Phew – next chapter!

Soo, I received a totally awesome fanart from Pretend Fiction to chapter 32, you should totally check it out. The link is on my profile page.

Again, thank you so much!

She's not comfortable with this.

In fact, the only thing that keeps her from running is Kohaku-sensei's hand on her neck. He's been steering her around like a puppy since they stepped foot into the Hyuuga compound ten minutes ago. It's huge, imposing, and the most traditionally Japanese building she's ever been in, with none of the western influence that gives Konoha its slightly more modern feeling. And now she's standing on its back porch, still carrying her shoes in hand, and staring into the face of a boy who can only be Hyuuga Neji.

He's surprisingly short – though it might simply be that she's too tall – and there are stark white bandages across his forehead where his hitai-ate should be. For a moment she's confused, before realizing that he's one year her junior and must therefore still be an Academy student. Neji is staring right back at her, projecting a mix of distrust and anger.

"This," Kohaku-sensei says, "is cousin Neji. I believe both of you have some … frustration to work off. I thought you might be able to help each other."

Sensei's hand pushes her forward, and she stumbles a few steps into Neji's direction. She lets her shoes drop into the grass and jumps barefoot in front of the boy. There's an agitated crease between his eyebrows; it's not overly noticeable, but still far more emotive than she's used to from his clansmen.

A moment of tense silence follows as they size each other up, unsure about this novel and admittedly strange situation, and then Neji's hand shoots out at her like a viper. He's so fast. Startled, she bends backwards, trying to evade his strike.

She overbalances and falls right onto her ass.

He stares down at her, just as bewildered as Hisana herself. Then she drives her feet into his gut to put a respectable distance between them. He doesn't even stumble. Instead he skids a few feet, only moved because the ground gives way beneath him. His hand already forms the snake seal, but then he shoots Kohaku-sensei a wary look.

"Go ahead," the jounin encourages, "but whatever tenketsu you seal, you are responsible of unsealing."

"Byakugan."

All right, she thinks. If you want it that way. Her Sharingan flare to life, and Neji lights up in a dim, purplish glow. She stares. Is that chakra? He's closing in on her again, and only when their hands collide she realizes that this is nothing as physically real as chakra. Neji is practically vibrating with hundreds of micro movements, ready to spring into every direction, to change tactics on the fly. Her Sharingan is trying so hard to capture all of them that the reddish color of his movements is bleeding into his chakra signature.

He feints left and charges right, but she slides her foot right into his path and ducks to ram her shoulder into his chest.

He wheezes, but his flat hand comes down on her back. Pain explodes on her shoulder blade, and she braces for the dull throbbing of a blocked tenketsu. It never comes.

There's no time to be surprised; this close up she can't analyze him properly, so she lets her fist shoot up to his chin. He jumps back, her knuckles only grazing his skin, and lands once again a safe distance away. Somewhere in the back of her mind she registers Kohaku-sensei's chakra signature moving away from them. Though something else occupies a far bigger part of her brain.

Why didn't he seal her tenketsu? It was a perfect opportunity – and he clearly intended to do so before. Once more she slides too far into his personal space, barely dodging the sharp burn of the Juuken. She jams her knuckles into his ribs – and in turn catches the palm of his hand against her temple. Hisana staggers backwards, disoriented. His hand is a blur as it seals three tenketsu in her arm before she can shove him away.

They stare at each other, panting.

She cracks her shoulder. On one hand, if she gets close enough he can't get at her tenketsu, though she's not sure why. On the other hand … his hits still hurt. A grin tugs at her mouth, even as Neji's frown deepens into a fully fledged scowl.

She doesn't know for how long they tear at each other. Only when Kohaku-sensei's chakra signature makes an appearance on the porch Neji's hands sink and Hisana allows herself to relax.

There's a sharp pressure on her arm as he unseals the tenketsu there, and four more on the side of her ribs. Then he walks away without a word.

"Are you feeling better now?" Sensei wants to know.

She does. Right now she's too tired to feel much of anything at all, but it's a good tiredness. A satisfied kind. Hisana goes home still a little high on adrenaline and grinning like an idiot.

Three times a week Kohaku-sensei leads her to the Hyuuga compound after training, so that she and Neji can beat the crap out of each other.

They don't talk. Hisana doesn't know or care if this is simply training to him, or if it is just as therapeutic for him as it is for her. They don't hate each other, she doesn't think. But they aren't friends either; they are simply using each other, and that's fine. Hisana doesn't need a friend, she needs someone she can hurt without feeling bad about it. Kohaku-sensei at least seems pleased with the results.

