UNINVITED
V: A Slight Change of Plans
in which Neji dreams, and several untypical things are done.
- story occurs outside of canon; it would be best if one read up until the timejump happens though, as I may be referring to incidents pertaining to those chapters. Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi, that crazy genius, and this is only a poor fanfic by a starstruck fan.
- this contains implied yaoi, which means two guys paired up with each other. While there isn't any overt action (...yet!), the implications are clear, and are intended, to make the story work. Please do us both a favor and NOT read if you're squeamish with this. And I do know how rare the occurrence of the NejiSasu fanperson in the fandom today, but here's to hoping it'll reach some anyway. ;
He did not see Kaminari for next six days after their morning conversation. He seemed to have shut himself up in his room on the first floor, coming out only sparely to consult with an inquiring member that wasn't Neji. Neji suspected the man did it deliberately to frustrate him, to leave him with the tiresome ambiguity of the entire situation.
He often did that, Kaminari: He remembered how, in his younger trainee days, the older Hyuuga would perform a new jutsu once (or twice, if it struck his fancy), and then leave to let Neji, excited, eager and impatient to figure it out for himself.
Training with his cousin never involved physical punishment of the sort; Kaminari knew enough of psychological coercion to allow Neji's furious drive and frustrated desire to be stronger, to do the work.
It did not help that, even after more than a decade, it would feel exactly as it did back then, and Neji knew Kaminari wanted him to figure out his most vexing situation out himself.
It was probably the most inactive day of his shinobi life. It felt as if all the years he had spent under the mentorship of Gai-sensei, who was energy personified, was balanced out by this single request.
First, he decided to move his belongings to a smaller room down the hall. As Sasuke seemed not to be going anywhere and as he knew the medics would be coming and leaving the place occasionally, he needed a more private space away from his "mission".
It was a very small area, compared to his own chambers, which was relatively spacious (though in terms of the Main House and the elders it was still a cramped room). It was meant for overnight guests, but as the irony existed, he would have to sleep in the guest's room because his guest had so passively "claimed" his.
He decided to kill idle time after that by researching about his new ward. It was, after all, under the veneer of domesticity and the tiresome subject at hand, still a mission. Otherwise Hiashi-sama would not have personally approached him, not as an uncle willing to spar with his favorite nephew, but as a clan head appealing to a member's skills.
He remembered how the Battle of Otogakure unfolded; he was stationed to defend the northern borders of the country with his team, and most of his family had spread out in the perimeter of the village to guard against refracted attack units.
He remembered how he had felt a tremendous release of chakra at one point, so pressing and so powerful that it seemed to plug the senses, and it took a large amount of self-control and chakra release to counteract the effect and not weaken at the knees.
Neji had heard of what transpired in the fight, from Team 10 (who led the frontline attack alongside Team 7), and from Lee who had been sent to carry a message to the troops stationed in the area.
There were the rumors of course, about how the two brothers from a formerly prominent shinobi family fought, to the gruesome conclusion of what was a terribly unfortunate twist of brotherly competition.
The Hyuuga family possessed an archive full of documents and family scrolls accessible only to a select few. Located below ground level of the Main House, it took up almost half the entire floor, and was strung with shrouding talismans across the entrance.
From there, Neji read up on unofficial accounts of the demise of the Uchiha, how publicity and the need to cover up the embarrassing fact of a parricide by a single teenage boy proclaimed instead a grave misunderstanding amongst kin at a family gathering that resulted in a very violent brawl.
It was a pathetic cover-up, but it was enough to work; beneath the surface of course, most knew whose fault it was, even if no names were mentioned.
The only member left alive and shaken could only say one word for an entire week following the incident, in between bouts of trauma and fear-induced vomiting:
Nii-san. Nii-san. Nii-san.
Apparently the only member of the Uchiha clan who was not present at the meeting was one Uchiha Sasuke, son of clan head Uchiha Fugaku and Uchiha Mikoto. The boy, aged eight, had come home late from Academy practice, for which he is known to stay in overtime. He is now being treated for minor injury and will be held for questioning on any information regarding the nature of such a family meeting that should have ended up in the violent eradication of an entire clan.
