushed open by the naginata's weight, and it slipped, dropping to the earth. It struck down just a breath before my arm fell limp, swinging to my side.

"Shimatta…"

Behind me, Neji began to chortle. "Brilliant…" he laughed, burying his face in a hand. "You two are quite a pair. So pathetic, it's brilliant!"

Naruto glowered defiantly, though there was little force to the defeated look; grief was clouding his eyes.

"Just go…"

He looked to me, remorseful. "I'm sorry…"

"Go," I repeated. "You've done enough, Naruto. Get away from us."

He winced, but rose to take his weapon and flicker away, vanishing from under my gaze. All this is… because I hesitated…?

"You know…" Neji said, leaning forward at my side. "You're in a bad spot. If I want to, I can call foul for this infraction…"

I clenched my teeth, bitter. I did not activate my mark, or attempt to heal. I had not even the right to do that much just yet.

Lee リー

"What is he saying…? Hinata-san was far more badly injured! Surely…?"

Hiryuu-san shook his head. "The interference was by one of Hinata-sama's witnesses, and his intent was undisputable. It matters not how minor Neji's injury…" He sent Naruto a withering look. "Did she tell you nothing of the protocol, when she agreed to let you attend the duel?"

Naruto flinched. "Then– what happens now?"

Nearby, Hanabi was pale. In contrast, Neji's witnesses wore smug looks, their confidence evidently restored. Hiyruu's head hung down.

"Neji may claim the match right now…"

Hinata ヒナタ

He circled around me, snidely superior. "In fact, I think I might," he said loftily.

"You wouldn't…"

"Unless…?"

I took a steadying breath. Here it was – with an advantage available, he would never choose to end the match quickly. He thirsted for his own entertainment, and desired perhaps nothing more strongly than my suffering. And for that reason…

Raising my head, I fought off a cringe and tried to sound strong.

"No bladed weapons, Juuken, or claws, and no lethal blows."

"Oh?" he scoffed as he halted a ways before me, though he could scarcely suppress the excitement in his eyes. "You think that strong body of yours can withstand the brunt of my physical force?"

I glowered, not responding as he raised his fists and entered a purely offensive stance, cracking his knuckles in anticipation. A ghostly whisper came from the sidelines.

"What…?"

I chanced a look toward Naruto's mortified face. There was little tolerance for outside interference in a duel of this magnitude; accordingly, its price was a steep one. Looking away, I stood up straight, arms hanging relaxed at my sides, and spoke to Neji again. "You have four seconds!"

"Seven!" he shot back.

"Five–!"

Before I could brace myself, his fist was smashing my stomach in. He smirked malevolently as I lost my breath in a croak, knocked backwards.

"Deal."

And he wasted no time in grasping the neck of my shirt and bringing a backfist, crushing, into the side of my ribs. His large hand latched onto my head from one side, and I watched his other fist close in. But for now, my challenge lay in resisting any impulse to defend myself, to so much as cradle my body or flinch away. I shut my eyes. Almost two seconds down…!

Pain flared from a trio of sharp and unforgiving impacts at my eye, my jaw, my nose, before he released me with a fierce headbutt to my skull. With great speed he had twisted my injured arm behind me and up, his free hand snapping down in a fist against my shoulder.

"Ack!" That's th-three…!

His knee impacted my back, and he released my arm to slam a full kick into the same tender spot, throwing me forward.

Four seconds down! I thought, gagging as my feet touched down again. It's close, but I'll still have enough strength to defend myself…!

He dashed ahead of me, nearly a blur, and planted his feet, drawing back for one more punch.

As soon as the fifth passes…!

He surged forward, striking with all his strength.

Now–!

And a devastating punch that went clean through my stomach shot all these neat little thoughts from my mind.

Naruto ナルト

Hanabi loosed a screech from behind the small hand she'd brought to cover her mouth. I knelt behind her, catching her as she collapsed and slowing her descent, my hand slipping to cover her eyes. Her body was tense, as if with pain, and quivered against me.

"Sh-sshhh…" I soothed as I held her, curled around her with something of a one-armed embrace, and rocked gently, my own face cold. "She's fine, she'll be fine…" But by the gods, the girl should not have had to see that.

I'm… so sorry…

Lee リー

"No claws…" Neji drawled smugly, opening his hand behind her. My stomach turned at the sight. He pulled the stunned girl in, closer to him, to fold an arm behind her, grasping her hair to pull her head back as he bent to breathe against her neck. His nostrils flared, and he sighed, gloating. "You're b-bleeding so much, Hinata…"

He wrenched his arm free in one clear move, and roughly kicked her down as she started to fall.

She slid to a halt; her narrowing eyes strained to focus, to find him. "A k-killing blow…!"

"Hm?" he said to the accusation, shivering in bliss as he slowly breathed in the blood on his hand. He shook his head with a smile, focusing again. "It might have saved you some pain, and left a cleaner wound, if I'd been allowed to use my claws… but in any case, what constitutes a lethal blow to the two of us, monsters who can survive such wounds?"

She grimaced, weary eyes falling away from him as she pressed a feeble hand to the wound.

Neji strode up to her. His boot nudged Hinata onto her back, and he stomped on her belly, below the injury.

He lifted his boot, and stomped again. Again, again. She shuddered at each blow. The line of my mouth was disturbed; the back of my neck prickled as she sharply spewed blood.

"Wh-what are you doing?!" Naruto finally cried, anguished. "Don't you see she can't fight back?!"

Neji tossed a look our way, an easy smile on his face. "For five seconds she was required to take the punishment I deemed appropriate, without defending herself. But if she's become unable to defend herself once the agreed duration has passed – as she has – there's really nothing to prevent me from carrying on for as long as I like. I suppose I should thank you, Uzumaki," he said, mockingly amiable, and stomped once more. Hinata's head jerked back again, her jaw agape, chest shuddering.

What… is wrong with you? I thought, sickened as Neji returned his attention to her, eyes bright.

"Thanks might also be owed to our esteemed dueling protocol, which are clearly so conducive to enabling proper warriors to do battle fairly… Ah, but what now?" he mused, pressing down. "Shall I turn these strong muscles into mush? Or…?"

His boot landed now at her hand, jamming it against the wound it covered. Hinata went rigid and gave a spasmodic few kicks, unable to voice a scream. Neji crooned.

"You don't like that, do you?" He ground his foot down, visibly brightening as he earned a long, hoarse groan of agony. He seemed to be fighting not to laugh as viciousness loomed in his voice. "It hurts, doesn't it?!"

His gaze swept suddenly toward Naruto, taunting as the blond glared daggers. "And just look at that defiance! Really, tell me you see that look on his face!" he growled to Hinata. "Go on – why don't you scream for him? Scream for the fool to save you!"

Hinata's face was lined with pain as she turned her head weakly, meeting Naruto's eyes with suppressed panic in her own. "Don't l-listen to him, Naruto–AAAAAAHHH!" she howled, as a boot met her shoulder – and the wound Naruto's spear had inflicted.

Naruto rose to his feet, acutely disturbed, but made no further move. Neji's look was triumphant, dripping with mirth. "That's right… you know better, now don't you?"

Stomp.

"Agh…!"

"And look at how well you hold in check…"

Stomp.

"It would seem even an idiot can be tamed."

Stomp!

"Hidoi," I breathed, shoulders shaking. That the teammate I knew could be capable of indulging in such cruelty… "Have you no shame, Neji?!"

