Zabuza Momochi attempted to attack Kakashi again, but weirdly, was only using his huge sword, without any ninjutsu added into this attack.

This allowed Neji to lend a hand to his sensei:

"Water Style: Water Gun!"

Bullets stopped Zabuza for a bit, and luckily, his attack didn't hit either Tazuna or the rest of the team of genins.

Rouge shinobi had stopped, picked his sword from the ground and pointed it at Kakashi.


"Move now, Sharingan Kakashi if you want your kids to be alive. I have no personal vendetta against you, those children or this old man."

Ino's eyes wided a bit. What is this? During such serious moment, Zabuza was talking?! And attempting to negotiate?

"…Just leave this old man here and save yourselves, while I am giving you such chance."

For a second, Neji thought that their teacher would accept and they would be allowed to get out of this situation alive.

Leaving Tazuna would mean a fail to their mission, and this was unacceptable for Neji. Raised as a shinobi, he was taught to always prioritize the Hyuga Clan heirs and the success of the mission first.

"Kakashi sensei. No."

Neji sounded serious even when whispering.

"Shut up kid. I know what I'm doing."

Kakashi leaned close to Neji and started whispering him, as the most "adult" person in Team 12 his plan.

"I will be fighting the bandit here. You take Naruto, Ino and Tazuna out of here – time would be enough to distract."

Neji gulped but quickly regained control of himself. He lowered his head and already prepared to do what Kakashi told them, run away.


Suddenly, he sensed something coming from behind with his Byakugan. In a speed of the light, he hit off a senbon that was directed at him.

"Naruto! Ino! An attack from behind, protect Tazuna!"

The other teammates reacted immediately, and formed a defense stance. Looked like Zabuza Momochi learned from his past mistakes and didn't come alone this time.

They stood like this only for a couple of seconds, when a wall of ice covered the only remaining exit they had. Now, it was either throwing themselves off from the bridge or fighting.

Team's sensei was busy with his battle with Zabuza and now can't come to aid the team. Genins now had only themselves to count on.

"Ice technique? How is it possible, as I remember – you cannot freeze the water you are using in any normal circumstances. We got ourselves a very unique opponent."

Ino started her battle analysis, but even with her brain, right now there was nothing to analyze. Their opponent trapped Team 12 on the bridge and then hid in the fog, throwing senbon at them occasionally.


Naruto who was already pretty sick of it, screamed:

"Show yourself, coward!"

"Naruto!"

"No, Neji, he is correct – it can't continue like this if we want to crawl out of this alive."

Suddenly to even them, a small figure holding a couple of senbon tried to attack them again, but the shinobi clearly thought that the fog will hide him completely.

The team got surprised, seeing that their opponent is almost the same height as them. His face was completely covered by a mask and he quickly threw senbon at Neji.

In surprise to him, Neji dodged this with only using his palms.

Ninja hidden by a mask sighed on this.

"I don't want to harm innocent children. But if you continue like this, you will leave me no choice."

Naruto couldn't bear that insult.

"Innocent children?! We are shinobi, show some respect to us! Clones no Jutsu!"

Around Naruto appeared a couple of clones, and he ran towards the masked ninja with then. Neji tried to scream something, but Naruto was not hearing it.

"I'll show you all. I show you that I can be useful as a member of the team and not just an errand boy!" Naruto thought, while trying to fight the ninja with his clones.


Right now, Naruto couldn't even dream about complete victory but at least he was holding very good against the opponent, who stopped with a senbon usage and started using his ice techniques to the clones.

Remaining two members of Team 12 stayed behind.

"Why are you just standing, Neji, go!" Ino urged him.

"Then who will keep their eye on Tazuna? You?"

Ino really didn't like his tone.

"What do you mean with "you"? I can manage, just I am… Thing is, I want to help!"

"That's exactly what I meant, Ino. You are completely useless as a fighter. All impact our team can get from you, is you hiding in the bushes and thinking about a plan."

"What?!"

Now, the kunoichi was really angry and pulled Neji's long hair. Then, she lowered her head and smirked.

"Ha. I'm sure that's exactly what you told Tenten 6 years ago, right?"

Neji only got silent.

"Aaaah!"

The bickering teammates couldn't continue, as they were distracted by screaming of Naruto. He continued and continued trying to attack, but right now, clearly received a not-so-small wound.


"Idiot! Get away!"