"You're calmer," even Haru remarks at the end of the first week. "It's nice. We were worried."

She ruffles his hair.

So for a while things are good. Hisana doesn't even care when Hyuuga Airi catches her leaving the compound one day, grabbing her by the scuff of her neck.

"You look like a ruffian off the streets," the woman grits out from behind clenched teeth, pulling Hisana away from the prying eyes of the Hyuuga guards. "For god's sake, don't you care how much shame you bring to your clan, running around like this? You look as if you just had a roll in the hay."

Airi yanks out her braid none too gently to pick grass out of her hair.

"That might be because I did just have a roll in the hay," Hisana chirps. "With your cousin."

Gleefully she watches the woman immediately jump to the wrong conclusion. Airi hisses like a teakettle.

"Aren't you glad O-nee-sama?"

"When Hiashi-sama finds out about this-"

She breaks off suddenly, and her face twists into something wry, as if just realizing that the day Hyuuga Hiashi found out about this wouldn't be a good day for any of them.

"Hiashi-sama better not find out about this! Now turn around, you stupid girl, so that I can fix your hair."

While the Hyuuga patriarch never does seem to hear of her supposed love affair with Neji – or, she thinks, he would have already turned up on her doorstep – the entire rest of the clan seems to be made up of busybodies that know absolutely everything. On more than one occasion she's noticed a Hyuuga clansman giving her a wide berth or sending her pitying looks.

"What's wrong with them?" Sasuke hissed at her just last weekend, when two Hyuuga women noticed them on the market and promptly abandoned their groceries to flee discreetly.

"Apparently I have connections," she told him in wide-eyed wonder. "I feel like I just started dating a mafia boss."

While this is all very amusing, the change brings a long overdue visitor to her door.

"Genma."

For once he's actually knocked on the front door instead of breaking in. His face is serious, and for a moment she's braced for another fight. Then he visibly deflates. Reassured, she motions him inside. It's not as if she shouldn't have expected it. After all, even if Hyuuga Hiashi hasn't realized that she's been regularly visiting his compound, village gossip is sure to have carried the news to every office chuunin in the village. Of course Genma would have heard.

She's not angry at him anymore, just disappointed. It sounds like something her mother would say, but it's true. But in a way that's almost worse than being angry. For a long while Genma had been the adult in her life, the one who knows how things are supposed to work and show her the ropes. He'd supported her for almost three years, and then he let her down when she would have needed him the most. But he's only human and not even that much of an adult. She's thought long and hard about that; Genma is at most twenty-six or twenty-seven years old. In her other live she might have trusted him with a potted plant, but not with a bunch of children.

It's been almost five months since their fight too, so she can look at the whole thing with a clearer head now. Even so, their argument opened a rift between them and made space for someone else to step into Genma's place. Kohaku-sensei is by no means as funny or easy-going as the chuunin, and his affection is sparse and hard-won, but he's taken the position as her confidant nonetheless. She suspects that this is in fact what a proper team leader is supposed to do.

Slouching on her couch, Genma looks as if he knows that his visit is damage control at best.

"This all didn't really work out how I planned it," he admits.

"There was a plan?"

"Well, no. Not a proper one. So yeah, when I heard the Hokage saddled you with a Hyuuga I kind of panicked. I just wanted to warn you – it just didn't turn out so well."

She nods. It's not an apology exactly, but she'll take it.

"It's fine," she assures him. "But I haven't changed my opinion about the whole thing. I like my team. I like Kohaku-sensei."

Genma makes a face, but doesn't say anything. She's grateful, because, forgiveness aside, she's ready to fight him on this again.

"Please tell me you're at least careful around Hiashi-sama. He may appear nice enough, but he's shrewd and callous."

So that's what he heard. Hisana is a little surprised that the rumors of her and Neji haven't reached the gossipmongers of the mission desk yet; but then again, Neji will be the head of the branch house. Nobody would go out blabbing about his personal business to an outsider. The fact that the rumors are still going strong is already proof that nobody's even dared to breach the subject with Neji himself.

"I wouldn't know what Hyuuga-sama is like," she tells Genma grimly, taking just a little pleasure in his confused face, "because Kohaku-sensei keeps me well away from him."

"Then what the heck are you doing inside the Hyuuga compound?"

"Beating the stuffing out of one of their prodigies."

He stares at her. It probably seems strange to someone who doesn't know the whole story, but she has no intention of telling him that Neji and her are taking their aggression out on each other so that they can be functional members of society the rest of the time. So she just shrugs at him.

