Ch.7: A Friendly Nuisance

Neji did not know what to expect from her first real training session. The day before had been just some sort of test, that day was when the real training began. She knew beforehand that Sekonda-san would be joining them for at least the following two weeks, so he having been more time a gennin than them would maybe come in handy on what to expect, though she wondered if she would be able to cope with one more nuisance. Ah, what a dilemma.

This time Neji had had time to breakfast something decent consisting ofyakizakana* accompanied bygenmai* andkobachi, and, of course, a steaming cup ofkombucha, the shiso leaves flavor leaving a delicious cinnamon-like taste on her mouth. She was grateful that somebody had already made tea and left some there for whoever that wanted it. After having left her dishes on the sink, she brushed her teeth and parted.

When the Hyuga arrived at the training grounds Neji wasn't surprised at all to see Gai and Lee already there. Lee was sweating and looking very strained and exhausted while Gai looked as if doing pushups at 6:45 in the freaking morning was something natural.

"323, 324,…" Gai kept counting accompanied by Lee's strained voice.

"Good morning." She greeted them, making her presence known.

A second later Gai stood up with a jump, and Lee slowly, pushing himself up with his arms, stood up as well, albeit panting heavily.

"Good morning!" Gai greeted her enthusiastically.

"Good morning, Neji, from now on my eternal rival!" Lee exclaimed having regained his breath, causing Neji to eye him warily.

"Rival?" she questioned skeptically.

"Of course! You've been proof that our dear kunoichi aren't weaker than a male by being Rookie of the Year!" Neji's eyebrow twitched and did not know if to feel complimented or insulted. "So, as Gai-sensei told me, to fully exploit my youth, I have to find an eternal rival! You and I are now eternal rivals, my youthful spring flower!" Lee declared, stars in his eyes and overjoyed tears rolling down his face.

"Do not embarrass yourself, and do not involve me in your delusional dreams." She spat bitterly, giving her back to Lee. By the corner of her eye, she hoped to see Lee crestfallen or something, but it was as if she had never spoken.

"I will not give up until I beat you, my eternal rival!" he shouted to the winds and hugged Gai. The Hyuga girl only sweat dropped.

She sat by the fallen tree and meditated, inwardly preparing herself for a long day.

At 6:54 Tenten arrived at the training grounds. He stopped in his tracks for a moment, glanced at Lee and Gai and then at Neji. He sighed and approached where Neji was, not wanting to attract the attention of those two.

"Good morning." The boy muttered once he arrived by her side. He actually was a little scared of the Hyuga's –in general, but Neji's in particular- temperament, and did not want to risk his well-being by disturbing her meditation session. However, Neji cracked one eye open and returned the greeting with a nod. At this Tenten was a little taken aback since he thought the girl would ignore or glare at him. Tenten inwardly smirked. Maybe she wasn't as bad as she seemed. He sat down by her side and watched Lee and Gai train. They still had to wait for the other boy, Takashi, Tenten thought was called, to arrive.

At 6:00 am sharp Gai stopped kicking the dummies and looked around.

"It seems that youthful Tamaki hasn't arrived yet…"

"Good morning!" A shout from afar interrupted Gai.

All of them looked up to catch a glimpse of a figure making its way towards them at a quick pace.

"Oh, looks like he's already here." Gai remarked with an enormous grin.

Once Tamaki had reached them and placed his things with the others', all of them reunited again at the balcony from yesterday.

"I know we've already introduced yesterday, but I would like to repeat it since, even if only temporarily, a new member will be joining us." Gai instructed. "Tamaki, we'll tell our goals, okay?" The boy in question nodded.

"Lee, could you begin?"

"Hai, sensei!" Lee beamed. "My name is Rock Lee, and I want to become an excellent shinobi without ninjutsu nor genjutsu! A pleasure to meet you Tamaki-san!" The bushy-browed boy finished. Neji only rolled her eyes.

Gai nodded at Tenten indicating him to continue.

"Name's Tenten, and I intend to be like my idol, The Legendary Sannin Tsunade-sama." Tenten stated proudly.

"You want to be a woman?" Tamaki asked, gaping at the boy.

"What?!" Tenten exclaimed scandalized. "Of course not! I want to be as powerful and badass like her!" At this, not even Neji could suppress a snicker. Tenten glared at her in return, but she paid him no mind.

