Cat and Mouse
By: Quamidu
Rated: Future M

Summary: Deep in the forest of Amegakure, Sasuke and Neji are caught in a game of cat and mouse, but who is the cat, and who is the mouse?
Warnings: Shounen-ai, more specificially, Sasuneji with hints of Narukiba and Narusasu. Mature themes.

Chapter 1

Hyuuga Neji took his time when it came to reporting to the Hokage that morning in late summer. His dark hair still fell in wet strings from his earlier washing, and his casual, lazy demeanor suggested that he wasn't fully awake, though one could never tell through the light, cloudy eyes that seemed to continually belie any true committal expression. White vest swaying at his side and ANBU mask secured at his hip, Neji was supposed to report for a mission in an hour. The Hokage's call for a meeting seemed to be an upheaval of previous plans, if the Hokage's usual demeanor was any indication of the length of such a meeting, and to be perfectly honest, Neji didn't mind the distraction.

Waving off the Hokage's attendant, Neji's eyes were immediately assaulted by the familiar gaudy décor of the Hokage's inner compound, and he forced himself to ignore it, as was usual whenever he came to get a new assignment or simply to satisfy one of the many whims that the Hokage seemed to cook up over night. The over-abundance of blue and orange would have been shocking (though distinctly appropriate, considering,) to anyone's eyes, but after having worked so many years with Naruto, Neji had gotten used to it and simply written it off as one of Naruto's quirks—a reasonable excuse for something that couldn't be explained. Opening the door to the Hokage's inner room, Neji shrugged his shoulders when Naruto gave him a look that either claimed tardiness or lack of respect, the latter of which had stood as a somewhat sore point between the two ever since Naruto had become Hokage almost six months earlier.

"You could've dressed all the way." Naruto said irritably, running a hair through spiky blonde hair and fixing those blue, blue eyes on Neji's somewhat blank expression. His fingers were already shifting through piles of paper on his desk (a piece of furniture that had ceased being organized since the compound had been hit with Uzumaki Naruto,) either looking for something or just making the surface cluttered more to his liking. Neji shrugged again after looking down, noticing that the white outer vest that normally completed his attire was still in his hand instead of strapped securely over his torso, but not really caring. It wasn't as if Naruto was wearing any shoes, anyway. He had no room for complaint.

Naruto seemed to have found what he was looking for, beckoned Neji forward, and handed him the paper. It was blank.

"Vacation?" Neji asked, his voice as deadpan as the look he adopted while he looked down at the shorter shinobi, one dark eyebrow raising gracefully.

"No," Naruto said with a roll of his eyes, "this is an—"

"Oi, Naruto," a voice more high-pitched than Neji's own interrupted, a move which would have thrown any shinobi of less poise into a fit of anger at the suspense. It merely sent a vibration of irritation up Neji's spine, and instead of turning his head to snap at the offender (one Inuzuka Kiba,) Neji instead opted for closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose as Naruto's attention was properly averted. He listened to the two men's short conversation escalate into a minute squabble as Kiba repeatedly flashed a stack of papers before Naruto's eyes, apparently attempting to draw attention to a particular point of interest that Naruto seemed loathe to notice. Irritation mounting as the two voices (ones that had severely grated on Neji's sanity through his maturing years,) got louder and higher pitched, Neji pulled a long string of bandages from his pouch and began to bandage his right arm in an attempt to ignore the two opposing onslaughts.

"Stop bickering," Neji finally commanded lowly, and twin heads of opposing shades turned to look at him, a mixture of confusion and surprise painting both their faces. "Naruto, what is the assignment?"

"Hey, that's Hok—"

"You can call him whatever you want in the bedroom, Inuzuka." Neji replied to the red-faced canine-nin with a look of superiority, which only served to make the deep red of Kiba's face spread to his ears, "I said, what's the assignment?"

Naruto seemed to consider Neji's attitude for a moment before plucking the blank sheet of paper from where Neji had placed it on his desk and folding it in half once, a contemplative look on the scar-marked face. "Kiba, let's finish this later." The blonde said, not looking at the Inuzuka, but keeping his eyes on Neji as if trying to discern some hidden motive that Neji had for not wanting to listen to a work-turned-lovers squabble. Kiba, who did not seem pleased with the turn of events at all, huffed and took his stack of papers away, slamming the sliding door as best he could, throwing the rickety wood off its hinges and leaving the door crooked enough to make Naruto look almost abysmal before he turned and wrote something on the paper, leaning over his desk.

