Of all the missions assigned to shinobi, those requiring the capture of a fellow ninja were by far the most difficult. To kill was one thing, but to detain required strategy, finesse, and the careful modulation of one's usual techniques to avoid lethality. When the target was a ninja and not similarly bound to keep their opponent alive, the task became so difficult that it could be assigned only to the very best, the most reliable. To people like Neji Hyuuga.

His entire team was sent out with a directive to capture one Ryu Takada, a missing-nin from Iwagakure who had been wreaking havoc in the Land of Fire. It was vital that they know the extent of Iwa's complicity in Takada's crimes, so their orders explicitly forbade killing. Konoha wanted him alive, and whole enough for questioning. Tenten and Lee were standing at Neji's side when he received these instructions, and though the Hokage's words were meant for them too, it was on Neji, as the team captain and only jounin, that their burden fell most heavily. Success or failure was ultimately his responsibility.

They set out very early on a day in late autumn when the approaching winter could be seen as a frost on their breaths and felt as a tingling in their hands and feet. Already the days were shorter, and though the birds sang of the coming day from the woods on either side of the road, the sun had not yet risen. The predawn light was gray and bleak.

"I cannot see anything in these conditions!" said Lee. "I hope we do not find the target until after the sun has risen – I do not wish to miss a chance to take him down!"

"It's unlikely we'll meet him anytime soon," Neji replied calmly. "His last reported location was several hours from here."

"How old is that report?" asked Tenten. "Can we be sure he'll still be in the area?" She was walking with her hands tucked into her armpits, taking them out occasionally to blow warmth into her fingertips. Of all the members of Team Gai she was the most averse to cold weather; cold hands were liable to cramp and stick to metal weapons, and the practice of her jutsu prevented her from wearing proper gloves. To channel her chakra and accurately control her weapons, she had to leave her fingers bare, exposed to the chill biting air.

"We can be sure of nothing," was Neji's uncomforting reply. "He is a chuunin from Iwa and hence likely to be capable of moving quickly."

"Not as quickly as us, though!" said Lee. He did a strange little leap and punched the air. "That is why we were chosen for this mission. There are no guarantees for a shinobi, Tenten-san, but I am nevertheless sure that we will find him and be successful in capturing him!"

Tenten's only response to this was a sigh; she and Neji had long since given up trying to puncture their teammate's enthusiasm. It was like trying to persuade the wind not to blow, and anyway, though Neji would rather die than admit it, he had come to rely on Lee for motivation and comic relief. "Just don't get too enthusiastic, Lee. Remember, we're to bring him in alive."

"Right!" said Lee. He punched the air again and gave a very convincing salute.

After some time they left the road to bear west, toward the target's last known location. By that time the sun had risen, casting wan golden rays on the forlorn forest, which looked oddly incomplete with half its foliage dropped to the ground and other half clinging stubbornly to the trees. In the sunlight they were able to leave the ground for the canopy and move quickly through the branches, picking up speed until they were moving faster than any other squad from the Leaf possibly could. Team Gai was swift and powerful, ideal for interception and combat.

"Aren't we in the area now?" asked Tenten. She sounded more cheerful now that sunlight plus vigorous activity had warmed her a bit. "Maybe you should turn it on, Neji."

She meant his Byakugan, of course. He didn't really care to hear others speak of 'turning it on' as though it was some vulgar machine controlled by a switch. Mere mechanics could never do justice to the delicate process of channeling enough chakra to his eyes to enable his remarkable vision, but not so much that he drained his own readiness to fight.

Still, he couldn't really fault her; she had no way of truly understanding what she spoke of. No one did, except a fellow Hyuuga. So in response to her he said only, "Activating it now." He made a few hand signs and began to modulate the flow of his own chakra, sending exactly the right amount into his eyes. "Byakugan!"

Everything changed; the drab dying forest was now alive with life and energy, pulsing and changing in a deeply complex web that encompassed everything from the smallest insects to the tallest oaks. He saw the frenzied activity of the squirrels as they rushed to stockpile food for the coming winter, and the lazy concentration of energy at the core of the sleepy trees, and the diffuse haze of chakra given off by the mulch of decaying vegetation on the ground. He saw it all, and even his cold focused mind had to admit that it was beautiful.

"What do you see, Neji-san?" Lee asked after a moment. As always when he spoke about Neji's kekkei genkai, his voice was colored by curiosity and a little awe. Once, not long after his surgery, Lee had asked Neji to describe what the world looked like through the Byakugan.

"It looks … different," Neji said. He was not inarticulate, but he had no gift for poetry, or really anything besides ninjutsu. "It's sort of … blue."

"Blue?" Lee repeated avidly. "I see. What else?"

Neji conducted a frustrating and fruitless search through his own mind for an effective way to explain his gift to Lee. "Look," he said at last, "I don't think I can describe it so that you can really understand. I don't think it's possible for someone who's never used the Byakugan to fully understand it."

Lee blinked rapidly, processing that. Neji hoped he hadn't sounded condescending; the idea of treating Lee as an equal was still relatively new.

"So you think that it is strictly a matter of experience, then?" Lee asked.