The public is advised to keep off the turn of Shouhaku Street and the entire length of the Uchiha compound until investigators have concluded their findings. To get to the main highway, a temporary route has been opened to cut across the Konoha Police Station, bypassing 5th and Kashiwagi.
The violent eradication of an entire clan.
It was so devastating, that it was incredulous.
Neji lowered the chronicle he was reading and leaned against a pillar thoughtfully, trying to imagine what it would have been like for the young boy, elated to report a successful day in school no doubt, returning home only to be mauled by an eerily calm, seemingly logical older brother.
He imagined himself in the crazed brother's place, leering down from a post at the perfect image of a massacre. In his mind, the faces that peered up in silenced agony had eyes that were as pale as his, veining at the temples and at the sides of the face. Some would have marks on their foreheads like his, eyes darkened to a shade of ash gray, the curse seal disabling the Byakugan in death.
He imagined a full moon—silver and ghostly, like a spotlight in the sky, illuminating the similarly pale, lifeless bodies strewn about the Main courtyard.
He imagined standing over the main family, over the clan elders, Hiashi, Kaminari, and Hinata whom he had hated the most. He would be the only Hyuuga left of course, and thus its only head. And he would have successfully outwitted the family system, as it were.
And he wondered whom he would spare, if he would spare anyone at all.
No.
Immediately he shook his head clear of the reverie, and with it the unnatural agitation that wasn't entirely unpleasant.
What foolish son of a clan head would eradicate his own family but leave its youngest, most promising potential to live? What insane heir would commit parricide in the first place?
He thought about this, vaguely contemplative and somewhat disturbed, even as he emerged from the family library some hours later.
Indeed the Uchiha are troublesome, he thought to himself, annoyed at the brother for having done what he did—had the latter killed off the entire clan including Sasuke, or had he remained sane, such a mess would not have resulted.
But then again, such circumstances resulting from that would not have happened either, a more logical part of his brain concluded, as he paused to allow several children to cut his path, all armed with blunt kunai, led by a family tutor for their afternoon run.
Several turned over their shoulder to regard him solemnly before resuming their run. Neji took no notice.
Which goes to say that there would have been no Team 7, which goes to say that the several times I'm sure the Uchiha saved Naruto's life would have been void, and which goes to say that we probably would never have met in battle.
Ryuko greeted him with a quiet bow of respect as he entered the North courtyard, and looking into his open room from below, he could see his cousin standing over and monitoring the work of what looked to be a medic team.
"They have come to check they boy for the first official report, Neji-sama," she explained quietly as they walked towards the room, and Neji's brow lifted slightly at the suffix attached to his name.
"Neji-niisan," Hinata smiled as they drew closer to the room. "They are merely inspecting Sasuke-kun's progress," she explained, waving to the three medic nin in the room. "They are the Godaime's private team."
Neji said nothing, but acknowledged the presence of the medics, watched them in a suppressed sort of curiosity, as they changed chakra tubes, did quiet hand seals to redirect the flow of the body's energy.
Hinata was fidgeting slightly beside him, he could tell from the little movements he saw from the corner of his sight.
"I'm…I'm terribly sorry it had to be your room," she started quietly, and already he could tell she was slowly regressing to her old state of constant nervousness. "I…Father said it would be the best bet, considering that he—Sasuke-kun I mean—he's been…well, experiencing several bouts of unstable energy."
Those were his circumstances.
He could sense the remnants of her childhood fear of him slowly float to the surface; already Hinata was wringing her hands slightly, in the effort to sink such fear back down.
He said nothing, merely looked past his cousin's shoulder to the medic team taking down notes and examining the Uchiha. He imagined how humiliated Sasuke must be, to be prodded and observed like some interesting specimen, to be confined like the weakest shinobi, to be bound by seals and containment spells.