Tying the bandage off at his bicep, Neji's eyes followed Naruto as he walked back around his desk and sat down, mouth in a long line that he immediately pressed to clenched fists that leaned on the paper-strewn desk. He suddenly looked very tired, and Neji's expression softened minutely. "It's an A-Rank mission." Naruto divulged finally, looking as if the admission were almost painful.

"Fine." Neji replied shortly, waiting for further information that Naruto seemed unwilling to give.

"It may need an upgrade." The silence seemed to clamor with things unsaid, and Neji waited. Silence stretched out until seconds lumped into minutes, and soon it was becoming apparent that Naruto wasn't going to say anything more.

"What's the mission?" Neji asked again, his voice spreading into a finality that made Naruto look up at him. Naruto caught his glance, and in those eyes, Neji no longer saw the Hokage—it was the old Naruto—Naruto the boy. Naruto glanced away once, and then back, and Neji knew the wait was up.

"Capture and return to Konoha, the missing-nin Uchiha Sasuke."

---

Neji had been annoyed with the assignment more than worried, now that he looked back on it. If he were to take a leaf out of Shikamaru's book, he'd simply call it troublesome—everyone in Konoha knew that Sasuke wouldn't be caught unless he wanted to be, and if the latter were true, he'd probably come back on his own, in any case. That scenario was highly unlikely—almost as equally unlikely as Neji being able to catch Sasuke on his own; there had been various missions since the failed group effort back when Neji was a Genin, and each since had been as unsuccessful as the first. Sasuke himself had never actually harmed anyone in pursuit of him; sure, he may have teased them a little, let them follow him around for a few days, but they all eventually turned up more confused than they were when they left. Each had a similar story of catching glimpses of the Uchiha, even talking to him on occasion, but never once had any of them managed to fight him, let alone get their hands on him. Neji had had half a mind to tell Naruto to do it himself, and probably would have if it weren't for the fact that Naruto had already tried. The current Hokage was as unsuccessful as the previous shinobi, worse even. Naruto had fallen even shorter than the previous attempts: Sasuke hadn't even breathed on him, and the blonde had been more upset over his lack of success than Neji had ever seen him.

Neji wasn't sure why Naruto was insisting on another mission now, when Sasuke had been gone for almost six years with no trace of him in Konoha or surrounding areas. In truth, Neji's instructions had sounded more like a reconnaissance mission than anything else. He glanced down at the paper he held in his right hand as he walked—empty but for the name of a bar that Sasuke had been reportedly seen in as close as two days prior. Frowning at the paper, Neji put it in his back pocket and ran a hand through his now-dry hair in minute agitation. The bar was in Amegakure.

Having reached the Hyuuga compound, Neji walked the three-block span it took to get to the branch houses, finding upon no close inspection that someone was inside his own small quarters. Though the house appeared to be silent, the door was cracked and a light ebbed from within. Neji closed his eyes and knit his brow, hoping that Hinata had left the telltale signs of entrance so he would know that she was there as opposed to catching him off guard—he had taught her to be a better ninja than that.

When he entered, his suspicion had proven true. Hinata hadn't even been sitting in the guest room, but the entryway, and she was upon him before he'd even managed to get his sandals off. Neji stiffened, one foot in the air as Hinata—still much the same size that she had been at twelve—encircled him with her arms. He could feel the tears seeping into his chest through the mesh shirt and dropped his vest on the step before shifting awkwardly under his cousin's engulfing embrace.

"What are you doing?" He asked blankly, waiting for her to let go of him. It was a rare occasion that Hinata made physical contact with Neji, and he tended to be more of a rock than support when it came to anything involving physical comfort. Obviously something had gotten her upset—tears were neither common nor rare with Hinata, but it was only after careful prodding that they usually erupted, especially around her Neji-niisan, who was hardly a sympathetic ear.

"N-Neji-niisan…y-you can't g-go!" Hinata's muffled voice came from against Neji's chest, the vibrations sending a tickling sensation up his chest that Neji forced himself to ignore. He looked up in an attempt to gather his thoughts, or perhaps just to wish away the situation as he continued to attempt to take off his sandal, turning a rather awkward situation into a very awkward one when it appeared that Hinata wasn't planning on letting go any time soon.

Neji had learned at a very young age that one had to be patient with Hinata, or she would clam up, stutter out a few incomprehensible syllables, and be utterly useless. This patience, however, did not always come easily. The day was already grating on Neji's nerves, and he wasn't sure that he was willing to spend the amount of time it took to get Hinata to tell him exactly what was wrong. Impending mission aside, Neji just didn't have that kind of time. "Why not?" He finally settled; sometimes being direct and not asking for back-story was the quickest way to a problem.