"Tamaki-san, your turn." Gai instructed once their bickering had ended.

"My name is Sekonda Tamaki and, well… I'm not really sure of my goals, but I guess I want to be a good shinobi and make my grandma proud." He said feeling a little insecure.

"It's normal not to be sure about what to do with your life at this age though I suggest starting deciding it. However, it is nice of you to want to make your grandmother proud, but you must be more interested in making yourself proud, okay?" Gai told the boy. Tamaki only nodded, a slight tone of pink dusting his cheeks.

"Neji…?" Gai asked as if testing if the girl was as reluctant as the day before in sharing her goals.

She only shook her head, no words spoken. Gai sighed, but immediately placed a smile on his face.

"Wait! Why didn't she answer?" Tamaki questioned while pointing at Neji.

"She didn't wish to." Gai answered blankly.

Tamaki only pouted and mumbled something along the lines of 'it not being fair.'

Already on the training grounds, Gai told them.

"Well, team. How about we begin to warm up with a few laps? Since you're only beginners how about… 100 around Konoha." The man suggested.

"Oh, sensei! That sounds wonderful!" Lee said enthusiastically, and practically bouncing in his place.

Neji thought it maybe was a little too much but then reminded herself that she was a ninja, and, maybe, as her sensei was putting it, it wasn't anything but a light warm-up.

Tenten and Tamaki groaned.

"Oh, don't worry! I'll be accompanying you…on my hands. In fact, let's make this a race. Let's see who completes the 100 laps first. If me on my hands, or you on your feet." Gai grinned jumping and landing on his hands. "The starting point will be here. We begin…now!"

After that, Gai morphed into a blur rapidly getting away from them.

"Yosh! I'm not planning on wasting my youth. I'm going there Gai-sensei!" Lee exclaimed, sprinting after Gai. Neji, not wanting to seem lazy, followed after Lee.

The day wasn't a total fiasco as she had expected, and Tamaki actually had given them some tips about gennin life.

Neji loved to train, she always did it. Not for a hobby, but more like a personal goal, and Gai had noticed it. He already knew that she was a branch member since he had had a Branch as a teammate. Therefore, he knew about the seal and the conflict between houses, but he didn't know what was motivating Neji to train so hard though he suspected it was something along those lines. The bushy-browed man decided to ask her later –after some months of knowing her.

Gai looked at his new student hitting a tree's trunk with her palms. So far, the trunk had deep marks of the Juuken, and he suspected if she continued like that the tree would fall.

"Okay my youthful students! Enough training for now. We must feed ourselves delicious food, so we can have the energy for exploiting our youth!"

Neji and Tenten wondered if they would be able to keep up with their new sensei's antics till they were chunin, but they were sure of something: he was a good sensei.

Neji took out her bento which contained some mango maki rolls and some chopped vegetables by the side. Tenten, since his mother ran a Chinese food restaurant, had some spring rolls and fried rice. Lee had some pork dumplings and white rice, and Tamaki some beans and takoyaki. Gai had curry, no surprise there.

"So…why did you want to become ninjas?" he asked, trying to start a conversation between his students.

"Tou-san used to be shinobi and he's great with all of those jutsus and movements." Tenten commented.

"I also wanted to become one because of my father." Gai commented nostalgically. "And you?" He addressed the rest.

"Because is a shinobi's duty to protect Konoha and I want to protect my village!" Lee yelled.

"Oh, how youthful and selfless thoughts, Lee my boy."

Tamaki who hadn't met Gai before found himself being slightly creeped out by the man. Then he noticed everyone was looking at him.

"Well…Obaa-chan kind of wanted me to be a shinobi so…here I am."

"You don't have to try too hard to please your grandmother." Gai told him. Tamaki's brother had told him the same. The boy only nodded.

"And you Neji?"

"The Hyuga's are mainly a Shinobi Clan, so it's my duty to become one." That was partly the truth, but she did not want them to know it was mainly because she wanted to prove those Souke scum that a Bouke could be better than them.

Gai nodded. He hoped that they would begin speaking after that, but it seemed they needed another push.

"Hmm…what are your likes and dislikes? I don't like unyouthfulness, and I like youth, training and honing my taijutsu, and food! Especially curry." Gai said.