"I like it. It's different than sparring with my teammates. They know me too well by now."

Genma sighs in defeat.

"Alright, I see. Just … if you need help, I'm still here."

"Yeah, I know," she admits with a slight smile. "I didn't think for a moment that you weren't."

Neji's eyes narrow at her.

After six weeks he still looks at her with the same expression – pent up frustration and a certain amount of animosity. At first she'd though his sour look stemmed from the Hyuuga clan's typical dislike of the Uchiha, but by now she's pretty sure it's simply her. They circle each other, doujutsus blazing, waiting for a mistake, a second of inattention. Hisana stomps her foot forward, startling Neji into action.

She catches his flat palm with her fist, chakra scraping past her knuckles harmlessly. She sneers at him in wild triumph. So that's it – he can't focus his chakra accurately enough in his palms. The Juuken comes from his fingertips.

And if I get too close, she thinks, catching his other hand by the wrist and twisting it upwards, hitting me gets awkward. Hisana shoves her knee into his gut, forcing the air out of Neji's lungs. He twists out of her grip and backs away.

Right now Hisana still has the upper hand; she's older, taller, and more experienced. But in a few years, she has no doubt he'll wipe the floor with her in a taijutsu match any day. She can't wait to see it. He bares his teeth at her. She beckons him over.

The Kiri Chuunin Exams are approaching rapidly, and would have passed without Hisana noticing, if not for Shiki.

"We're going," the Nara informs her, slouching so far into her chair that she very nearly slides off. "I don't know what Dai-sensei is thinking. We're going to get our asses handed to us."

Hisana pats her hand consolingly.

"There, there. If you just lie down and give up, it'll be over real quickly. We can take the Exams together the next time."

Shiki snorts.

"You just don't want to sweat to death alone in Suna. No, if I already have to drag my carcass all the way to Kiri, I'm going to ace this shit. No way I'm taking another Exam next year."

"You bitch," Hisana says fondly. "Who needs you anyway? I still have Shizurin."

Only two weeks later Hisana sees team 6 off as they leave for Kiri. They're not alone; there's a rather big congregation of genins milling about the gate.

"So the great Uchiha-sama isn't coming?" a grating voice comes from her left.

The owner of said voice is absolutely unfamiliar to her.

"I'd ask who you are, but that would imply I care," she says, a little miffed that some random stranger would try to pick a fight with her.

The girl flips her hair over her shoulder and braces her hands on her hips.

"I," she hisses, "am one of the top kunoichi of our year."

'Our'. Oh – a classmate. For a moment Hisana genuinely wracks her brain for a name, or even a single memory of this person. She draws a complete blank.

"And since I am going to participate in the Chuunin Exams, and you aren't," the girl continues, unaware of Hisana's internal struggle, "I think a little more respect would be appropriate."

"Oh shut the hell up, Hanada," Inomaru grouches, his teammates in tow.

Hanada's face sours for a split second, before twisting into something akin to a smile.

"Ino-kun! I didn't realize you were around …"

Shiki's cough sounds suspiciously like 'bullshit'. She shoos the girl away with her hands.

"Take your stupid somewhere else," the Nara gripes, "I already have a headache. Don't need another one."

"What's it with her?" Hisana asks, bewildered, as she watches Hanada stalk off in a huff.

"Oh please," Inomaru says, "as if you don't know."

"It's Hisana-san," Choumei intones, as if that's supposed to mean something.

Team 6 shares a look. What the hell?

"Hanada has a big fat crush on Sora-san," Inomaru informs her gleefully. "And as his teammate you're In Her Way. Big time."

For a second all Hisana can do is giggle stupidly.

"That's sweet," she finally huffs. "In a completely bitchy way. But sweet. Sora's going to love this."

When they finally leave, Hisana waves them off a little wistfully. It's hard to see Shiki leave Konoha – to maybe return as chuunin – without her. But she has faith in the Nara girl, as well as her idiotic teammates. They'd be fine. Hisana herself has an amusing week to look forward to, because Sora's totally not going to love this.

If Hisana thought that her life would settle down a little, now that there's almost a year left until the next Chuunin Exams, she would be wrong – of course.

Once Neji forces the second stage of the Sharingan out of her – by completely shattering her kneecap to pieces – there's yet another addition to her life. This one in equal parts anticipated and dreaded.

Hatake Kakashi introduces himself by stringing her up by her ankle.

"Oh," he says, "that was easy."

I love the Hyuuga siblings. I don't know why – they just strike me as surpremely funny.