"Shame?!" he laughed. Evidently tiring of working his boots, he knelt to hoist her back against himself, so that she was sat up leaning against him; he lifted a hand to her face, pinching her cheeks and lightly shaking her head side to side. "The penalty for interference in a duel is steep," he went on. "But I get the distinct feeling we'll go on uninterrupted from here on out, don't you?"

He directed her deadened gaze toward us, pinching her chin, seizing her jaw in a white hand.

"I was kind enough to give her the chance to endure and continue fighting, but she couldn't even handle a punishment on her own terms. What am I to do now, until she concedes defeat?"

"You already know she will not…" I murmured, desolate.

His smile grew. "Then this duel may last for a while yet!"

"Monster," Naruto spat.

Curiosity sparked through Neji's wild eyes. His expression more or less leveling out again, he dug a clawed hand into Hinata's hair. "I wonder…" he said, and rested his head on Hinata's shoulder. A playful glint was in his eye, devious, as he pulled on Hinata's captured arm and breathed along her neck. His eyes never left the blond.

"Is this yours, Uzumaki?" he ventured, and ran his tongue across a bleeding cut on Hinata's cheek.

My eyebrows drew inward; Naruto twitched, but held firm. Neji's eyes caught that shudder, though, and they danced. He licked her again, almost sensuously.

"I thought so," he said, hand abruptly leaving her face so that his arm could lock tight against Hinata's neck. She gave a cry of protest, but for now still seemed able to breathe.

"Whatever you're insinuating," Naruto ground out, "it has nothing to do with you, or this fight. I said I'd put my faith in Hinata. I may have slipped from those words once, but I won't do it again. She'll get out of this bind on her own strength, and when she does she'll see you paying for these little games of yours herself."

Neji cocked his head a bit, disappointed by the response. "So you won't lay claim? Surely you wouldn't mind, then, if I did this?"

Hinata's eyes grew as his free hand rose to firmly squeeze her breast.

Naruto started forward, color splaying dangerously across his hair. My hand landed hard at his shoulder as he audibly growled, murderous. Baka…! I thought, though he was not trying to move any further.

Neji laughed. "There, that's more fun!" he taunted, amused to no end. Ears down, Hinata shut her eyes in silent humiliation, her face red as he continued. "Have you ever touched her here, Uzumaki?"

"Y-you…!" Naruto choked, teeth bared.

"Calm yourself," I hissed acidly. "Can you not see it yourself that he is baiting you?"

"Lee…"

"Do you honestly believe he feels any such desires toward Hinata-san? Think, Naruto-kun. You are a thinker; therefore, you will calm down when you realize the only gratification he derives from this is in the satisfaction of seeing you suffer. Hinata-san can survive that much." And I would be damned if Naruto managed to make things any worse.

Naruto looked bitterly aside, defeated; the thickening whisker markings on his face straightened out, and his hair settled along with his energy. That was for the best. Neji displayed no aversion to behaving dishonorably before an audience, but rather took joy in evoking discomfort in witnesses – Naruto-kun, especially. And as he would demonstrate, my former teammate was a man who had grown to possess an indelible fascination with subjugation, compulsion, and control over others.

A smooth smirk flaunted sharp canine teeth. "You want to help this little demon, don't you? But alas, you stand petrified, crippled by the consequences no matter the strength of your will, and you can no longer even bear to watch…" His expression was raptly focused on the younger man. "What a delightful face, Uzumaki!" he exclaimed, dark voice suddenly harsh. "It's disgusting, isn't it? To have to restrain yourself indefinitely for the fear of invoking punishment?! Voluntarily stripping of pride for the sake of survival, and confined to a half-existence of restraint – no matter what humiliation you're subjected to, being left no choice but to endure it! Is it not a wretched, maddening state?!"

In his ranting he had shifted suddenly, quitting his fondling in favor of locking that arm against the wrist of the arm that still lay across the girl's neck. Hinata grimaced weakly, having given a small grunt of pain at the sharp tightening of his hold. Naruto's face was stark with concern. We truly could not anticipate what the young man might do, but his silvery eyes were dangerous, cold with an unfocused lust for vengeance.

"If you know so well of its evil, why would you choose to perpetuate it?!" Naruto demanded, meeting his eyes with a fury cowed and a panic barely suppressed. "You're no better than the ones you hate!"

"Why? Hmm… To help people understand, perhaps…?"

He loosened his stranglehold – a good step, though in its wake there could not quite be relief, for the encroaching of the weighty uncertainty that followed.

"I have an idea, Uzumaki Naruto. How would you care for a lesson in the basis of subjugation?"

And with unsettling speed, his hand moved again – pressing his claws, firmly, to Hinata's wounded shoulder.

"Bow to me, or be the reason I separate this arm from her body!"

I shuddered, but the command was clearly for Naruto. In the corner of my eye I saw the blond start beside me, in one jolt of alarm. Then, in a rigidly quick motion, he had inclined his back to some forty-five degrees.

His head was down, his unblinking eyes having fled Neji's piercing, shrewdly condescending gaze. Naruto's mouth was open; a drop of sweat broke from the tip of his nose.

Neji shook his head, loftily, with lingering disapproval in his soft grin. "Get on your knees, worm. You will bow properly."

My face was very cold. For all the shame Neji lacked for his behavior, Naruto felt it all with his own compliance, as he sank heavily to his knees and bit back any virulence in his tone.

"A-are you satisfied yet?"

"Press your forehead to the ground. Firmly…"

Naruto's head snapped up, indigo eyes meeting Neji with simmering, searing defiance, outrage, as he withheld a strangled cry, wordless, incredulous and fuming. He was disgusted. But he remembered himself swiftly when Neji furrowed his claws against Hinata's shoulder wound, chuckling and tightening his grip.

"Choking on humility… that look suits you. But enough talk; my patience is not inexhaustible. Do it now. Unless… Ah, I do wonder how loudly she might scream–,"

It was with an audible thud that Naruto pinned his forehead to the ground, shivering. His teeth were clenched, as were mine.

There are many kinds of cruelty, indeed… But there was nothing I could do, for either of my tormented friends.

"Very good," Neji indulged, knowing full well that the praise was an insult, salt for the wound. He gave a tranquil sigh, triumphant in his game with the submission of his selected target. "Humans truly are entertaining… What could it be, that evokes in you such disdain and repulsion for a harmless action? None other than your treasured pride. The fact that you are being forced to do something is what makes the notion of obedience truly despicable. I daresay I could make you do something as meaningless as hop on one foot, and your obedience would come with similar resentment simply because you lack a choice. To admit my present power over you is a horror, one burning in your throat right now…"

Naruto's folded form shook. I clenched my fist, fighting not to react.

"Even Lee," Neji went on offhandedly, drawing my level glare to his confident gaze, "Lee, who seems to have perfected a greater faculty for self-control, and the modesty to accommodate lesser a dependence on pride, seems to wish he might take your place, to allay your suffering… with proper motivation, we can make humans desire to be ruled! But the loyalest friend, he suffers more thoroughly in simply watching your pathetic display. Is he ashamed at being left out, even knowing he has no control?"

Innately I swore as I met his eyes, enraged, and my impassive mask broke – my only defense, irrecoverable with the feelings I had lain bare. Neji smiled at me, ensuring me that he had seen it, that he knew it, and that he without a doubt had just gained potential power over me.

It was a trial not to waver in the face of this twisting apprehension. "You have fallen far…"

"Empty words," he snarled in return, voice soft and sharp with dark excitement, his confidence supreme. "Do you claim to know the wretched state of a human forced to live without pride?! The two of you are receiving but a taste of it. Imagine existing perpetually in such shame, and then ask again why I hate my oppressors! Ask again why I have grown 'depraved'!"