Hinata pulled away and looked up, the seriousness of the situation that echoed in her teary gaze offset only by the thud of Neji's sandal finally coming lose and dropping to the floor. "He'll kill you." She said morbidly, and Neji couldn't help the sigh that escaped from his lips as he stepped away, lost the other sandal and stepped up into his home.

"You need to stop talking to Kiba." He said with slight disdain as he moved into his bedroom, Hinata following closely behind. Naruto really needed to stop with the pillow talk. All the Hokage's secrets were going to end up leaking out of Inuzuka Kiba's giant mouth. Gathering his hair into a high ponytail, Neji flicked the light switch with his elbow and peered at the pack that was already lying open on the bed. It was unlikely that this mission would allow for the same amenities that his previous assignment had. He set about putting the pack away, being unable to use it. Neji didn't expect the mission to last more than a month—surely the Uchiha would tire of him by that point and lead him back to Konoha.

"Don't joke." Hinata said with almost perfect clarity, forcing Neji to turn around and look at her, one arm brace halfway up his wrist.

"I don't know why you think he's going to bother, Hinata-sama." Neji said, "He didn't kill anyone else."

"N-No one else was…n-no one was a t-threat!" Hands clasped in the typical Hinata fashion, as if she were pleading or praying, Neji's younger cousin made her appeal. Those giant white eyes, a mirror of Neji's own, but somehow much more innocent, begged him. Of course, it was useless, and Neji told her so after having considered the suggestion. Plenty of the men sent before had been up to the Uchiha's ability, or what the Hokage had always referred to as his "projected ability," as he hadn't been seen for years, making it impossible to properly gage.

"He's not going to kill me. I probably won't get near him, so stop being ridiculous."

"If y-you must go…" It was unlikely that Hinata had actually been expecting a different reaction from Neji, and had prepared for this, "p-please, Neji-niisan…take this with you." Hinata produced a small white bag, which, upon closer inspection, contained salves, bandages, and other medical supplies that Neji probably wouldn't need (and had plenty of, by himself,) but would take anyway, if only to keep Hinata from worrying herself to death.

"Fine." Neji said, swiping the bag from his cousin's grasp rather roughly, a movement that warranted a somewhat sharp reaction from Hinata at his brashness—a look that quickly faded into pleasure when he tucked it securely into a holder on his belt. "Happy?" He grunted and secured the rest of his attire before turning and heading for the door, leaving Hinata standing behind him by the bed. "You're not staying here." He said, "Let's go."

Hinata didn't budge.

"Hinata-sama, I said—"

"I-I'll take c-care of your home w-while you're gone, Neji-niisan!" The girl shouted without reservation, eyes closed, hands clasped firmly before her as she made a run through the door and into the entrance, where Neji heard her quickly put on her shoes and exit the house. He stared at her exit path for a good five minutes before leaving himself, slightly baffled.

---

Avoiding Kusagakure while traveling through the grass country was easy enough for Neji to manage; the flat terrain was traversed within a day, and he was within Rain before dusk gave its last surrender. Amegakure greeted him with a torrent of warm rain, and Neji was soaked by the time he managed to find an inn. Now free of the telltale signs of ANBU that he had shed before reaching the rain country, water dripped through the mesh shirt and down his bare left arm, sliding off fingertips and the ends of his hair. He made a reasonably large puddle on the floor of the inn, and ignored the attendant's somewhat irritated gaze as he was led to his room, dark, but dry.

Staring at the rain through the bamboo shutters that covered the window, Neji watched the darkness settle in. He was tired from the day of travel, but knew that if he had any chance of catching a glimpse of Sasuke, it would be sooner rather than later. He doubted that the boy would visit the same bar again, but the piece of paper scrawled with Naruto's chicken scratch was the only hint that he had when it came to the younger man's whereabouts. He would have to go tonight.

Neji watched the silvery rain in contemplation, bare feet sticking to the tatami mats underfoot as he refused to shift from his position, mind pulled taunt over the mission. Naruto was still looking for closure years after Sasuke had left, that was the real reason for this mission. Neji knew the blonde well, had worked with him almost exclusively when Naruto had been a member of ANBU, and despite all appearances of Naruto moving on from the cling he had attached to his childhood friend and rival, Neji still saw the ghost of Sasuke that lingered in the deep blue eyes. Naruto probably never even expected Neji to catch Sasuke, perhaps only wanted to know that he was still alive, functioning—still Uchiha Sasuke. Neji remembered every futile effort that Naruto attempted whenever the two had had a mission in Sound. Sasuke had never appeared to Naruto, and that, Neji knew, was the sore underneath the problem.