"Well…I really like the sea and the beach though I've only been there once, strawberries, and I like collecting herbs. I do not like chocolate, and I can't think of any other thing I dislike."

"Isn't that a bit girlish?" Tenten asked snickering referring to his hobby. Tamaki flushed deeply and bowed his head.

"Oi, Tenten, don't be so rude."

"Sorry, sensei."

"It's okay. I know it is girlish, but it is kind of soothing." Tamaki said sheepishly. "What do you like, Tenten-san?"

"I really like dango, especially the sesame one, and mom knows how to read the fortune so she's teaching me, and it is really cool. Also, dad's just retired and has opened a store with many kinds of cool weapons and stuff, and I really like them! I'm not a fan of pickled plums and I dislike whiny people." Tenten commented, growing excited.

"Wow! In a mission, I saw once a guy with this kind of strange, curved sword that looked like an interrogation mark. It was cool though very sharp, and my teammate, Akane-san, still has the scar on her arm from that sword."

"It must be akhopesh! My dad has one in his store though it's only for exhibition."

Both boys continued bickering on the strange weapons Tamaki had encountered in his short time being a gennin, and Tenten recognizing most of them. Then they asked Lee, but Neji ignored them and began eating her food. Until Tenten turned towards her and asked.

"What about you Neji?"

"Huh?"

"What are your likes, and dislikes youthful teammate?!" Lee asked/yelled. She pondered over it for a moment. It wouldn't hurt to share that.

"I like to train and meditate. I do not like…"the Main Branch"people who try to go against their destiny." She finished and picked some rice with her chopsticks.

"Neh, be more specific." Tenten said. "Like your favorite foods, and that stuff."

"I like herring soba, and I dislike spicy food." she said grimacing a bit.

"Well, that's a first!" Tenten exclaimed happily, making her eyebrow twitch.

Break time ended, and they continued their training.

Tamaki told them about the boring D ranked missions consisting of painting fences, chasing cats and dogs, and farming. They began doing 200 hundred push-ups that even for Lee were too many, but that was only the beginning of the strict training regime Gai had prepared for them.

All four of them were panting, beads of sweat running down their faces and hands on their knees. When Gai noticed the state in which his pupils were he decided to give them a break to drink water and catch their breath.

"Before we continue our training, I want to give you something. I don't know if you remember it, but yesterday I told you I was going to give you something that will definitely help you with your training."

Tamaki stared at Gai questioningly since he wasn't there, and supposed it was for Gai's team.

"I also have one for you, Tamaki-kun." The man said.

'One what?' was what everyone thought.

Suddenly Gai pulled out from God knows where two pairs of green suits. Spandexes.

Lee beamed and stars formed in his eyes. Tamaki stared at them trying to figure out what they were. Neji and Tenten cringed and automatically backed off with horrified expressions on their faces. Gai couldn't be expecting them to wear that.

They accepted the gift out of courtesy but mentally agreed that neither of them would wear that. Tamaki took it and stared at it awkwardly.

"How could this help us?" the boy asked mildly confused.

"I'm actually glad you asked so, it helps with the flexibility and…"

Neji blocked her sensei's bickering in her mind and began pondering on what he had told her the day before. Gai had known her father and had been on the same team as Hoheto-san. That made perfect sense on the teams now that she thought of it. Lee was as weird as Gai was, and the man had had prior experience working with Hyugas.

As the training continued Neji's opinion on her teammates' abilities only worsened. She had grown used to training with Sasuke, and he definitely was on a better level than all of them. Lee couldn't perform ninjutsu nor genjutsu and his taijutsu wasn't the best. Tenten was awful at taijutsu, and worse at genjutsu but at least he had partially good ninjutsu. Tamaki…the only thing the boy had was the experience. Low at taijutsu, average at genjutsu and slightly better at ninjutsu than Tenten. Yes, people had told her she had a superiority complex, but she only viewed inferior those who truly were.

One week passed, and they had not sparred or anything like that, so Neji was growing impatient. With the Hyugas everything was normal. That week Hiashi-sama and his father -her grandfather- had had a sparring match and Neji had seen them with her Byakugan perform something called Kaiten. It was a truly interesting technique and that encouraged her to decipher its secret.

