I've had this in my head for a while, and since I didn't update it on International Chocolate and Love Day(Valentine's Day), I'm gonna put it up now.

OK, in this fanfiction, I've combined both of the "Hyuuga Neji incidents" into one battle arena, and I chose the preliminary ring. Yeah, sounds kinda confusing, but you'll see what i mean in a second: I basically re-wrote the episode. It was easier to use, considering the pairing. Enjoy!

My Free Bird

The small preliminary arena was silent as the smoke around the two skirmishing teens cleared. From behind the fading gloom, the slightly battered spectators and the worried Naruto could see Neji, Hinata, and all of the sensei around Neji who were holding him back from performing the final blow on Hinata's heart. Kurenai on his left arm, Asuma on his right, Hayate at his forehead, and Gai at his neck. Hinata was a couple feet away, holding herself together while coughing up blood. But as the smoke faded some more, you could see another body around Neji; a smaller body, one with bandages around it and its arms around Neji's torso. Utterly unrecognizable.

Hayate was the first to speak. "I said the match was over," he said in a serious and angry tone.

Gai chimed in, letting go of Neji's neck harshly. "Neji, you said you wouldn't get carried away; that you wouldn't let this Clan business get in the way of your match. I'm very disappointed in you."

The other ninja weren't interested in Neji, but who was still attached to him.

"Hey, who's that on Neji?"

"It looks like that puppet thing that that Kankuro kid carried!"

"No, it's not a puppet! I saw it breathe!"

Ino peered closer to the figure and gasped. "Yeah, I've never seen her before!"

"How d'you know she's a she," Naruto asked dumbly.

"Because she has boobs, you idiot!," Ino said, pointing at the now slightly red girl's breasts.

"She looks kind of familiar though…," Temari mused, leaning forward on the railing, slightly bored.

Neji didn't answer him or concern himself with the questions getting cast into the air of the arena by his fellow ninja, but looked down at the body still clinging to his torso. The chocolate brown hair and honey toned skin was not easy to mistake. "TenTen," he breathed, and she finally looked up at him.

"That's TenTen?!"

"Holy crap, I never woulda known! Where'd her buns go?"

"What's she doing here?"

"Why's she holding him like that?"

"Is she alright?"

"Hmm... so it's that brat..."

"It's that weakling!"

"The weapon's girl?"

Her hair was wavy, as the medics had taken it out of their trademark buns, and it rolled over her small shoulders, resting a little bit above her navel. The bandages she was garbed in wrapped around her developed chest, almost like breast-bindings; but the blood stain on her back put paid to those thoughts. She was panting, her breath shallow and quick. He realized it pained her to be here; to be standing so soon after that critical blow to the spine, among her other injuries. "You baka." He made to put her down: he was practically holding all of her weight, not that it was any burden, but she stood firm.

"Nnn..." She swayed slightly and leaned forward, holding her midsection. Neji returned to holding her when she nearly collapsed to the stone floor. She slowly wrapped her arms around his torso again and steadied herself.

Her eyes, doe-like and brown as her hair, pierced into his lavender ones. "You're the biggest baka here, Hyuuga Neji," she stated between pants. "To attack Hinata like that… what the hell were you thinking?" Neji skillfully avoided her gaze; there was always something about it that made him want to open up.

"I was thinking about getting her blood on my hands," he said evenly.

TenTen's tone was pained; not just because of her injuries, but because of the boy in front of her. "You've already got it spattered all over your right arm." Neji looked and sure enough, there were crimson splatters adorning his arm wrappings.

"How much more were you planning on spilling?" Her voice shook in anger but she still hadn't let go of him, and he wasn't planning on leaving her hold. "Answer me, Neji!" The other sensei also had yet to relinquish their hold, until Hinata gasped and fell to the floor, blood pouring from her lips, her hands clenching her chest. Kurenai immediately let go of Neji's arm and knelt beside her student, pulling down the zipper of her coat and listening to her heartbeat, her eyes widening a fraction after a moment.

"Get the medics, and hurry up!" Two men garbed in white kimonos lifted Hinata onto a stretcher, who was still looking wearily at Naruto, who wasn't letting his gaze leave her. As soon as the Hyuuga heiress was out of sight, Naruto turned on Neji and glared. Cerulean blue met pearly lavender, unblinking.