"This must stop!" I protested. Is this what Tenten meant, by the person he has become, who can only understand power? It is awful–!

"Ordering me around, Rock Lee?!" he hissed, speaking through bared fangs. "Here's an idea: You break Hanabi's arm, or I snap Hinata's neck!"

My heart tripped over a beat.

Naruto, on the ground, his eyes edging intently toward me.

Hiryuu-san, the others, torn, ultimately freezing in resistance of the instinct to protect their young charge from harm – their surrender to the mad logic painful, but frighteningly swift.

Hanabi, looking to me with inevitable terror, but so much bravery – with acceptance.

None of us could have escaped the thought – how could this end?

My hand twitched.

"HA!"

We looked back to the field in time to see Neji gagging at a strong elbow in his side, one of his wrists locked in Hinata's other hand. The girl's sprawled feet gathered swiftly beneath her, and her body held out as she rose and wrenched forward, hurling Neji over herself and into the ground beneath her, planting a forearm across his throat.

"Change of plans," she snarled, teeth bared threateningly.

"H-how? So quickly, your wounds…?"

"Demon Art of Focused Healing…"

Baffled, Neji blinked – and with a shove of his weight he created enough space to scramble quickly aside, and sweep to his feet. Hinata rose as well, anger clear on her face.

"Oh!" I jerked my hand away from the arm Hanabi had extended, and she lowered it just as quickly, blushing. Naruto had lifted his head from the grass, eyes brightening in his now frail-seeming form.

"H-Hinata…?"

"On your feet," I said, offering him a hand. As he took it, I added, "We should have had more faith…" Of course – while Neji is familiar with their physical durability and inhuman healing rates, he did not anticipate the accelerated healing technique Kurogiba-san taught to Hinata so long ago. So he felt secure in toying with her after inflicting a wound that, provided their baseline, neutral healing rate alone, might have taken hours to fully recover from.

"So you pretended to be almost fully incapacitated," Neji was observing, "all the while busily at work…"

Hinata nodded, brow stern. "You got careless, but it gave me all the time I needed."

"Hm… And here I thought you would be forced to awaken your Blood Seal as well to have any hope of continuing…"

I frowned. For what reason would he want her to draw on that power?

"Even so," he went on, "you're in pretty bad shape. That blunder earlier has cost you…"

"Can't you see that I only want to help you?!"

"The issue isn't one of seeing it or not!" Hanabi snapped. "He doesn't care. He is a dangerous, unscrupulous man with vile tendencies!" Her voice quieted, quaking. "The one who can't see is you, Onee-chan…"

Hinata glanced her way, and then to Neji once more. "It doesn't matter how hurt I am. I will not allow someone like him to rule. Trust me…"

"Such confidence," Neji drawled, unimpressed. "You and that brat would call me a tyrant, a fiend unfit to lead, but tell me this – if I were so wretched, why would the Branch have rallied so readily at my back?!"

By her wince, Hinata had likely gathered an answer. She looked down, eyes coldly perturbed. "Because…"

Neji's smirk was fervent, but somehow bitter. "My people love me because I opened the door to the cage – I dared to lead the way, when no one else would! And in the face of oppression, it was I who taught them that we are free to say 'No!'"

His arm flashed out before him, sending a pair of snakes lancing from his sleeve. Hinata was caught off-guard; she looked up, arm rising in defense to receive a wicked bite from the first of the serpents, before the second snapped its fangs sharply into her throat.

Kuso!

Expression shocked, she spit blood, and burst into flame.

She had been quick enough, somehow, to create a Katon Kage Bunshin unnoticed. Neji started, scowling as the burning snakes disintegrated, melting into smoke – and he looked up just as Hinata, having dropped swiftly at an angle and from fair height, whirled to slam a kick down between his neck and shoulder.

The strike was clean, landing in a thud with her ankle and the roof of her foot sinking into flesh that yielded with a crunch; her narrowed eyes glowered at him from behind her crossed forearms, watching as he gave a grunt, jaw agape, and began to buckle.

His shutting eyes snapped wide with fury. His feet planted with such absolute force, such violent sureness, that the ground about them crackled to pieces. A snarl of defiance twisted his face and wrinkled his nose as he challenged Hinata's gaze, her scowl of determination, as he ground her force to a decisive halt. One of his knees, having come within inches of the ground, would budge not another hair; his body shuddered with irrepressible strength.

"'No,' I won't bow down, and I never will AGAIN!" he roared, surging to full height, straightening his bent back, with a retaliatory fierceness that rebounded Hinata's kick to throw her, tumbling, hard to the dirt. She flopped onto her back with her halt, and sat up to glare at her foe, teeth gritting as she curled a bit around the side that had initially struck ground.

Neji chuckled, long and low, keen black teeth in a grin as his shoulders rose and fell with his breath.

This is not good…

Hinata ヒナタ

"I… have no interest in making you, or anyone bow down. Can't you see…?"

I planted a hand on the ground, and began to rise.

"I'll never deny that the ways of the Main House are wrong. But I can't accept that you've led our clan to support the ambitions of New Sound, either… and I can't allow Orochimaru to have you."

"Orochimaru-sama and New Sound have offered the Branch more than your house ever has… Did you think you, as one weak leader, might have changed things? Could you alone have redeemed your family from its sins?"

Looking down, I lowered my head slightly in acquiescence. "I told you, I know that it was feared – that I would be a frail, fickle leader, and out of incompetence would rely on the juinjutsu to keep order. That was the Branch's fear; the fear of the Main was that I might be too compassionate, too hesitant to do just that in the absence of any means to otherwise command respect, and that the clan and its order would topple around me. I've seen the fear in everyone's eyes, veiled by hatred…"

–"Failure…"

Kick.

"Pathetic little mouse…"

Kick!

"Disgrace to our name!"

Kick! Kick–!–

I shut my eyes for a moment, taking a breath.

"But I'm here now to show you that I've changed! I won't back down, I won't use the juinjutsu, and I won't need the juinjutsu! I'll defeat you with my strength, and I'll lead with my own strength! And so long as I have a say, my clansmen will not be made to bow down!"

That was my dream… just a little girl's simple dream for us all to live together, so things like that wouldn't happen anymore… so things like the ones that made my Neji-nii-san cry, and put such a look in his eyes, wouldn't happen to anyone else again.

He laughed as I took my stance. "Always the softest, whitest heart… You think you know quite a bit about everyone's feelings, don't you?"

I remained silent. He chuckled again, still neglecting to take any stance of his own.

"Say," he said loftily. "I've heard about a certain alias occasionally taken up by Hyuuga Hinata, the rogue ninja known as the Black Wolf Fang. Among other notes, like your tendency to feign blindness, it's listed in your file, and on your page in New Oto's bingo book. That is… the name Hikari, wasn't it…?"

I flinched. There was a smile in his eyes.

"Using your late mother's name as an alias… how sweet! If foolish… Did your sentimental heart think her spirit might protect you?"

"What exactly are you getting at?" I said, lip starting to curl.

He waved off my anger. "Just a little story… The Main knows, and unbeknownst to them, the Branch quietly, resentfully knows – but do either of you know, I wonder?"

I bristled as his gaze lilted toward Hanabi, bitter. "What is it?" I asked.

His eyes fell on me. "That dear mother of yours, Hyuuga Hikari, dreaded and abhorred the ways of the clan more than anyone. It's said that this grew more apparent, the clearer it became that your development and skill trailed behind that of other Hyuuga children your age. When you were around four years old, she even refused to bear another child with Hiashi until it was promised that under no circumstances would either of their children receive the clan's curse mark."