He wondered what the errant shinobi would have to say about all the attention, if and when the latter woke up. Certainly, as the last Uchiha he would understand the vestiges of politics involved, and would be deeply shamed to have another major house take care of him—
"It is certainly taking him long enough to awaken," Hinata replied, and it was only then that Neji realized he had spoken aloud.
She looked away and leaned across the railing of the hallway that looked out to the courtyard. "We were expecting him to awaken a day after he was brought here, as he would only be dangerous prior to consciousness. Which is probably why the Godaime and Father had no qualms about you being his guardian for such a short time."
Hinata squinted, as if focusing on some far-off object. "Once he gains consciousness, a rebound is easy to put under control. Once he gains consciousness, there won't be a need for all the high-level sealing curses."
Neji looked away from the silent activity in the room and leaned a little beside Hinata on the railings. "And this is because--?"
"Because his own consciousness, Sasuke-kun's, will remain." She pursed her lips as she remembered the tedious, dangerous process of extracting the foreign chakra that steadily suppressed Sasuke's.
He smirked then, and said partly to himself and partly in jest, "Perhaps it is better for him to stay like so, for he would be less of a bother." The Uchiha was very much an annoyance in his drive for revenge, and whatever silly thing that temporarily gave his life meaning.
At this, Hinata whirled around to face him, and he was mildly surprised at the irritation on her typically gentle features.
"Don't say such things, Neji-niisan," she said with a quiet vehemence that Neji was certain his cousin only "acquired" in her harsh training as a chakra surgeon. "There are many people who find Sasuke-kun important. You may not see him as such, but to other people, to other people—"
She broke off and she wavered, as if she remembered something, then, "—to other people, he is worth risking a life for."
And without letting him get in a word edgewise, Hinata turned and strode down the corridor, leaving Neji to blink in mild astonishment.
"Neji-kun? We shall be taking your leave now."
Behind him, as if on cue, the head of the medic team emerged from the room, apparently done with their business. He nodded in acknowledgement and gestured for his team to follow, their report done for the day.
Neji watched them as they descended the stairs, and his gaze followed their exit across the yard and out the North House's gate.
Somewhere beyond the house, he could hear the faint flutter of the house's messenger birds as they returned home to roost.
A figure was hurrying around the first floor, away from the corridor that led to Kaminari's room. She stopped, turned, and bowed deeply to whoever it was, before moving on.
She turned her face upward for a moment, as if aware that she was being watched, and Hanabi directed a very quick, admiring smile at her older cousin before running off.
Sighing, he entered the room and leaned against the partition that separated the inner chamber where Sasuke was resting from the rest of the room.
The medic team had replaced the sealing bandages, and had redrawn the tags that hung over the blazing altar lamps. They also had, to Neji's mild amusement, replaced the sheets.
The body was still, and barely pulsed with life. Under his skin, Uchiha Sasuke was very much alive, but he looked verily like a corpse otherwise, as he did, for the past days.
Hinata had spoken about the compression of Sasuke's chakra; Neji wondered if it was possible to fit two people in a single corporeal matter. Did souls ("flotillas" and "condensed" chakra centers, as Kaminari once said) constrain themselves in physical limitations? And how on earth could the unconscious be more powerful than the conscious?
Barring theory of course; in the realm of the academic nin, this would have been explained thoroughly, but Neji did not care for such fuss.
"You should have never allowed possession," he muttered aloud to his sleeping companion. "You are complicating matters, and barring me from joining my team in missions." And you do not know, I am sure, of the mess the Kage have to deal with.
Hissing softly between his teeth in resignation, Neji sat on his usual spot, and brought out two kunai.
Gai-sensei was the most outrageous man in the village (in the entire country, Neji suspected, and doubted he was wrong), but he wasn't jounin-sensei for nothing.
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It was a most vexing day at the meeting, and all she wanted was a long, nerve-loosening drink.
The heads of state she had met with were no worse than children despite their age, she thought. Many were conniving bastards who only looked beyond their own ends with great difficulty. She didn't mind those; after all, the first things shinobi children were taught were suspicion and an instinct for self-survival.