As if his legs were moving on his own, Neji ran towards his teammate – Naruto was really not at his best right now. But Neji also managed to see, that some ice started to form around Naruto and the radius was insanely huge. The orange ninja was not paying attention to this.

"Byakugan!"

Neji managed to detect the real Naruto – trap around them started to slowly getting shut. Young Hyuga grabbed Naruto's arm and tried to yank him away.

In a second, Naruto hit the fast-forming ice walls. The trap has shut.

"Damn!"

Neji raised his head and almost felt dizzy – face of their opponent was multiplying in those ice walls. Although, it was incorrect to call it walls, it looked more like ice mirrors.

But what Neji really didn't expect, is that with Naruto, he found sitting Ino, who looked like she had sneaked in right before the mirrors trapped them and was shaking her teammate to get up.

The girl was breathing in and out, looking at Neji with a satisfied grin.

"Now we all are here, Neji."

"Are you crazy! Run away, you'll get killed!"

"Heh. You two? Fighting? Without me? Never – we are teammates after all!"

"This girl is really insane," thought Neji.


Their opponent was also not standing still. His melancholic and slightly sad voice started to prepare the jutsu.

"Why are you still fighting against me? Inside those Demonic Mirrors, I am unbeatable. I do not have a desire to harm you. So just give up."

The team didn't even have the time to respond, as the masked shinobi threw a real rain of senbon at them.

Neji effortlessly dodged the ones that were aiming at him, but didn't realize that Naruto and Ino might also need his help – at this time, he still thought of himself as a solo fighter. Naruto, who, luckily for him, woke up, managed to react and yanked Ino away. Still, a couple of needles pierced the kunoichi's arm.

Ino almost screamed of pain, but she managed to suppress it, gritting her teeth so hard, that she almost bit her tongue off. Her teammates were looking at her. She cannot allow herself to cry, or else she would never be taken seriously.

She did not touch the needles inside her arm and forbade Naruto to help her, since blood would come pouring out and damage her until the fight. But the strategist still found the courage to close her eyes and start thinking about the way to defeat this opponent once and for all.

Kakashi-sensei was outside and was busy fighting Zabuza, he couldn't come and help, plus, Team 12 were trapped. So, they only had themselves to count on now.

"Hm. That's all you got?" Neji wiped the sweat off his face and looked at the masked ninja with distain in his eyes.

A big pause went allowing the team to breathe out for a bit, until their enemy spoke up.

"Looks like you are not planning to stop. I am really sorry, but you are standing in my precious person's way, so I need to remove you."

"Good luck to even try and deal with us. You are fighting against the member of a Hyuga Clan!"

Neji then jumped and started trying to detect where the actual ninja was, but even Byakugan was not helping as the enemy was just much faster than Neji. He was not even running, more like "jumping" from mirror to mirror.

It was impossible to catch him, all while the attacks of senbon didn't stop. Neji really had trouble both dodging and trying to hit the enemy.

Suddenly, a huge senbon pierced his leg – it went out of it, somehow avoiding the bone.

"Damn it!" Neji fell on the ground from pain and started twitching from it. Naruto ran, trying to help, but young Hyuga only pushed him away.

He was breathing heavily; Neji was clearly exhausted and his leg was hurting. Gritting his teeth, he tore out the senbon and pompously threw it at the opponent.

"This is just a scratch. Don't think you'll beat me with tricks like this. Byakugan!"

"Fool."

Suddenly, a whole manifestation of attacks went in one direction. But they were not aimed at Neji, who was beginning to feel the burnout of his chakra.

Those senbon were aimed at Neji's teammates, Naruto and Ino. It was a behind attack, they had no idea what was happening, or a way to avoid it.

"Morons! Dodge!"

"HUH?!"

Naruto was laying on the ground when he saw a giant ball of chakra blocking the senbon from reaching – this counter-attack kept all of the needles away. Ino shut her eyes, slowly realizing she could have turned into a porcupine right now and would be beyond saving.

Two shinobi opened their eyes and realized what has actually happened.

Laying on the ground and covering their heads, to their shock, Naruto and Ino saw Neji, who was swirling around, blocking any senbon that might've hurt his teammates.

Finally, the tourelle of attacks quieted down and Neji had also stopped.

With a loud "BANG", his metal protector's fabric was cut and fell on the ground. Seeing this, Neji lowered his head in emotion, that looked very similar to shame.


"N-Neji?!" Ino's voice was almost shaking.

Her teammate was not responding for some time, but then, he finally turned his head to look at them.