My brow furrowed. I realized it had been strange, growing up learning about the workings of our clan while having lived right beside a contradiction to them, in my younger sister whose brow remained unmarked. I had been happy to never question it…

"As you can probably guess, he acceded to her defiance. He loved her too much, this kunoichi formerly of the Branch, whom he'd fancied and taken as his wife despite all the Main's disapproval – a woman for years made to wear powder upon her bare forehead in public, to oblige all to forget her former station. So you both were protected, as it were exempted from the system that shackled the rest of us, by the selfish conspiring of your parents. Given the luxury of sating the instinct to protect a loved one, and the presumption to abuse their power, they broke the very customs, the sacred order that your House so ardently defends and imposes!"

Even his wry smile had fallen away. "Needless to say," he continued, lip curled in disgust, "the traditionalists of the clan were not pleased. So the Branch were stung by hypocrisy, the Main were unnerved with the prospect of making exceptions for the second-born of a woman who had already produced one failure – and lo and behold, after Hikari's death in childbirth, the infant was found to be a Lightning Hyuuga. The second-born grew to show well more promise than the first, and the two daughters Hiashi's wife had given him were pitted against each other; his increasing favor for one, in light of his neglect for the other, could not have been clearer.

"Even so, the older sister, so long as both remained Hyuuga of the Main House, was the one destined to resume the line of succession. So long as you could not be banished to the Branch, Hinata, the genius Hanabi would never lead, and would amount to so much wasted potential. However you look at it, your parents had made a fine mess of things – their actions mocking the Hyuuga's system, and scorning all those forced to abide by it."

"What you're saying doesn't add up!" I protested. "Before I left the village, Hiashi-sama was fully prepared to mark me with the Branch's seal!"

He gave a sly look, an expression of dark amusement. "There were always whisperings of ways the clan's establishment planned to push you aside, Hinata; not a few were rather insidious. It can't be known how many were rumors, but your father was supposedly at the fore of them all. But the solution that emerged, the means for circumventing the oath Hiashi had sworn to his late wife, lay in that very pledge's wording. Neither of 'their' children could be branded. Get it?"

My mouth was dry. "Th-that's why…"

"Hiashi spent the night you disappeared preparing to have you officially disowned. Your own father would thus leave you Hikari's child, not his own, no longer 'theirs' together, and in this way render the promise null. The oath's words, which could easily have been tightened against such loopholes, didn't specify to such an extent as to define their children as offspring or in terms of biological origin; doubtless, Aunt Hikari could hardly have expected her beloved husband to willingly, eagerly betray the spirit of her wish through such a flimsy semblance of compliance. A truly detestable man…" A growl rose in his voice. "Hikari chose to trust him, and Hiashi readily betrayed the naïve faith of the woman he once claimed to love, and conspired against his own blood! Do you see now? Your words, your feelings, mean nothing to me! For people who incessantly lie, manipulate, and betray… for people as worthless as you, my father DIED!"

It was difficult to hold firm in the face of that, but I did. "So you won't trust my words, or my ability to stand by them. I can understand this… but I'll still win this battle. And then, I'll find a way… without fail, I'll eliminate the mark for all the clan!"

He sneered as I raced toward him.

"Why initiate the attack?" Naruto shouted. "Your healing rate is faster – take all the time he'll give you!"

You may be right, I thought as I ran. My claws sprang out. But as long as my body is in one, solid piece, I can fight! I won't get anywhere, standing without trying to move forward!

"Your way of thinking is still simplistic!" Neji taunted, dodging as I swung my claws with a yell. "Don't you see?" He leaned and ducked from another flurry of claw swipes, and blocked the sudden kick at his side without missing a beat. "A new age is upon us, Hinata. A just age wherein the strong rule, and order is kept through martial law!"

His own claws flashed out in a flicker of obsidian. I leaned back, losing a few strands of hair from my bangs; eyes wide, I barely dodged the following punch. He's too fast like this!

"For all your resolve, you hesitate to activate your own Blood Seal against mine! Who are you going to protect this way, knowing you can't match me? Are you so worried about hurting your dear, precious Onii-san?!"

I wove from two more strikes and lunged out, claws nicking his tattered flak jacket as he slipped aside. A bruising knee rammed my ribs, and Neji grasped my arm as I recoiled; in one deft motion he had twisted it up behind me, pinning my arm to my back and lifting me to my toes as I yelped once in pain.

He snarled at my ear, vehement with loathing. "A new age demands a new order, one that I am fated to defend with the duty of imposing it. You're unfit to exist in this age," he spat, tightening his grip. "You would never thrive, so encumbered by the sentimentality that renders you weak, weaker than anyone…!"

He released my arm, and the back of his other hand crashed with a vengeance across my skull, throwing me. I hit the ground and slid to a halt on my side, coughing. I looked back to see Neji grin a vicious grin, exultant; he flashed his teeth.

"That's why I'M the alpha dog of this pack."

My teeth ground. Spitting, I rose into a crouch, and paused – startled to see the first inklings of a ring of black spreading so naturally at my wrist. I watched for only a moment, fascinated by the crawling markings and very aware of my own pain. Then, as if by some indeterminable reflex, I burned the curse's presence away, and watched the half-formed ring flee existence.

Why can't I…? Why won't I…? I could even have released my youki, to channel my full han'you state; the gift of Naruto's blood still awaited as a catalyst. So why didn't I? At this point…

"Isn't it obvious?" Neji laughed at my quiet confusion, drawing my attention back to him. He shook his head as I returned to full height, his tone reflective. "You just don't fit, Hinata. You were always too kind… Too soft to hate, too passive to lash out in retaliation, no matter the humiliation or insult you were subjected to."

He blurred nearer, his strong hand latching over my mouth. I gave a muffled cry of alarm, and he continued to speak, his voice even as he stared me down.

"Unpolluted by the filth of your wretched surroundings and upbringing… untainted by the scorn and disdain with which you were treated. That's what Hyuuga Hinata is, right…?" he said, sarcastic.

There was no way he wouldn't have seen as my claws began to sink into his forearm – and froze. We both knew I could tear his arm open in this position; he had simply known sooner than I had that I wouldn't. He reached into his tool pouch, calm.

"I want to strip away and destroy that repulsive purity, you see? I want to be the one to inject you with the taint of hatred myself!"

His kunai slammed deep into my shoulder. I shut my eyes, bile rising in my throat as I went rigid. He shoved me away; I staggered, but kept on my feet, gasping. My eyes were wild. My voice was steady as I reached to the hilt of the knife.

"Compassion is not w-weakness!" I argued stubbornly, yanking the sharp steel from a burning wound. I clenched my teeth so hard they ached, but refused to cry out. I cast the knife aside, breath shaking once. "I-I love you… and that's why I must defeat you!"

I ducked my head, fists clenching; my youki sparked enough to stir at my hair, and settled again. K-kuso…!

"WHY?!" Neji screeched, fist cracking into my cheek. He yelled in outrage, anguished, striking a punishing blow at each word:

"WHY–WON'T–YOU–HATE–ME?!"

He's really losing it again, I thought through a haze of pain as I crashed down, thrown off my feet by his final hit. I heard him curse, panting for breath. Lying on my belly, I planted my hands on the ground and began to push up. Using the curse still weathered him down, then…

I grunted as weight landed forcefully at the back of my head, flattening my attempt to rise. He ground his boot, pinning me face-down. "I told you I would make you kneel, Hinata…"

STOMP!

"Mmf–!"

"I will uphold the new order. The strong will not be oppressed. And… at last…"

The pressure was escalating. I heard crackling earth.