A sigh escaped into the quietness of the room, soft against the rhythmic drumming sound of the rain outside the window. Neji finally moved from his resting place and into the bathroom, where he cleaned up and forced himself to put the mission into motion. He leaned against the bathroom sink and concentrated on the slow drip of water that seeped from his hair and down from his forehead until it got slow enough that Neji couldn't even count the seconds between each drop. It was time to go.

He took a coat, but only because of the rain. Once outside after asking directions to the bar, Neji attempted to shrug off the thickness of the air. It was warm and heavy enough that it pressed in on every side, grinding the warm wetness that had covered his skin deeper and deeper with every step on the wet, muddy ground. The raindrops drew circles of mud around Neji's moving form, and every splash was a rhythm. Unlike Konoha, whose streets were crowded with familiar faces and laughter, Amegakure seemed empty and morbid. Neji's frown deepened as he stopped at the end of a long, almost deserted road. The bar, Sangen, seemed to be illuminated in the darkness of the street, a low, easy blue radiating outward and mixing with the neon orange of various signs in the windows. Behind the bar lay the beginnings of the Amegakure forest, and while the positioning of the small establishment could be called quaint, Neji knew that it would be more than simple for someone to escape into the forest through a side or back door. That was, of course, if Sasuke was even there.

Neji was met at the door by a leering man with a blood red tattoo running down the right side of his neck and crisscrossing down his fingers. Yellow eyes glinted in the dim, smoke-dusted room, and Neji sidestepped but did not take his eyes off his welcome committee as he entered the bar, Byakugan looking for anything familiar as well as keeping an eye on his new friend; the man had returned to his post.

Neji was surprised to pick out several familiar faces once he let the Byakugan do its work. He counted at least three from the Bingo Book—lower grade, but names and vitals scratched into the book, anyway. It was almost surreal, to see those that he supposed to be his enemies—and enemies of each other—sitting around a table and playing poker while they nursed bottles. Neji almost wondered if he would see the Uchiha brothers dining together in peace, though if that were the case, he was almost certain that he couldn't report such a thing back to Naruto. No doubt it would give the Hokage a heart attack.

The scurrility of the place and situation slowly died down as Neji traversed the bar. He'd been inside such an establishment before; the dingy clutter of smoke in the air muffling the music, the smell of alcohol—it was familiar. Neji no longer had to remind himself of the nature of this place. It was a bar. He sat down, choosing a seat at the bar instead of one of the tables where he would have a better view of the room, but a worse one of the exits, and tried to act like he wasn't there on business. Neji was on edge but not tense, and open enough in an attempt to prove his meaning. He noticed the gazes that lingered on his seal but seemed to ignore the tattoo on his left bicep; none of the patrons in the bar seemed interested in anything more than his face and opal eyes, a point which seemed to draw the bartender as soon as Neji sat down.

"Can I get you anything, Sugar?" The man said, leaning a forearm on the murky surface of the bar that looked as if it hadn't been polished in months. Neji watched him, unmoving for a moment as he took the brief opportunity to scan the bar again for any sign of the Uchiha. It probably wouldn't be a good idea to drink anything alcoholic at this point.

"Water." He announced. The look the bartender gave him was one to kill, and Neji couldn't help the smirk when he was presented with a glass smudged with finger prints. Upon closer inspection, the water was almost as murky as the air inside the room. Neji sighed and leaned his elbow on the bar. What the hell would the Uchiha want with a place like this, anyway? It probably wasn't even him that was spotted, and Neji was just wasting his time.

---

Neji wasted several hours of his time, actually. The amount of people in the bar waxed and waned throughout the night, and by three or four, the bar was almost empty. Neji hadn't touched his water, hadn't moved from his spot, and was decidedly bored with the fact that there hadn't even been a bar fight to keep him occupied. He slipped out just as dawn was breaking, back into the rain that hadn't stopped in its torrent all night. The street was covered with a thin layer of water that was just high enough to seep into Neji's sandals and wet his feet, adding irritation to exhaustion—an exhaustion that was so heavy that it did not allow for undressing or even drying, sending Neji into a cold, wet sleep, lulled only by the rain pouring outside his window.

Neji spent his next night at the bar with a package of tissues and flask of hot tea. He sneezed occasionally, and the patrons allowed him a wide breadth, but Neji refused to allow a simple cold to ruin a mission that was probably ruined already. He considered asking around the bar for information on Sasuke, but suspicion would probably drive him out, and he preferred to use such tactics as a last resort. So he sat, and waited, and watched as the pressure behind his eyes and nose ebbed and his temperature grew, and he listened as the rain poured.