Ino and Naruto saw, what was hidden under that headband – a huge, 'X' looking, green seal drawn on his forehead.

And, even if they had no idea what actually meant, Neji's teammates decided to keep quiet, as it looked like the seal meant something to Neji, since his reaction was that bad.

Neji only slightly gulped as he realized that his headband was now off, but that was not that bothered him.

"Are you two okay?"

"Yes. Thank you, Neji."

He quickly looked over his distressed teammates and turned to fight the mysterious shinobi again. His opponent was clearly giving him more time as he seemed a bit surprised over Neji's reaction.

"Why did you do that? The attack was not directed at you, so why you spend your time and burning your chakra to protect them?"

Neji got silent. He had no idea what to say. Then, with a low, barely audible voice, he muttered:

"Those guys are… They are… They are my team. I cannot allow them to die. Not from the hands of a thug like you, especially."

"You wasted your time saving them. This is not the way a shinobi should operate."

"Hey, you! Don't do 'la-la', you are literally working with Zabuza!" Naruto suddenly butted in the ongoing conversation.

The ninja kept silent and when he spoke up again, it sounded like his voice cracked. While he was saying it, he missed that Ino started whispering something very fast to Neji, who was standing over them.

"Do not compare me to you. My loyalty only lies with Zabuza-san – I belong to him, I am his instrument. Like you are to your village."

Neji's eyes wided. He started trembling a bit and slightly touched his now exposed forehead seal, trying to hold it. Meanwhile, their opponent continued.

"Zabuza-san is my precious person. And I like the life serving him brings."
Naruto's blood started boiling, while all Neji was left to is just heavily breath, attempting to calm down.
"Enough! How can such a criminal be your precious person?!"

"I knew you would never understand. You three are like open book – can never change your mind about anything and can never change yourselves."

He then breathed in.

"Looks like we cannot understand each other. Then, please forgive me for what I'm about to do."

"Analysis complete," thinking, Ino grinned.

"Now, boys!" she suddenly commanded to Neji and Naruto.


Then, a seemingly impossible thing started to happen. Naruto, only understanding half of Ino's plan, still did everything that was needed from him – casted a massive shadow clone jutsu and repeated his previous strategy from his solo fight. With only one huge difference.

That time, Naruto, despite managing to distract the opponent, lacked the tool to detect the real ninja, hiding in the mirrors.

But now, they had Neji and his Byakugan – that was Ino's idea to combine both of her teammates' ninja tools, using Naruto's clones as a distraction and Neji's Byakugan, along with some of his Hyuga techniques as a main striking power.

"Earth Release: Earth Shore Return!"

Ino slammed both of her hands against the ground and literally threw Neji in the air with a stone block that appeared from the ground. He had only a couple of seconds to detect their actual opponent and he used those seconds marvelously. When the ninja, distracted by Naruto's clones, finally noticed Neji moving to him, it was already too late – he tried to leave the mirror immediately, but only made everything worse. Genius of Hyuga started spinning around and finally, hit the spot where his enemy's heart was located.

One hit and the enemy froze. That was the ultimate secret of the Hyuga taijutsu.


Both shinobi fell on the ground, with their opponent slamming into the ground with his face – Neji was caught by one of Naruto's clones.

Ino looked at both of her partners and couldn't contain her satisfaction. They really, actually did it!

Naruto and his clone, that was holding Neji also safely landed.

"Erm, well. Thank you," Neji muttered through his breath and all of them three went towards the body of their enemy.

"Looks like you didn't understand who you were fighting. We are shinobi of the Leaf and a team!"

This time, both Neji and Ino were not stopping Naruto's childish speeches. Neji felt even slightly flattered, when despite his unbearable attitude, this "idiot" like he called him, still considered Hyuga his teammate.

Suddenly, the enemy, who the team thought had lost consciousness, started to tremble and he began to stand up. The mask, that was hiding his face for the whole fight fell down.

"Looks like I have underestimated you a bit. I thought you would never unite."

The enemy raised his head, now making his face seem very clearly.

Naruto and Ino froze at one place. Neji also quickly recognized who that was. Young, almost a kid like the three shinobi of Team 12.

And a face, which was impossible to forget.

"…Haku?" Naruto asked with a trembling voice.

On this, Haku looked at the team with blank eyes, while his hands were shaking and blood was leaking from his mouth.

"I am sorry. But I had to do what I was ordered."