"In the new age, their smiles will no longer be false!""

My hand tensed suddenly at this, compacting the ground beneath it. My claws dug steadyingly, and I pushed against the ground again. "You tell me…"

"What's this…?"

My arms burned and then seared, burned some more. My wounded shoulder further tore itself, gushing. My neck throbbed, straining. My teeth clenched harder and harder.

My head rose from the dirt.

"You think that only in a new world can smiles be true? A-are you that terrified of the past?"

He shoved down; I caught myself, nose stopping a centimeter from hitting the earth again. The sight in one of my eyes was tinged red, and I ignored it, pushing, shuddering upward again.

"You tell me how… y-years ago…!"

I drew in my legs, getting a foot under my struggling body.

"…I knew a Hyuuga Hiyuki who was strong enough to smile!"

His flinch was all I needed; feeling it, I shoved upward with a yell, sending him staggering and staying on my feet, albeit swaying. I panted, eyes intent. Neji's expression was furious.

"Monster," he hissed. "Do not utter her name, after murdering her with your own hands!"

I felt a stab of surprise – not my own. Hanabi was gawking; looking, I found that her witnesses were confused as well. In any case, there was no time to figure them out now. "I had no choice," I said firmly, glaring seriously at Neji again. Rage reared its head, shaking me. "After what you'd done to her… turning them into mindless beasts–!"

"RAAARGH!"

I leapt aside, barely escaping the path of his claws as he blazed by. He glowered back at me, fuming – as two more inky rings snapped to solidify upon his white wrists and neck, and his power loomed. His voice was jarringly harsh as he pointed at me, seething. "Do not speak of things of which you know NOTHING! Hinata!"

With his snarl came a shockwave of focused, dark energy; a nearly invisible blast of force twisted through the air, kicking away the light plate of armor on my shoulder and sending me reeling on impact. I caught my balance after being driven several steps back; then I found that my opponent had slipped into another formidable stance.

"I've been waiting to use this," he growled, murder smoldering in wrathful white eyes. "Prepare yourself… for the Dance of the Quasihemidemisemiquaver! And by the time the final beat has passed, let us see if you're still breathing!"

The Sixty-Four Palms again? I thought, taking a step back. But that ridiculous name, and the slight modification of the conventional stance – some variation? With my shoulder still like this, I won't be able to fully deflect whatever it is! I need… to activate my Youki–!

A palm smashed soundly into my gut, shorting out the energies that had begun to unfurl. And I heard with the strike the gong of a bell – but that bell was immense, gargantuan, terrific, and heavy, and I stood inside it so that its toll rang low and long as the savage booming of steady thunder through every inch of my body, inflaming flesh and rattling bones in a line focused on the palm's strike but expanding to crash in vicious fury against the walls of my ears. Through this I barely heard the harsh utterance he cast forth.

"Whole Note!"

My eyes were huge. Wh-what…? No–!

My feet had just caught ground when he whirled forward again, with a shout of "Half Note!" striking with the tips of a row of straightened fingers from each hand. One strike screwed pulsing chakra into my liver, and the other soon followed, hitting a kidney; both resonated loudly and harshly through my body and ears, accumulated upon the somehow lingering force of the first blow.

"Quarter Note!" he snarled, and my senses were almost fully overtaken by the pain of just four strikes, with twice the speed of the previous two, boring into my lungs and gut–

"Eighth Note!" Each level of the move took a double in number of strikes and in striking speed, to be carried out in the same length of time of execution, and jarred me on an ever-finer scale, layering in a higher pitch than the previous to join in crashing across the depths of my sensitive ears–

"Sixteenth Note!" Too many overlaying waves of force, roiling and colliding across my body with his bullet-like strikes, with the sound, the terrible sound, growing high and shrill. I couldn't hear myself grunt anymore, as the jabs tossed me about.

"Thirty-second Note!" Two-finger jabs jackhammered my torso at a staggering pace, each sending its fresh jolt distinctly through the chaos in my ears. My flesh burned at the cruel treatment; my very bones seemed to ring and ache, as he struck with channeled rage. There was no way. To strike any faster–!

A smoky aura of darkness sprang from his form as the fourth ring claimed him, and he launched forward upon me again.

"Sixty-fourth Note!" It was too much, ferocious, pounding, screeching, with bewildering speed. He attacked my limbs now with my torso, his power stabbing me without pause, breaking me down on a finer scale than I would have thought possible.

M-my body's… being torn apart! I thought, wild in panic, unable to cry out.

His aura enfolded him like a cloak, shaping the semblance of two canine ears upon his head, and a tail at his backside. The fifth ring had appeared.

I shut my eyes, paralyzed upright, lost in a world of tumultuous pain and noise as he closed in, whirling, for the finale. I can't take… any more…

"One Hundred Twenty-Eighth Note!" he declared, attacking hands a vile blur of furor and passionate annihilation. It was a chain explosion that went shattering through me with the unearthly crescendo, ringing high and piercing with churning strikes that consumed no more than an infinitesimal shred of a second apiece. Then, with the one hundred twenty-seventh and one hundred twenty-eighth of these such strikes, closing on the tail end of a strong step forward, he concluded the onslaught with a slam to my stomach and heart, knocking me through the air.

I saw the words shaped on his snarling lips as I was launched backwards, limp.

'Storm of Heaven's Orchestra!'

Then the assailing wave of discord, the cacophony of notes played out to the sharpest degree, cut at once to nothing. I was left with only the pain of the attack still reverberating rapidly through my frame as I sailed, mouth agape and dripping, my unblinking sight sweeping the expansive skies.

I can't believe… he became this strong…

When I struck ground on the back of my neck, I heard nothing at all with the crushing impact.

Pain was everywhere; sound was nowhere. Sore, aimless eyes saw my chest shuddering, its attempts to rise and fall made choppy. I dragged an arm, its every muscle tenderized and weak, twitching in spasms, to grasp at my heart, and my head jerked back in a convulsion as my chest fell sharply, its compression pushing a thick spray of crimson from my lips. I turned my head aside, coughing on shallow breaths as I tried to feed my burning lungs air. The moment I caught enough of it I expelled a yowl of agony – but heard it not, in the throbbing silence. I finally noticed the warm wetness in my ears, seeping into my hair, and my eyes moistened as I gritted my teeth and screamed in thought.

Chikusho!

I might have withheld a screech as something tugged at my ear; Neji, having deactivated the Blood Seal, was smiling in sickening delight as I found his eyes, my head held an inch off the ground.

'How was that, Hinata?' He emphasized the shape of the words to ease my reading of his lips. He was too pleased with himself. 'A barrage of continually intensifying magnitude: with each level, the shortening waves of sound are released in such a way as to interfere constructively, additively, resonating with those preceding it. The vibrations pulverize every inch of my victim, inflaming and bruising tissues to a microscopic level, and placing an enormous strain on the tendons, ligaments, and bones. You're in rather good shape, considering; alive, only a handful of unlucky fractures, and more or less functioning to boot! But, naturally…'

His expression was indulgent as he tapped a finger to his ear. 'The more powerful the victim's sense of hearing, the more vulnerable she is to this technique. Not that it usually matters, again; against average enemies, it's largely overkill. In this way, you really are my ideal target – capable of surviving to experience, and suffer, every last brilliant drop of its potential…'

I spat blood purposefully on his boot. It kicked me in the face.

He had released me so that I was knocked a short way, my gut twisting in pain. I had to get up. I put my feet under me, numb. I balanced with fumbling hands, and shoved upward, head swimming – and somehow managed to send myself keeling straight back into the ground on my side, driving down into my shoulder and landing sprawled almost before I'd found I was falling. I blinked, dizzy.