"Hinata was only trying to do her best against you. You didn't have to try and kill her!"

Neji sent him a smirk, which only infuriated the blonde more. "Actually, I did. The Main Branch family has abused me long enough. They have already taken away my father; they are not taking me." He looked triumphantly down at the girl in his arms. "And that, TenTen, is my answer to you." Naruto just growled in response. TenTen sighed painfully.

"They can't take you, Neji. You know the reason as well as I do," TenTen said in a low voice, her face shadowed by her bangs as she looked down, her forehead pressed against his chest. The sensei had long since let him go, and were now watching the peculiar scene unfolding in front of them. Neji made to put her down again, and this time she didn't sway. He leaned her against his raised knee and shifted her slightly so that she was resting on his chest, but also between his legs. TenTen didn't object, but laid gratefully on him.

"They will never understand," he whispered, and TenTen shook her head.

"Yes they will… your cage, your chains will be lifted in time," she reassured softly, as if she was not the one injured and panting on his chest.

"Hey Shikamaru, why are those two so close? Isn't contact like that between teammates not allowed," Chouji asked, leaning his elbow on the railing. Shikamaru sighed.

"If you can't see it, then I'm not going to waste my time explaining it to you. It's obvious," he said lazily, using the same words he used on Naruto on Chouji. That got the "big-boned" Genin to shut up.

Ino raised an eyebrow. "Is it really just like when Shikamaru holds me when I'm weak? Or is it more," she mused out loud.

"Shh, Ino-pig! I want to hear this," Sakura said quickly, shooing Ino away with one hand.

"Hinata, I vow... I vow to win! When I beat you and become Hokage, I'm going to change you and the rest of the Hyuuga clan, Neji," Naruto vowed, holding Hinata's spilled blood in his clenched fist.

Neji scoffed. "Only one person is capable, and that person is not you."

Naruto glowered at him. "Oh yeah, and who might that be? I'd like to give him a piece of my mind!"

TenTen turned her head over so her cheek was lain to Neji's chest and sighed, looking right into Naruto's eyes. "Which piece are you going to give me, Naruto?" Her breath came out in a stacatto again, and when she moved, her eyes scrunched in pain.

"I had always assumed, but..." Sakura pondered the new revelation, while Ino fumed.

"Yeah, I know! How could she not tell us?!"

"Perhaps because she's smart," Temari called, looking over at Ino and Sakura from across the arena. "Anybody with a brain would do exactly what she's been doing." She smirked. "Which is why Blondie is still confused."

Naruto's eyes widened and he gasped. "What? Are you saying that you're the one who's going to change him, TenTen?" He didn't seem convinced in the slightest, just very confused. He took an angry step toward them, and it excited a strange reaction in the two.

The brunette's arms snaked around Neji's back tightened, and Neji responded by raising his slowly and possessively around her, resting them carefully around her back wound. TenTen seemed to mold her body to Neji's, and Neji moved slightly in front of her, as if protecting her from the blonde.

"Hey, it isn't like I'm gonna hurt her or anything!"

"You just said that you would like to give the one helping me through my pain a piece of your mind. You said yourself that you would injure her further," Neji spat accusingly and almost... protectively? This was something that lost all of them. For they all knew one thing:

Hyuuga Neji did not show any amount of caring emotion.

"I just want to find out what's going on between you two, that's all," Naruto shouted in his defense, holding his hands up. TenTen looked up at Neji and then at the rest of the room. Then she took a deep breath and slid her arms down slightly. Neji seemed to take it as a signal, and loosened his grip. She sat up somewhat on her own, trying to keep her back slightly bent inward so the wound didn't irritate her. Neji still had his arms beside her waist, ready to pull her back if the need arose.

"The way they move together," the Sandaime observed, smoking his pipe, "It's like their own secret language. Great for teamwork, I think."

"Yes sir, but..." Hayate started, looking in wonder at the two brunettes. "Why do they move that way?"

"It isn't changing he needs, Naruto," she said cautiously, suddenly becoming aware of the group of people around her and her teammate. "He needed someone to understand him and help him through his problems. He needed someone to thaw the ice that had accumulated around his heart since his father died... since he was branded. I've been working at that, and it's working."

"You think that nearly killing his cousin is considered "working"? And what's this "branded" stuff all about? Did Neji get a tattoo?"