The next week, Neji abandoned his position at the bar in favor of a corner table. "Cloaked in shadow" would have been preferable, but as it was, the warm light that seemed to invade the smoky air of the bar was too far-reaching to allow for any shadows that Neji could commandeer. He settled for spreading his arms against the back of the cupped seats and watching the drunk and becoming-drunk file through the bar. By this time, he was beginning to notice familiar faces—a man who had sat at the same table since Neji had begun to frequent the bar. He only drank sake—another who seemed to have run out of money long ago, but had approached no one in attempt to reconcile this—Neji was starting to notice. Unfortunately, and not without his knowledge, he was becoming recognizable as well.

"Hey, you look like a lonely guy. What's a pretty young thing like you doing in a place like this? Why don't you let me buy you a drink?" Neji had noticed—and ignored—the approach of a well-dressed man that seemed much less drunk than the others that had weeded through the bar that night. It was already past midnight, and Neji had been as unlucky as the week of previous attempts at spotting anyone that even looked like the Uchiha. He allowed the man a petty glance, but did not answer.

"Don't be like that," he was blonde and young, but not as young as Neji and definitely not a ninja, if elegant, soft hands that whispered over Neji's exposed neck had anything to say for it. "There's an easy cure for loneliness."

"I'm not interested in what you're selling." Neji remarked, letting his words speak instead of actions as his eye traversed the small crowd. The hairs on the back of his neck had begun to stand up, and it wasn't due to the carefully placed caresses that now spoke against his shoulder blades. The atmosphere of the room had changed, and Neji suddenly couldn't see over the heads of three men that had stood to leave, though he wasn't sure why it suddenly mattered so much that he see around them. The interloper beside him was saying something, and Neji knew he couldn't activate the Byakugan without giving himself away or causing a fuss that he didn't need. So, he stood.

In the same instance that he caught sight of a dark, somewhat familiar head that may or may not have been Uchiha Sasuke's, nimble fingers curled around his wrist and tugged him back down.

"What the hell!" Neji demanded, glaring at the blonde whose lips had curled in a manner that suggested playfulness with a more sinister intent. Neji didn't have time for games; he wrenched his hand out of the other man's grip easily and turned pale, moonlit eyes back to the center of the room. The atmosphere was amazingly clear, and nothing impeded his sight, but there was no sign of the dark haired familiar stranger that Neji had glimpsed earlier. A draft hit his flushed and angry face.

The back door was wide open.

Without a second glance to the man at his side, Neji bolted for the door, knowing it was useless and that Sasuke would be long gone. It was only when he was outside, staring at the dark forest before him with the rain softly pattering at his head, that Neji realized that Sasuke was toying with him. Why else would he leave the door open? Unless…

Neji realized the trap as soon as the sharpness of a kunai cut lightly into his throat, and he froze to prevent further damage. Feeling the rain flow around the blade as well as drip off the other presence—so close that Neji couldn't focus, even with the Byakugan—Neji swallowed softly and forced himself to be still.

"I didn't think you'd recognize me." Neji said calmly, feeling the push of the kunai cut deeper with every word as he closed his eyes and let the water collect on his eyelids and lashes.

"I don't have amnesia." The voice behind him replied, lower than Neji remembered, but still with the same timbre from years long since passed. "You're rather persistent."

"I'd assume you would go to another bar." Neji said with a slight smirk, one that the other probably couldn't see, but which was expected anyway.

"I like this bar." The deep voice said softly, and Neji noticed that the rain had stopped for the first time since he'd come to Amegakure. The hold he was in hadn't lessened in the slightest.

"Are you going to let me go?"

"I could, but you wouldn't get very far. You should be feeling faint rather soon."

"A poisoned blade?" Neji ventured, noting the almost sudden blurriness of his vision and the way his fingers had begun to twitch, as if the other man's words had flipped a switch in his body.

"I can't have you crowding my bar."

"Wherever you dump me…" Neji said, and he could hear his own voice growing fainter, "I'll still come back." His head lolled back onto the shoulder that connected with the hard, supporting body behind him. A drop of water hit his cheek, and Neji could see Uchiha Sasuke's ear and his strong jaw line.

"Don't worry about it, Hyuuga." The Uchiha's voice said softly, just before Neji faded into darkness, "Where I'm taking you, those eyes of yours won't see an inch of this place."

---

Author's Note: I'm planning on this fic being around five chapters or so, depending on how I decide to break the series of events down. Reviews are very much appreciated!