Huh?

Neji looked surprised to have seen me rise at all. He watched as I made a second effort, slowly. As soon as I was above a crouch, I couldn't begin to keep anything straight; thoroughly disoriented, I threw a foot too far forward in a flailed attempt to catch myself, and twisted to crash down on my side. My balance was shot.

Neji was gloating at my state. 'It's a wonderful technique, isn't it? You rely on brute force; I employ finesse, skill to your crudeness. What are a few measly, haphazard physical strikes of your 'Punishing' Sixty-Four Palms', before the calculated and debilitating might of my assault? You've lost, Hinata."

"Not yet," I said – I hope I said. This isn't good… I n-need to summon Kurogiba. If I can use his senses, then maybe…

I got to one knee, trying to stay steady. Six seals – if I could complete six seals faster than Neji could react to stop me, and wring out some of the chakra practically motionless in my coils… inwardly, I scowled. I had to try.

My hands fumbled together, fingers colliding, failing to correctly form even the simple sign of the Snake. Neji was smirking at my panicked attempts.

Kuso! Kuso!

He flicked a shuriken my way; I couldn't quite see straight, and either way my reaction was slow. Pain nailed me in the shoulder as I was leaning away, and I toppled onto my backside with a yell. He only continued to grin as I glared warily back at him, my throbbing ears down, my body shivering with weakness and pain.

I tensed as his hands flowed together, slipping through seals at a leisurely pace. 'You can't do anything now, can you?' he said. Stopping on a last seal, he spoke slowly and deliberately, ensuring I would read his words. 'This fight is over.

'Suiton: Kouka Suijin!'

Water broke again from the lake. In the oppressive silence I watched, tried to stand, stumbled to my hands and knees; I looked up, teeth gritted, to see the rising, towering column of water shape itself and plunge toward me, a drill of hard liquid that stretched under its own acceleration, churning and swirling to a fine point.

A straight, single shot attack…

This is not a move… he expects will miss!

My neck throbbed.

BOOM!

I felt the clash more than heard it, as it decimated the earth and threw me far aside. I landed heavily, hacking. Dust cleared from around me, pushed by the black energy rushing and rolling about my sprawled form. I saw Neji quirk a neat eyebrow where he stood.

'Even now… Still carrying the will to fight, huh? Your last regret will be that you didn't use that sooner.'

I looked dazedly at my hand before me, blinking at the sight of sturdy black claws, deathly pale skin, and the five rings of darkness encircling my wrist.

So, this is the manner in which I cling to my own life…? My chest shook with a chuckle; my mouth still ran with blood. Before my eyes my shaking hand resumed its normal appearance, as the curse's power ebbed from my seared system.

Neji was speaking again; I could just barely hear something like sounds, and I looked to read his lips. 'Forcing the resumption of chakra flow by overloading your coils all at once with the power of the Blood Seal… a risky maneuver, and one that's taken its own toll. But to immediately release the Kaiten, to just barely manage to divert the Water Blade's thrust aside…' His lips curled in amusement. 'Do you know how unsightly you are?'

I pushed from the ground with a grunt. Shoving into the start of the spin was the hardest part… Even barely able to balance… my body remembers how to manipulate and expel chakra for the Hakkeshou Kaiten… Breath labored, I rose carefully into a crouch, keeping my center of gravity low and manageable. The curse had imparted a small bit of healing in the moments of its violent activation – some effects of which had been counteracted by the brute unsealing of so many tenketsu. My balance had improved, but my body ached, and molding – so much as touching my chakra was painful. I glared at my cousin as he smirked coolly – he knew the state I was in.

'What will you do now, Hinata? Will you bother to stand?'

I suppressed a snarl. I knew my voice was weak. "Standing up is one thing I'll figure out how to do, without fail! The first step, whatever course of action I plan to t-take…"

'Oh? But I've noticed something rather worthy of note, of which I'm sure you're aware.' He pointed at my right arm. 'That dead limb leaves a gap, a hole trailing and winding into the dome of your Kaiten. It might not be so bad for the lack of chakra contribution alone; what really interferes is its blocking other chakra without being able to compensate for the loss. The interference is small, but even so, it's able to reach the outer surface of the Kaiten, which is meant to provide the strongest front of its defense.

'With this in mind… do you believe another sloppy, off-balance Kaiten can stand up to a Water Blade aimed specifically at that weak point?'

I bared my fangs in a grimace. Of course he would notice it…! And I didn't doubt he had the precision to hit it, too.

His hands clapped together, weaving his signs. His Byakugan eyes were triumphant as water burst forth from the lake, a spire churning violently into the air.

'DIE!'

The whirling missile sped toward me, its swiftness blinding. I began to back away, to overbalance. I could not blink.

My Kaiten…

…won't be enough for this…

But as strange Fate would have it, there was someone whose Kaiten would.

My back met something sturdy; two strong arms slipped forward around my arms and middle, wrapping up tight, before I was smoothly lifted and pulled along with a spin. My mind was blank but for one spontaneous thought.

Warmth…

And a fierce voice, near enough to be caught by my ears, rang out as blue energy passed and flowed about me.

"Hakkeshou – KAITEN!"

His chakra control was of such a level that he curled his energy effortlessly around me, forming a complete dome around us both with no sacrifice in strength. The barrier sprang outward, impervious, meeting the oncoming blast with a crash that rang muted in my ears. The spinning slowed and stopped; the danger had passed. And I saw bursting, shapeless water cascading to the earth before us, as Hyuuga Hiashi carefully released me from his arms.

I nearly stumbled as I was deposited, gawking in disbelief as I turned to look at him. The man I had last seen faltering, weak, and bedraggled now exuded power in force with his posture, the firm and indignant set of his jaw; he was a king in prison garb, the steely white eyes beneath his stern brow livid upon the stunned visage of Hyuuga Neji.

'Y-you…!' Neji said, and something like fear permeated his expression.

"H-Hiashi-sama!" I cried, recovering my voice as his steadying hands left my shoulders. This… something resounded urgently within me. This wasn't right. "You shouldn't be here!"

I was partially behind him; he turned from me and straightened, to face Neji fully. "Stay back, Hinata," he said; though his close voice was soft to my ears, its steady tone was unmistakable.

I shook my head. "You – you can't protect me. This is unfair!"

The man's eyes softened only momentarily; as quickly his hesitance melted away, with startling and practiced ease. "The boy we knew has changed, Hinata. The man Hyuuga Neji has become can under no circumstance be allowed to live – the threat is too great!"

I blanched as he raised two fingers in a seal. The trepidation on Neji's face erupted in stark, inescapable terror as he shuddered once, teeth clenched with dread. 'No, don't! Please!'

"You mustn't–!"

"Unlike you, I know what I have to do, Hinata!"

"And what are you going to do?!" Neji screamed, wild with embittered rage, and at such a volume that the words were discernible to my ears. He ducked his head, shaking hands fisted at his sides. "Step on the rules that favor you already, as you see fit?!"

Hiashi released his chakra, undeterred, mouth opening with a harsh shout of attack.

Neji's eyes snapped wide.

I screamed, fangs bared, heart pounding.

"Don't hurt him–!"

The man tensed for just one moment, confusion sweeping through his tall form.

My cry was still fresh, barely off my lips, when my face was sharply spattered with liquid heat. For one frozen breath, for one skipped beat of my heart, comprehension was beyond me.

Then I realized, truly realized, that a pale, clawed hand was resting in the air before me, protruding from Hiashi's back and dripping brightly with his blood.

Neji's voice met my ears – sinister and snide.