"No, I'm not," TenTen said firmly, her determined gaze set on him, "I'm saying that he was a lot worse before. And the things that are held in deep inside are always the last to be healed. It isn't like his hatred spread up yesterday. And knowing you, you'll never know why; not unless one of us tells you." She looked to the side and then strangely, at Neji's hitai-ate-covered forehead. "And this is much more than a mere tattoo..."

Sandiame sighed. "TenTen, you know more than the others will be able to understand... you must explain it to the others."

As always, the guy is never heard, what with his scratchy mumbling and such.

Naruto crossed his arms and pouted. "Fine, so I'm an idiot! Tell me why he's so damn heartless! Explain to me what drove him so far as to nearly kill a completely innocent girl that has done nothing wrong, TenTen!"

TenTen looked at him solemnly, her tired eyes losing a bit of their determined glow. "That's exactly it, Naruto. She didn't do anything wrong. She didn't do anything." She looked to Neji, who painfully nodded, swallowing a lump in his throat.

"She was 3, and she was captured by an enemy Kumo ninja, who turned out to be one of high regard back in their hidden village. A life for a life is what the Raikage said. So in order to protect Hinata's father, who was to blame for the ninja's death, Hizashi, Hiashi's identical twin brother and head of the Cadet Branch- Neji's father - died in his place."

Collective gasps and exclamations of "WHAT?!" were heard throughout the arena. She looked long and hard at Neji, whose eyes were shut and his expression broken. Her gaze moved to his forehead, and when she reached up to touch the hitai-ate, his hand stopped her.

"Let me show him the price I must pay; that the Cadet Branch must pay," he said, and he un-knotted his hitai-ate, then his head wrappings, and underneath them was revealed to be a ghostly-green curse seal, looking almost like a Swastika with two hooks pointing horizontally from it. "The Caged Bird: a seal that obliterates the knowledge of the Byakugan upon death, a seal that tortures those who disobey; a seal that carries the weight of the Hyuuga Clan on the victim's shoulders." The whole room gasped, except the Sandaime, the senseis and TenTen, who just looked on sadly.

"Neji..."

"Poor Neji," Ino said, holding herself as she sighed.

"Yeah, you never would've known.. then again, it explains his cold and stoic nature," Sakura reasoned, and from across the room Temari voiced her agreement.

"Little bastard actually has a reason for being so," the Suna girl said, tapping her finger on her fan.

Neji looked at Naruto, his Byakugan activated, and began to shout. "This seal has bound me to a life of servitude and fear; a life where my fate has already been decided! I shall die as my father died: to protect the secrets of the Byakugan and the members of the Main House. I am constantly held back by the chains that bind me to this depressing destiny, and nothing you could ever do can change that! This seal will stay with me for the rest of my life, always reminding me of the chains that drag behind me, which lead back to that wretched house- to that cage!- and that lead back to the void my father made! What could you ever do?!"

Naruto stepped back, alarmed. "Neji…" Then the main focus of the conversation was back. "But how can TenTen help you if I can't?" He looked at the brunette hesitantly. "I mean.. she's just..." TenTen tried to glare at him, but gave up on it. There was no helping this age-old battle.

"Hey Naruto, are you suggesting that she's weaker than you because she's a girl," Ino yelled, getting and angry expression on her face.

"Cha, she's right! What are you suggesting, Naruto," Sakura added, rubbing her arms threateningly.

"Even if I did beat her to a pulp, she's one hundred times the ninja you are, Blondie," Temari shouted from the stands, a hand tightening on her fan.

TenTen held up a weak hand and sighed again, lifting her head from Neji's chest, catching her breath so she could speak. "What I'm doing, what I've been doing since I met him, was comfort him. I knew how it felt, to have everything taken from you and to have no control." Her throat became constricted as she held back tears: apparently she was opening up. "I haven't had parents since the Second Great Ninja War, a year after I was born and I was stuck in an orphanage until Anko-sensei took me in. But even with her help, it still doesn't numb the feeling... the shadows that will always loom over my head. I know what it's like to be in chains: I always try my hardest to fly away from them, hoping to snap them on my way through the sky, but they pull me back and I fall straight back to earth."

"No wonder she's so graceful in the air..." Ino noted.

"So that's why she's always jumping with her attacks," Sakura said, remembering her earlier battle and her acrobatics in the Forest of Death.