What she could not stand were the heads of state who were so full of themselves and who looked down on her because of the way she looked. It was not so much as their inability to respect her—while they thought she was a hot-headed teenage Hokage (this flattered her very much, needless to say), the moment she opened her mouth o state her opinion, she very much made them reconsider their initial opinions—it was more on the numerous lame, inane attempts to hit on her that set her on edge.
The infinitely annoying Prime Minister of the Lightning Country for instance; the obviously sterile pervert seemed to make it his personal mission all that afternoon, and was intent on it as any Academy student gunning for genin.
Clearly the old man had forgotten her rank in spite of her appearance, even if the grim-faced Suliyam Said had differed to her as a fellow kage in the outright presence of his country leader. The Raikage was clearly displeased and embarrassed with the situation, and had apologized stiffly several times that day.
"I've seen better, old man," she said aloud to herself, uncapping the fat jug of spring sake she always kept under her desk. "Such a lame way of establishing 'political connections.'"
She took a long swig, swung her feet up to the tabletop, and leaned back against her chair. Half-heartedly, she leafed through the neat stack of documents piled in her inbox, skimming through the affairs of the day.
One particular report piqued her interest, and she looked through it with much attention whilst drinking from her sake jug. When she was quite finished, she called for her righthand, who came in a quiet blur only a few seconds after she was called.
Shizune was well-used to her Hokage's penchant for odd hours.
"Tsunade-sama," she said by way of greeting, standing in front of the Hokage's desk.
"I see the medical team has made their first report today on the Uchiha boy," Tsunade leafed through the reports in the envelope once more. She smirked as she read the results. "The brat is certainly is taking his time, eh?"
"Nobody expected him to take so long to awaken," Shizune agreed. "In fact, Hinata-chan has been worrying over the matter for some time now. They all expected him to at least gain consciousness thirty hours after the official start of his rehabilitation."
"Typical Uchiha. Well, it was Orochimaru we were dealing with, inside the boy," Tsunade mused, her face clouding over at the mention of her former teammate. "And he has been severely depleted of his own chakra during the purging. Though I would have expected his air energies to recover--?"
"They are, and at a steady rate, Tsunade-sama. The room Hinata-chan chose was indeed favorable for such energies so much so that the team did not need to put in a conduit to channel chakra." Shizune was about to go into the details and the placements of the altar lamps when Tsunade cut her off.
"About the room, Shizune." Here an ironic, almost mischievous smile crossed the Hokage's face. "Its original resident, I take it, is not very happy with this extension of affairs, is he?"
The younger shinobi sighed softly. "In Ryuko-chan's words, 'It is always best to not mention it in Neji-sama's presence.' I don't suppose Neji-kun expected this delay either, and if one knows him, he has probably partitioned the room between them—"
"If one knows that arrogant child, he shall have moved to a different room away from the Uchiha brat!" Tsunade finished, and clucked her tongue in amusement, and took another swig from her sake jug.
The fine wine burned down her throat and untwisted the knot of nerves around her neck and shoulders, and she let out a long, rejuvenated sigh. Of course she knew several techniques to loosen one's muscles without having to move (being the finest medical genius in the country, and, quite possibly, the hemisphere).
Aah, but sake had its strange, relaxing after-effect that was always a curious mix of lethargy and tingliness, laziness and a weird stirring in her gut that made her want to do things typical of a hot-headed teenage Hokage…
"Interesting," she decided, her voice now a bit slurred. (and she failed to catch Shizune's wary look)
"Do we lift the 'mission' from Neji-kun, Tsunade-sama?" Shizune was now well aware that her boss had not eaten dinner yet, and had taken in an alarming amount of alcohol in lieu of such.
"I don't suppose Gai and his team need any more help in their current missions now, do they?" She tried leafing around for Gai's mission report, but already all the other papers in her desk looked similar, so she gave up.
Shizune quietly picked out the reports. "I don't suppose so, Tsunade-sama—"
"Then let that Hyuuga boy remain as he is. Up to the end of the rehabilitation. " Tsunade failed to notice the surprised look on Shizune's face, which the latter didn't bother to hide.