"Just kidding…"

My knees shook. A young girl's distant screech met my ears, dulled. I kept staring at that hand, that colorless hand with its fingers splayed and painted a glaring, garish hue with running crimson, as its clawed nails faded away.

Hiashi's strong frame was rigid with shock. "H-how… Why didn't… y-your seal…?"

"'Why'?" Neji echoed contently, slowly, eye to eye with his uncle, the head of our clan. His offending hand flexed, fingers wriggling. Then he wrenched his arm back, his red hand free, to leave only a jagged hole through Hiashi's stomach.

The man swayed tensely, teeth clenched, large hand dropping limply from its seal. Numbly I blinked, and I gave a wordless cry, moving to catch him under the arms as he fell backwards against me, but I toppled under his weight. I grunted as I broke his fall. Face fraught with confusion and pain, he parted his lips, gaze still fixed on Neji with crippled disbelief.

I looked up as the somber young man brought his stained hand to the silver insignia on his brow. He pulled his headband away without a word, revealing no more than the well-faded outlines of the brand that had once bound him.

When…?

"H-Hiza…shi… I've f-failed you… and your son…"

Hiashi shuddered against me, eyes stretched wide. Then he jolted, and vomited a frightening amount of blood.

"H-Hiashi-sama…?"

"Chichi-ue!"

At that cracking voice, my gut twisted. I had shifted, so that the back of the man's head rested against the front of my shoulder. He blinked dully, in surprise. A moment later Hanabi had tripped to his side, crying, her good hand seizing his shoulder as she cried out again, breaking apart in front of me. My vision blurred and refocused on the wound, on the torn cloth and the dark red that was spreading around it at an alarming rate. My mind was running a simplistic loop:

No. No. No…

"Nee-chan!" Hanabi cried, snapping my focus to her tear-stricken face, her running nose and wide, glistening eyes. This was happening. By the gods, this was literally happening… "Focus, Nee-chan! We need to stop the bleeding! Nee-chan!"

Her small hand was clasped, having balled up a wet fistful of his shirt to press to the wound. My mouth hung open as she wailed.

A-ah…

…how to say…

"N-Naruto-san, Harumi-oba-san, h-help! Please…!"

To explain that, however you look at it… th-that's a fatal wound…

"H-Hanabi-chan…" Hiashi croaked, a large hand practically engulfing her small one. "That's enough… I w-won't… survive this…"

Just like that, he'd explained it to her for me. Hanabi's face paled even further, her eyes squinting in a vain effort to withhold excess moisture as she trembled in her fine, tattered clothes, flustered, and shook her head furiously.

"B-b-but–!"

"And what the hell is that supposed to mean, Hiashi-sama?!" I cried suddenly, drowning out Hanabi's outburst. I knew, as I said them, that my words didn't make sense. I already knew his fate was sealed. My shoulders shook uncontrollably as I glared into his mildly surprised eyes. "After you showed up, acting cool… you're just going to lie down and accept this?! What happened to the stubborn, bullheaded Hiashi-sama?! What good will it do you to d-die now?!"

I hung my head; water was dripping from my eyes. Saying stupid, unreasonable things…

"K-kuso…" I squeaked. "Kuso!"

The softest chuckle, warm. His eyes were reflective. "I s-suppose in the end… I couldn't do m-much, for anyone at all, could I…? The clan… our family…" He shuddered, coughing. "My brother did m-more… He protected the secrets of the Byakugan; he defended the village. But what have I, as his older brother, done with these y-years his sacrifice gave me?"

"I-it doesn't matter, Hiashi-sama!" I whimpered. "You'll have m-more years! You said you were going to make things better, right?! Hiashi-samaaaa…!" It was a long, lamenting, cracked wail, one that wrung itself from my aching chest. Still scowling, bitter, I slowly reached to grasp his hand and interlock my fingers with his. This wasn't fair. It couldn't be…

Dulling white eyes drifted back to me. "I-I'm sorry… I did say that, didn't I…? I wanted to… I really, really wanted to…! But I messed up, again. Leaving everything to you… I'm nothing but… a f-failure!"

My eyes were frozen wide, running with tears. Hanabi gave a choked whine. Still Hiashi looked up at us with joy glimmering in his weary eyes.

"But my t-two, beautiful daughters…!"

The back of his hand brushed gently up along Hanabi's chin, her cheek, before his fingers found and brushed against my cheek, nestled up into my hair, and stroked my ear. The feeblest smile graced his bloody lips.

"Already so big and strong, and with so much farther still to go…"

Water broke from his eye, despite his steady smile. His grip was weakening on my hand; my lap was soaking in his blood. He was going fast.

"I wish I'd seen more… seen you grow…! Is it wrong that I regret it, now?"

"No," I breathed. Hanabi shook her head, not trusting her voice; the line of her mouth was wrinkled, as was her brow, as she wept. Hiashi closed his eyes.

"I'm relieved…!" he said happily, and coughed. "I'm s-sorry… sorry I wasn't a better father to the two of you… I've been praying she'll forgive me…"

She…?

The clenching of his large hand in mine was weak, so weak. His voice cracked. "Hinata-chan…! You l-look almost t-too much like her, you know…?!"

I flinched. "M-mother?"

"Haha… Hikari… w-would be so proud of you both. I kn-know it… But you'll need to look after each other s-some more now…"

I shut my eyes against his tranquil, pained face. Such a pure smile… the truest smile he'd ever shown us. Why did it have to have waited for a time like this?

There was a coarse rumble in his chest. "A-ah… Would you – lend me your ear, H-Hinata?"

I complied, numb. It was a struggle to catch his ensuing whisper, but I did, and my eyes grew slightly. I looked at him again as he finished. "Are you sure?" I said.

The slightest nod. "After failing everyone… I'm sorry that that's the most I c-could offer…" His brow grew worried with a new thought. His breaths were chaste. "Perhaps – I deserved this…? Then, at least–kuhf!–I was able to try to do the 'right' thing h-here, at the end…"

Something clenched within me. Hanabi cried out as well, but I heard only my own yells. His eyelids drooped. The words flew, beyond my control, frantic.

"No, Hiashi-sama, you don't deserve it! Not this! Just – don't die on me! I still need you! Hanabi needs you! You can't do this, Hiashi-sama– Father, don't die!"

His chest rose with a short intake of breath. One more tear broke from his cracked eyes, leaving a crystalline trail down across his cheek, into his hair. He was smiling again, his brow smooth with peace as his body shook. I couldn't hear the words on his almost still lips.

'…L-love…you.'

I was gripping his hand too tightly. "F-father? Father…?"

"Chichi-ue?"

"Father!"

I froze, ice washing, coursing down my spine.

I tried and failed to swallow the knot in my throat. The shuddering of his chest…

The weakly pattering thump of his heartbeat against me…

It was all gone.

O…oh…

My mouth hung open. I loosened my grip on his hand.

Hanabi threw herself against his chest with a grievous cry, distraught. I pressed my cheek briefly against his head, and then laid him down flat.

I rose stiffly to my feet, swaying in shock. My head felt light with crying. I didn't know what to do. Hanabi, still curled up small and clinging to the… body, looked up at me from her bawling.

"N-Nee-ch-chan," she blubbered out, voice at a croak. "H-h-he's–he's…!"

She dropped her eyes from me, all broken up with despair, and buried her sobs against his chest, in the last of his warmth, trembling hands clasped in his shirt. It was too surreal…

It went without saying that I was probably already a bit messed up; my chest hurt, I wasn't sure what I felt just then, and I didn't know what kind of face to make – even if I had, I wouldn't have known how to make it.