The morning Gai declared that they'd have a one-hour sparring session, everyone was enthusiastic. A smirk, even if it didn't reach her eyes, played on Neji's face. Tenten, since Gai had taught him how to seal weapons, was excited to show off his newly acquired ability, and Lee was more hyper than usual.

At the end, the matches were settled to be 15 minutes one-on-one. For them to have the chance to confront everyone there would be a total of 45 minutes. The 15 ones left for the hour would be spent on a spar three-on-one against Gai just to test how far their abilities had improved during the span of one week under his tutelage

The first match had been Neji vs Tamaki, and Tenten vs Lee, the respective winners of each of them being Tamaki and Tenten. Neji did not like to lose, and even if she understood that he had a year more of experience on the field it annoyed her. On the other way, Lee found himself motivated to train in hopes to surpass Tenten one day

The next set was arranged like this: Lee vs Neji, and Tamaki vs Tenten. Neji defeated Lee in half the time or even less, and Tamaki ended with a victory again.

Finally, Tenten and Neji were against each other and so were Lee and Tamaki, Neji and Tamaki being victorious.

The day passed by fast and so did the week. Finally, Tamaki's Sensei returned from his honeymoon, and so, thanking them effusively for letting him train with them, he bid them goodbye and went with his team.

The pale-eyed girl observed more frequently her relatives, the fact that her Byakugan was so developed that it allowed her to see the tenketsu, being of great help at the time of unraveling the techniques.

Months passed and the chunin exams presented themselves. On a unanimous decision, they chose to skip those exams and wait till the next ones.

One afternoon Tamaki came running to the training grounds sporting a brand new chunin vest.

"Oh, Tamaki-kun, what a good surprise!"

"Gai-sensei! I came to thank you." The boy stated, purposely dusting off his vest.

"Oh, you made chunin!" Gai beamed throwing his arms around Tamaki, his eyes spilling manly tears. "Those are the fruits of your arduous and youthful training…" the jounin began ranting.

"I came here to thank you, sensei. Those taijutsu movements you taught me during those two weeks were what gave me the upper hand on the finals. My adversary did not expect it, thanks! Even Sachihiro-sensei was impressed."

Neji watched the display with a tinge of jealousy. He, a total fool, had made chunin before her. She was not irrational and knew that he had more experience than them, but that did nothing to ease that feeling up.

That day, training was suspended and instead they went to Tori's Den to celebrate Tamaki's promotion.

"Oi, why are you always so grumpy." A voice said behind her. She turned around to face the owner of that familiar voice.

"Your excessively boisterous personality bothers me, but I'm not questioning you about it, am I?"

"Sorry, wrong start. I came here peacefully."

Neji eyed him warily but did not stop him nor moved away.

"Let's be friends, okay." he said offering his hand, a smile on his face.

"I don't need friends." She stated icily.

"Could it be a promotion present?" Tamaki insisted, his hand still extended.

"I am not obliged to give you anything." The girl retorted.

"Please, don't be like that. I solemnly swear not to be a nuisance." He said raising his other hand in a promising manner "Friends are not a need just like chocolate but it sure makes life a bit more enjoyable, please let me be yours."

She was about to counter him saying that she already had a friend but stopped herself. Was Sasuke still her friend?'Yes, of course. He promised it.'The little voice in her head retorted. She had not talked to him since…that last time. She had not even seen him around…perhaps he did not consider her a friend anymore. She finally came to a resolution. Her friend or not she still needed to move on…'Do you really?'The voice murmured again, but she promptly dismissed it.

"I guess I can settle on being yourally." She said, her lips slightly curving upwards, before adding. "By the way, that also is your present."

Tamaki beamed, already preparing to hug her, but stopped mid-motion when he noticed the warning glare sent on his way.

"A good present, dare I say." He told her half-joking.

Maybe she would regret that decision, maybe not.

*Yakizakana: Fish that is either broiled in the oven or quickly cooked in a pan. It is often seasoned simply with salt, and salmon is a favorite for Japanese breakfasts.

*Genmai: Brown stewed rice.

*Kobachi: Vegetable side dishes.

*Kombucha: It is made from soaking konbu (seaweed kelp) in hot water. Often kombucha is brewed and reconstituted into a powder which can be mixed with hot water. Sometimes it is flavored with shiso leaves. It has a rather salty taste and is considered to be healthy.