"Up to the—the end of the—but Tsunade-sama, when, that is, if Sasuke-kun regains consciousness…it's not necessary anymore to—"
"It is Orochimaru we are sort-of, but not-really, anticipating, eh?" Tsunade winked, and leaned farther back into her chair. "And I do believe it's time for the young heirs to his village's bloodlines to establish…'political connections', hmm?"
She snickered into her jug then, much like a teenager. Shizune was shaking her head, knowing her boss to well to not take the latter seriously even in the state of drunkenness.
"But really Shizune," Tsunade sobered up for a bit, "I think the set-up will be good for both of them. They're both geniuses, both top rookies for consecutive years, and both clearly have issues that have not yet been fully resolved. They will learn from one another."
And there is something I can't quite put a finger on that's telling me that there are things amiss and that this set-up is the best option as far as those boys are concerned.
But of course, she did not say this aloud, because it was something drunken leaders of state would say, and not logical kage who assessed missions behind their desks.
And she was not drunk, by the good Shodai's nose. Shizune was just overreacting, as usual. Tsunade was well-used to her righthand's overly-paranoid streaks, after all.- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
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He dreamed that night, which was unusual.
He did not dream. Even his unconscious knew it was useless and illogical to dream, so it simply unwound invisibly, so that all he remembered between sleeping and waking up (not necessarily opening his eyes) was a deep, dark chasm.
Tonight, that chasm was streaked with silvery, ghostly light.
He dreamt he was perched in a high place, and the wind was cold against his face. Below him littered the bodies of Kumo nin, all lying facedown on the ground.
In the strange, simultaneous in medias res that dreams always had, Neji knew he had just won one long battle. He was both in the situation, and observing it from a third-person perspective, and a hurt, a loss, that he had not felt for a long time came in a shuddering wave of vengefulness.
That's for taking my father, he thought angrily, feeling the once-familiar savage swell in his chest at the sight of so many dead Kumo shinobi.
They all looked like they simply fell about randomly, but Neji knew (still in the strange versimilistic omniscience of dreams) that beneath their skins, their organs were ruined, and they were all hemorrhaging badly. Small craters dotted the landscape here and there, evidence of the deadly Heavenly Spin.
There was the movement of something small, and he turned. A little girl was sobbing into the body of one of the most badly-wounded Kumo nin, her back turned towards him and her long hair veiling her face.
It is Fate, you must understand, he found his dreamself saying (and this surprised him, as he had turned from that mentality a long time ago) to the girl, who rose slowly and turned her pale, tear-streaked eyes in his direction.
Neji-niisan.
Hanabi was looking up at him, and to his horror, so was Hinata, in the body of what he thought was a Kumo nin…
And as if an invisible hand flipped the bodies around him over, Neji found himself being stared at by a thousand Hyuuga eyes.
Hanabi was looking up at him now, but her face seemed impossibly near and he could read her lips even in the utter silence of his dream, forming that one word—
Nii-san. Nii-san. Nii-san.
"Nii-san."
He came to with a sharp gasp, jerking violently from the wall he was leaning on. The evening air chilled him, and cold sweat plastered his hair to the sides of his face. His right hand hurt from gripping the kunai he'd practiced on earlier, and he loosened his hold, and took a deep breath.
I must have fallen asleep, he thought, and from the movements of the clouds in the evening sky (these were a sharp gray, lighter by moonlight), it was the middle of the second watch. I have not slept for the past few days.
Why, his heart was beating as if he were in the midst of a dire combat! Not even in typical fighting situations did he feel such cold dread. There was a reason why Lee called him "Freeze-dried" in the times he had pissed his teammate off with his cold logic.
There must be some osmotic effect with regard to chakra, he thought, making a mental note to speak with Hinata, or at least one of the medic team members about it in the morning. For me to have such a vivid dream like that.
This disconcerted Neji deeply, and he decided not to think about the massacre from the brother's perspective because it was eerily unsettling. There was the barely perceptible thought that scratched at his thought:
It could have been your family.