What was… I doing here, again…?

But when I heard a cutting voice laugh aloud – heard laughter like a whip, while my little sister sobbed against our father's pale corpse – it knocked something inside of me just a bit off-kilter.

"Perfect – PERFECT!" he roared. "Isn't this sublime? Now you may understand perhaps a TENTH of the pain I feel!"

Hanabi looked toward him, scowling acidly in rage; I observed eyes that seemed paradoxically dark. My words, spoken absently, drew her gaze. My own eyes were unfocused, maybe someplace on the ground.

"Just shut up…"

Ah… that's right, wasn't it…

"Hm?! Do you hate me now, Hinata?!"

I… have an enemy to fight, don't I?

I turned my head to meet his dancing, murderous eyes. I passed a moment in slow, unblinking contemplation of his question.

"…No."

A blur.

The next thing either of us knew was the smashing of his gut beneath my knuckles, as the power in my neck came unfurled.

ナルト / リー / ヒナタ \ ハナビ \ ネジ

End Chapter Twenty-Seven

Neji: She... She really will kill me?!

Hanabi: Hyuuga Neji, I'll never forgive you!

Kurogiba: Took you long enough...

Hinata: Forgive me. I need your help now, Ani-ue.

Neji: You'll have to accept that we will NEVER understand each other!

Naruto: A bloody history has led them here, to this crossroads. But the path taken now lies in their hands alone. The dreams of halcyon days, shattered before the cruel ambitions of a new age...

Hanabi: Everything changes today. So, whose ideals will win?

Neji: Destroying all that lies on the other side - that's one way to eradicate even the most persistent 'rift,' is it not?

Hinata: Let this be the final day, the final fight, in which descendants of Hyuuga will senselessly spill their own blood!

Hanabi: Next time, Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Eye That Sees the World.

Don't forget to vote in the poll!

End chapter song: "Family Honor" by Immediate Music.

-List of Jutsu, Fighting Styles, Powers (rougly in order of appearance in chapter):

Hakkeshou Kaiten (八卦掌回天): Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven; 'Rotation'

Juuken (柔拳): Gentle Fist

Juugouken (柔剛拳): Gentle Ferocious Fist/Gentle Strong Fist; hybrid style incorporating the use of Gentle kicks, Stong kicks, and punches into Juuken.

Hakke Kuushou (八卦空掌): Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm/Eight Trigrams Air Palm

Sen'eijashu (潜影蛇手): Hidden Shadow Snake Hand

Yomikiri (黄泉切): Underworld Slice/Underworld Slicer/Hell Slicer; previously unnamed Curse technique of activating drawn blood to launch scythes of dark power

Kuchiyose no Jutsu (口寄せの術): Summoning Technique. Used, of course, are Summoning Jutsu (Snake) and Summoning Jutsu (Wolf).

Daeki no Kakyuu (唾液の火球): Spit-Fireball; Previously unnamed power allowing a youkai/han'you with a Fire chakra affinity to ignite her own saliva

Katon: Goukakyuu no Jutsu (火遁・豪火球の術): Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique

Suiton: Suiryuudan no Jutsu (水遁・水龍弾の術): Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique

Reikuchiyose no Jutsu (霊口寄せの術): Spirit Summoning Technique; summons an elemental wolf's spirit into an appropriate medium infused with chakra (typically, into an elemental jutsu of the caster). Used is Spirit Summoning Technique (Water).

Mizu Bunshin no Jutsu (水分身の術): Water Clone Technique

Kyuujutsu (弓術): archery; lit. bow technique

Juuho: Tengaken (柔歩・天牙拳): Gentle Step: Heaven Fanged Fist; because a half wolf demon can't launch chakra lions from her hand. That'd just be wierd XD

Juukenhou: Hakke Rokujuuyonshou (柔拳法・八卦六十四掌): Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms

Genkei no Rokujuuyonshou (厳刑の六十四掌): Punishing Sixty-Four Palms/Sixty-Four Palms Severe Punishment; flexible technique using Juugouken and feints as necessary to aid in the connection of the Sixty-Four Palms. Requires practiced body control to strike rapidly with the Juuken hand as opportunities are created.

Ketsueki no Juin (血液の呪印): Cursed Seal of Blood; a curse mark Orochimaru created in part with the blood of the Five Tailed Wolf-Dog

Youkai Hou: Shuuchuutekichuu (妖怪法・集中的治癒): Demon Art: Focused Healing; the previously unnamed self-healing technique Kurogiba taught Hinata in chapter 9. The user internally manipulates his or her energy to focus already high recuperative powers on a specific part of the body and accelerate the healing of a severe wound.

Katon Kage Bunshin no Jutsu (火遁影分身の術): Fire Release Shadow Clone Technique; creates a solid clone infused with Fire that bursts into flame when dispelled.

Hyaku Nijuu-hachibuonpu no Mai: Juuken-Oto Ninpou, Hakke Tenkangengakudan no Boufuu (百二十八分音符の舞・柔拳音忍法・八卦天管弦楽団の暴風雨): Dance of the Quasihemidemisemiquaver: Gentle Fist-Sound Art, Eight Trigrams Storm of Heaven's Orchestra; literally '1/128th Note Dance: Gentle Fist Sound Art, Eight Divination Signs Heavenly Orchestra's Storm.' Or something. Because the longer your technique name, the more dangerous it becomes!

Suiton: Kouka Suijin (水遁・硬渦水刃): Water Release: Hard Whirlpool Water Blade/"Hardened Water Drill"; the Nidaime's ultimate move in Ultimate Ninja 3 or Narutimate Hero 3.

Note on the 'Hyuuga clan history' - obviously, in light of recent manga developments concerning a magic chakra tree, having people tap their chakra in the time before Rikudou Sennin doesn't much fit. Not only do I not like the thought of people being chakra-less until then (if we view chakra as life energy or chi, I feel like it should basically exist in all living things to begin with), it was revealed too recently for me to try to make a history that agrees with it. For this story, we'll say everyone has chakra from the start, and the Rikudou Sennin simply taught humans to really manipulate it.

How was the chapter? We saw nonchalant Gobi and anxious Kurogiba, and in the village Koneko hoping her fascinating Wolfpuppy deals with Neji wisely, before cutting back to the duel. Hinata matches Neji before beginning to push an increasing advantage, facing a bit more difficulty when Neji starts to take her seriously after the palm lock and the dispelling of her henge, but then tricking Neji by summoning Kurochi into a Water Dragon. After Neji's attempt to strangle Hinata is 'rebuffed,' he rants out a clan history lesson. Hinata, determined to show her own strength, uses the Tengaken. Hanabi disapproves of Hinata's naive goal, and their argument is broken up by Naruto. Neji's 64 palms is countered; Hinata declares her intent and then shuts Neji down with the Punishing 64 Palms. She falls for a trick as Neji activates his Blood Seal, and she suffers a severe slash, but things really fall out of her hands when Naruto tries to interfere and Neji invokes a right to exact punishment on his opponent. Neji taunts/psychologically attacks Naruto and Lee, but Hinata uses the time to heal, albeit remaining at a disadvantage when she breaks free. Neji scorns Hinata's refusal to hate him, and digresses into the story of Hikari and the circumstances of Hanabi's birth. In a rage at Hinata's eventual mention of Hiyuki he unleashes the ultimate barrage that failed to connect in chapter 4 (vs. Lee) and chapter 8 (vs. Sasuke) and that hasn't been seen since; Hinata is deafened and more or less incapacitated. But Hiashi arrives and... well, yeah D:

What'd you think? Please Review!

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