There was a heavy atmosphere in the Hokage's office as Neji Hyuga entered. Lady Tsunade had requested him specifically for a special mission. "You're here," Tsunade acknowledged as Neji entered, her nose wrinkled with worry. "You called for me, Lady Hokage?"

"I'm sending you to Ginger Village," she told him.

"Ginger Village?" Neji thought about it. It was a small village of around forty people, to the West of the Hidden Leaf Village.

"We've lost contact with them over the past week, and I need you to do reconnaissance. With your Byakugan, you should be able to look into the matter from a distance," she spoke with a very serious tone.

Neji was a bit confused. "With all due respect, Lady Hokage, but is there a reason you need a jonin level shinobi for this mission? This seems like something a team of genin could handle."

The Hokage took a deep breath, and stood from her chair to hand Neji some letters. "Two weeks ago, the village chief sent us reports of monster sightings on the outskirts of town."

"Monster sightings?" Neji raised an eyebrow as he read the letters carefully.

"With the Shinobi War still not over, I felt that any new threats that Madara could have come up with needed to be dealt with immediately. I sent a team of chunin to investigate, but," she broke eye contact with Neji and grit her teeth, "it's been over a week, and they haven't contacted us back."

"A team of chunin..." Neji puzzled.

"Your mission is strictly reconnaissance. Gather as much information, and return to the Leaf. Whatever you find, you are not to confront it!" she raised her tone sharply. Neji nodded, handing the letters back to Tsunade. "I have a very bad feeling about this one," she told him, as he left. Her words felt heavy on his mind, but nonetheless he made West for Ginger Village.

In a matter of hours, Neji had arrived on the outskirts of the village. He climbed to the top of a tree, well out of view, and activated his Byakugan to survey the village. The whole place was a ghost town. Scattered throughout were loose clothes, some of which had holes in them, as if they'd been stabbed, yet there were no bloodstains anywhere to be seen. Then, he heard a woman's scream. His Byakugan immediately tracked her down. A young woman, wearing a Hidden Leaf headband, was rapidly running out of a house she had apparently been hiding in. "One of the chunin sent by Lady Hokage?" Neji thought. Behind her, a towering, lanky, insect-like humanoid creature walked out of the house after her. Its green, speckled skin reflected the evening light in a rainbow pattern. Its long, slimy tail had a stinger at the end. The creature quickly extended its disgusting appendage forward, and stabbed the frightened kunoichi in the back. She fell limply to the ground, as the tail began to suck away her insides.

The creature drooled from its beak-like mouth as it watched the girl's body shrivel away. And then, "Eight Trigrams: Air Palm!" Neji fired the condensed blast of air at the monster, after having rushed over to assist. The beast was caught off guard from Neji's sneak attack, and sent hurdling forward. Neji rushed over to check on the girl, but she was gone. All that remained of her was a pile of clothes, and her ninja headband. "Damn it! I wasn't fast enough!"

The monster rose back to its feet. Its reptilian eyes narrowing on Neji as its beak contorted into something resembling a smile. "Neji of the Hyuga Clan's branch family," it growled.

"It can talk?!" Neji quickly regained his fighting posture. "What do you want?!" he demanded.

The insect guffawed. "I want to devour you!" It shouted as it rushed forward. It unleashed a series of punches and kicks that seemed all too familiar to Neji, as he narrowly avoided each attack. "What's going on?" he thought, "these moves... aren't these Guy-sensei's moves?"

Through his Byakugan, he found an opening in its attacks, and unleashed a Double Palm to push it back. It slide backwards a few meters, but retained its posture. "I suppose an attack like that wouldn't work on you." It raised its right hand, with its palm extended out. "Perhaps this will do the trick."

Its palm began to glow with chakra building up, swirling around and around, until before long, it took on the shape of a ball. Neji watched, awestruck. "No... it can't be... but that's Naruto's jutsu!"

"Rasengan!" the beast announced as it rushed forward with lightning speed. Neji barely had time to react. "Rotation!" Neji began spinning rapidly to generate a shield, blocking the creature's jutsu just moments before impact. It held the Rasengan in place against Neji's shield for a few seconds, before the chakra eventually dissipated. That moment, Neji stopped spinning to counter attack "Eight Trigrams: Sixty-"

That single instant Neji had dropped his guard, the creature's tail burst from the ground behind him, and stabbed into his left arm. It had used the Rasengan as a diversion, while its tail burrowed underground for the sneak attack. Before Neji had a chance to react, the creature began to drink away Neji's arm. Neji kicked the tail off, and leaped to a safer distance, but the damage had been done. Neji's left arm was little more than a shriveled useless husk. He winced in disgust looking at its remains.

The monster hissed, "Stay still, Hyuga. You can't win."

Neji carefully considered his options. No matter what he thought of, he could not think of a way to defeat this creature in his current condition. He had only one idea of any merit.

"I surrender," he told the thing. Its narrow eyes widened. "Is that so...?"

"But," he continued, "before I die, I wish to know what the creature that killed me really was."

The monster straightened its posture, and laughed through its breath. "Very well. Since you're the first decent meal I'll have had in a long while, I'll humor you."

"I am Cell," the creature introduced itself, "the Artificial Thirteen Tailed Beast, created by the genius scientist Bibidi."

"Thirteen tails?" Neji inquired. "What happened to your other twelve tails?"

"Unfortunately the form you see before you is incomplete. I have yet to obtain my Perfect form, but all in due time."

"You're not complete? Why would your creator unleash you if you were incomplete?"

"Hmhmhmm..." Cell chuckled, "Bibidi's methods of collecting cell samples were far too slow for my liking. I had been kept in an incubation pod for twenty years, while his spy network collected information, and cell samples. However, with that method, achieving my Perfect form would have taken at least another ten years. So, when I saw an opportunity, I broke out, and devoured the old man. I've determined that the power I have currently is enough to collect the necessary DNA to achieve perfection."

Neji was still confused, "Cells? DNA? What are you talking about?"

"My body contains cells of some of the greatest shinobi of our time," he boasted, "including the Hidden Leaf Village's Third and Fourth Hokage. In order to achieve my perfect form, I need to acquire the cells of even more powerful shinobi. In particular, I'm looking for powerful Kekkei Genkai, like your Byakugan."

"I see. Then, I have one last question," Neji declared, as the fatigue was beginning to set in, "After you kill me, who do you plan to target next?"

"My, aren't we curious?" Cell taunted. "Very well. If you feel you must know, my next target is to be Naruto Uzumaki."

"?!" Neji gasped.

"The Uzumaki clan's powerful chakra will be invaluable to my future endeavors, and devouring the Nine Tails is sure to be a great boon as well."

"I see," Neji said solemnly.

"Now enough stalling for time. I've been absolutely starving for a good meal, and I know you'll hit the spot!" Cell leaped forward, stabbing Neji through the chest with his stinger. Neji smirked. "I'm afraid we'll have to postpone our meal."

Neji disappeared in a cloud of smoke. "A shadow clone?!" Cell realized. The real Neji had already left before the fight even began. Cell laughed, "You tricked me into giving up all of that information." He casually wiped the dirt off of his tail as he stared off in the direction of the Hidden Leaf Village. "Well played Neji Hyuga. It looks like Naruto will have to wait a bit longer for his turn."