Quietly, he took two deep, calming breaths, and pressed two fingers to a pressure point above his right elbow. In a quick moment, he was breathing regularly and his system had calmed down somewhat.
"Nii-san."
Yes indeed, he thought, how uncanny, as Hanabi does call me by—
Neji's head snapped up in alarm, and every muscle he'd loosened sprang to tense and wary attention as he regarded, with Byakugan eyes, the body on the bed.
It breathed deeply, deeper than usual, but the chakra flows still remained the same.
Then he saw the esophagus tighten, and he knew he had not heard the voice in his head.
"Nii-san," it croaked, Sasuke croaked, voice soft and scratchy after many months of disuse. He breathed in the night air through his mouth and gulped it down like water; over his head, an altar lamp's flame flickered and zigzagged as if threatened by a breeze that was ready to put it out.
It is terribly reactive to chakra in unregulated amounts, Hinata warned in his head, and Neji hastily reigned in his own, with the discipline of a well-trained jounin. Quietly, he sprang to a crouching position, ready for any sort of action.
But Sasuke remained prone, mouth opening and closing slowly, like a fish out of water, working his lungs for air.
Or choking on it, came a voice in Neji's head, warning him, as he saw the air chakra beneath Sasuke's system increase twofold, confusing the rhythm that the sealing jutsu imposed on him.
"Nii-san," he whispered once more, and Neji was too fresh from the dream to allow it to pass smoothly over him.
It was getting stranger and stranger, and frankly Neji did not know what to do; it was possible that Sasuke was delirious, to be muttering such things. It was possible that he was dreaming too, knowing nothing of what he was saying.
But already Sasuke had breathed in a shuddering sigh, and had slipped back to unconsciousness. His body relaxed; his chakra system had righted itself after a very quick moment of instability and now the altar lamps burned a straight, steady flame, the water in the bowl flat like a mirror.
Neji relaxed his shoulders, very much awake after that short, very surreal sequence. He wondered if the medic team had known that Sasuke would awaken, and perhaps it was just a matter of bad timing that they came early the day before.
He wondered if he should tell them about it, and if he could file for a report (it being an "official" mission after all) and if he could rejoin his team the next morning.
For now, the best course of action is to keep light watch, he thought. He was quite sure it was the last of this ridiculous guard watch mission, and that perhaps he could resume training himself.
The irony of it only struck him the moment he leaned back against the wall again to return to his position.
He would be dangerous only prior to consciousness, Hinata had said. Glaring at the body balefully as if it had caused him to do something embarrassing and untypical of a well-respected jounin, Neji counted the watch rotations in his head before sunrise.Author's Notes:
(1) chakra release – the "Kai!" that jounin often perform to neutralize the effects of a particularly strong genjutsu, or similar imposing jutsu. Sakura, Kakashi, Gai and several accomplished shinobi do this to counteract Kabuto's sleeping illusion at the tail-end of the Chuunin exam scenario.
(2) Pronounced "Sa-EE-d" as in Edward Said. :3 Sorry, nerd's allusion. This is very negligible btw. I suspect the Lighting Country people should have Arabic names, as the ambassador who nabbed little Hinata had such a name.
(3) I am so glad for this month-long vacation! I can go back to writing stuff again, "effusing" as a friend would say, without having to worry about sacrificing work or some such "important" matter. And I'm kind of glad the story shifted towards getting back Sasuke again too; as is obvious, I'm working with what the canon is presently showing. In my story, it's not just Orochimaru's sentience that the chakra team has had to extract, because if I've read forum spoilers correctly, Orochimaru is planning to a.) implant the hachibi onto Sasuke, the jinchuuriki he's acquired as a member of the Akatsuki, and b.) move house into the boy's body as well, making him the head of the control center so to speak, with the ability to control the hachibi's powers and redirect the drawbacks onto Sasuke and his body. What a sneaky leech. So yeah, I'll be working my way around that.
(4) I'd love to hear what you have to say. :3 I usually x-post this to my writing journal, but you may very well mail me for other comments. Please drop a note if you think this was okay. Thanks!