"Then the Soshoryu is an escape technique! That explains everything," said the black-clad Suna boy, banging his fists on the railing in his "discovery".

"No, you baka Kankuro! Just shut up and listen," Temari said, throwing a shuriken at her younger brother before looking down at TenTen and Neji again.

"But I've given him all the comfort I can as his teammate. All of the encouragement I can. All of the blood, sweat, and tears that I can, so somehow, someday, he can fly away; because that's a relief that even someone like him deserves. But giving those things to him as his teammate isn't enough to set him free. So I'm giving him what he's needed most of all..." She looked down at her hands and then laid them on her thighs, squeezing them together, "as something else entirely."

Sakura, Ino, and even Temari gasped at this statement.

"That means that she's-?"

"Could she really be-?"

"Is it possible that-?"

Naruto scratched his head dumbly and made a face. "What does that mean, "I'm giving him what he's needed most of all"? I don't get any of this. You've lost me." Every female in the arena anime-fell and the smarter boys just shook their heads.

"NARUTO, YOU BAKA!!"

"YOU REALLY ARE THE BIGGEST IDIOT I'VE EVER MET!!"

"YOU FUCKIN' RETARD, BLONDIE!"

Neji let out a light chuckle, letting his hand slide onto TenTen's, gripping it ever so slightly. She gripped it back, and rubbed her thumb back and forth on it in an attempt to calm him from his rage and painful memories. He calmed down and his voice returned to it's normal velvet tone. "And you never will, at this rate. Will we have to show you?" He smirked down at the girl he was holding. "The poem?"

Gai was crying rivers as his smile blinded the Jounin around him. "A youthful poem! One worthy of the battle between two rivals--"

"Gai-sensei, shut up! I want to hear what they have to say!"

"That goes double for me, Ino-Pig!"

"Yeah Spandex-guy, shut up!"

Neji ignored them, instead rubbing the top of TenTen's back in an attempt to steady her breathing. It didn't work well, but TenTen seemed grateful he was trying. "My Free Bird," he said the title with passion, as if he had just announced the rebirth of his father.

TenTen was still panting, but she slowed her breathing to look up at Neji, nodding; her expression serious and ardent. "It's always been just us two, hasn't it, Neji?" Her voice was softer than the power that came with her words, but their meaning wasn't hard to miss.

"Like two birds, twisting intricately in the shining sky of today, dreaming of tomorrow and of the one beside them," he said just as softly, his tone changing slightly into something the others had never experienced nor dreamed he could be capable of: caring. Some blood slipped from TenTen's mouth, and he wiped the trail with his forefinger, resting the blood-stained finger on her beat-up cheek.

"She needs to get to the infirmary," Asume stated, edging toward the two. Neji growled at him and TenTen coughed again.

"Yeah, seriously Neji, let her go," Naruto yelled, but Neji only stroked the girl's temple and egged her to continue.

TenTen shook her head at their comments. "Not a care in the world, with only one love to give: to the other magnificent entity, like that of a dragon, but soft as the clouds and warm as the sun… Their love is like that of the most perfect day, the source of warmth and peace," TenTen said breathlessly; her wound was slowly reopening, the crimson of her blood spreading tediously across her back. Neji quickly ripped his wrappings off, tying them around TenTen as fast as his fingers would allow.

"N-Neji..." TenTen gritted her teeth as the bindings were tightened around her, flashing a hand to her chest immediately.

"They stand through the pain and fly through the gloom, where the stars light their way to a newer, better place," Neji said, pulling TenTen closer to him again. His makeshift bandages would last out, if only for a moment.

"Gomen..."

"As the morning comes, and as their strength weakens, as the rain pours down upon them, they are not discouraged. Their hearts are all that matter, their love is contained in them. And their hearts are safe," the brunette whispered weakly, resting her hand on Neji's chest, her fingers curling slightly as she pulled at it, trying to get it closer to her.

"And there, in that one's hands, there is where his heart lies. She keeps it safe, under lock and key. The key to the cage, she keeps in her heart. He comes to her, dragging his chains behind him and she gladly sets him free," the caged teen said, leaning down ever so slightly, his eyes shading ever so slightly as his eyelids lowered. No one around him could fathom what he was seeing in the bandaged, breathless girl, but he didn't care. Not for them, anyway.

"And again into the sky they soar, absorbed in each other's eyes as they make the aimless journey through their lives, simply surviving, simply breathing. It is all they need, for now and forever, they have each other, and no chains can hold them down, no cage can keep them," TenTen breathed, using her other hand to push herself up and slowly lowering her eyelids. When her elbow wouldn't obey her, Neji caught her and held her up, leaning forward so it wouldn't strain her any further.

The two teen's lips were almost touching, and, almost to themselves, they murmured, "And only together can they fly into the twisted sky. Only together can we be free."

The arena held it's breath as the two teens' breath mingled on their lips. "Kimi o aishiteru, my free bird."

It was after that sentence that their lips finally touched, melting together into one, passion and need radiating from the both of them. Neji held her tightly, keeping her steady as he leaned farther in, pressing himself to her. She couldn't seem to get him close enough. Her fingers laced through his hair and rubbed his neck, then let one slide down to interlace it's fingers with one set of Neji's. His hands were at her head and back, caressing her with care, and holding her hand. But eventually, the need for oxygen took them, and they had to separate. They let their foreheads touch, breathing hard and gazing dazedly into each other's eyes.

"N-Neji… it hurts…" The blood stain on her bandages had nearly spread around the entirety of her back and her eyes looked pained; her other injuries were beginning to reopen. "When will this pain cease? For so long…!"

Apparently, she wasn't speaking of her injuries, though her cuts and slashes were re-opening; her blood was slowly seeping down her arms and body. "I don't know, TenTen. Fate has not shown me the answer, not yet."

"You and your damned fate, Hyuuga Neji…" She laughed lightly, her voice sounding oddly hoarse.

The girl's eyes dropped to the ground and then struggled to look into Neji's again; she was swaying like a tree in the breeze, her mouth bleeding again. "It's going black, Neji…it still hurts." She blinked a couple times at him, trying to stay awake. Neji closed his eyes kissed her forehead.

"You'll be alright; I won't let the darkness take you." Apparently it had a hidden meaning, because the darkness was about to take over the small girl, about to faint from blood loss.

"You…you promise?" She coughed blood again and everyone in the room remembered how injured she had gotten from Temari's beating. The blood landed in a spray on Neji's beige jacket. Temari instantly felt guilty, clutching her fan self-conciously. "You'll be there, Neji? Before it closes my eyes?"

"Now and forever, TenTen." The brunette nodded slightly and then collapsed into his chest in a faint; Neji caught her swiftly and sighed.

"I stand by what I say, though, TenTen," he whispered, flicking her bangs out of her eyes as he laid her on the floor, kneeling beside her," You are a fool." He let go of her hand and rested it on her waist, so she seemed to be simply sleeping. "And I have the honor of flying beside you."

He picked up his hitai-ate and tied it around his head again and turned around, his eyes shut. "See to it that her injuries are healed, please." Then he walked out of the arena, out of the facility, and onto the roof, looking up at the darkening sky, up at the moon shining brilliantly against the blanket of night.

"That boy is something else," Ino said as the weapon's mistrees was taken up on a stretcher as well.

"I dunno, Ino: Wouldn't you love to have a guy like that? Someone who cared so much, even if his life is horrible," Sakura asked, her pale emerlad eyes also following the white clad medic nin and TenTen's beaten body.

"No, too much work."

"Hey, Platinum Blondie, you're sounding like that lazy-ass over there," Temari called, pointing at Shikamaru, who just sighed.

"Troublesome women..."

-

-

An hour later

"I don't know when the pain will cease, TenTen… but I wish it would end soon." He put a hand to his chest and slowly curled his fingers, cursing Hinata for reminding him of the Hyuuga ways; cursing her for reminding him that what he wants, who he wants, can never be. He turned his head to the window to view the dying sunset and saw two birds spiraling through the blood red-violet sky, flying toward it and not looking back. It made him almost smile. "I'm glad… we showed them all, TenTen."

He looked away from the window and turned back to TenTen, who was still sleeping peacefully in her bed, a couple machines hooked up to her to watch her heart and to give her blood. He sighed.

"You almost made it that time, TenTen. Just a little higher..."

'We will not be caged, will not be chained. We will be free… together we shall be free.'

Damn, that looked a whole lot better in my head.... Hopefully, it wasn't a big sappy fluff-fest for you guys too. Hope you enjoyed it: Please review!

-Youkai Koneko