"Yes, that's right," Neji replied with relief. "It's like trying to tell someone what the color red looks like – it's impossible if they haven't seen it for themselves."

Lee was silent a while longer. No way to tell what was going on behind those wide round eyes. "I'll ask Hinata," he declared finally.

Neji stopped himself from rolling his eyes. "Fine, do that," he said.

Now though, Lee was not asking about the general view through the Byakugan, but rather about their quarry. Neji scanned the area carefully, turning his head to check his blind spot. "Nothing within one hundred meters," he said tersely. He increased his range. "Nothing within five hundred meters." He increased his range again, to a kilometer.

"Stop!" he ordered. Lee and Tenten both halted, Lee freezing awkwardly mid-leap. Neji dropped to the ground and they followed suit.

"There is a shinobi about eight hundred kilometers due east." He pointed. "He's wearing a slashed Iwa forehead-protector; I'm sure it's our target. And we're in luck – he appears to be sleeping. He's dug a pit and covered himself with branches, so he no doubt thinks he's invisible."

"Not invisible to you, though!" said Tenten with satisfaction.

Neji acknowledged that with a nod. "Tenten, I want you to go in first. Circle him at a radius of fifty meters and plant tripwires connected to exploding tags. But make sure that the charge on the tags isn't too strong – we want it strong enough to knock him out, but not kill him."

"Right!" she acknowledged.

"Go now," he ordered, and she moved off, fast and silent. He watched her for a few seconds before turning back to Lee.

"What will we do to catch him?" asked Lee in a tense whisper. He was holding himself rigid, but Neji could see his muscles quivering with excitement.

"First, I'll try to incapacitate him while he's still asleep," replied Neji. "I can use my jyuuken to alter the flow of chakra in his brain and put him into a temporary coma. But if that fails, you need to be ready to help me engage him. We'll chase him into Tenten's perimeter."

Predictably, Lee looked a little disappointed. But he was disciplined, and all he said was, "I see."

They waited some minutes, giving Tenten time. At last Neji nodded and signaled his companion, and they moved off in the same direction she had. She had already laid wires across their path, but Neji saw them with ease and helped Lee to avoid them. They crept up on Takada's makeshift lair, visible to the unaided eye only as a strip of earth covered by long branches.

Neji held up a hand, indicating that Lee should wait at their current position. Then, as stealthily as he could, he advanced on the target. Soon he was within arm's reach of the tree branches, less than two meters from the figure lying beneath them. It appeared as though the man was still sleeping, for his eyes were closed and the circulation of his breath and chakra was even and regular. But that could be a ruse.

With agonizing slowness Neji crouched and reached toward Takada's head. A single touch would be enough …

Suddenly the branches exploded upward and a muscular figure clad in black and tan shot out from underneath them. Takada made rapid hand signs and called out, "Earth style: Rock wall jutsu!"

A thick stone barrier rose from the ground between Neji and Takada, uprooting trees to the right and left. It was about ten meters long and four high, too tall merely to leap over. On the other side, via his Byakugan, Neji saw the target take off running, no doubt hoping to put some distance between them.

Lee burst from cover and closed in on Takada rapidly; to the missing-nin he would resemble a green blur. But their quarry was fast, and before Lee reached him he had completed another sequence of hand signs and called "Earth style: Great Mud River!"

The ground beneath Lee's feet transformed, liquefying into thick brown slurry. Lee lost his balance and fell, still several meters from Takada. Takada wasted no time admiring his handiwork, just kept running at top speed.

In the meantime Neji had circumnavigated the earthen barrier and sprinted to Lee's position. By channeling chakra to his feet he traversed the slick ground with ease. Halting just long enough to pull his teammate to his feet, he yanked Lee after him and continued the chase. He was sorely tempted to use his hakke, his mid-range technique, to bring the target down, but in these surroundings that could easily slam the man up against a tree and kill him.

Having regained his footing Lee pulled away from Neji, shifting right. It was good strategy, as it kept the target from circling back the way he had come. Together Lee and Neji cut off Takada's rear avenue of escape, shepherding him outward.

Ahead, behind the trunk of a large tree, Neji discerned the crouched form of Tenten. She was completely still, a kunai clutched in her right hand. Good; that meant their target was nearing the trap. Tenten would have chosen to lie in wait outside her perimeter, just in case Takada somehow broke through.

Neji and Lee were still some distance from Takada when he hit the tripwire; a dull explosion rent the air and a shockwave shoved hard on Neji's chest, knocking him back. Neji took in a lungful of dusty air and began to cough.

His eyes were closed to protect them from grit and flying debris, but his Byakugan could not be lidded. Through his own eyelids and the brown haze he saw that they had been successful, that their target was lying prone, unconscious but still very much alive. He rose slowly to his feet and moved cautiously forward to congratulate Tenten on her precision.

That's when he saw it, the cracked tree branch above Takada's head. Three meters long and half a meter thick where it met the trunk, it swayed ominously, creaking and groaning. It would fall any second and squash Takada flat.

Before he could call out a warning or act himself, a figure in green flew past him with a loud animal cry of "Noooooo!" Lee snatched up the unconscious man and leaped out of the vicinity, landing neatly some distance away. The branch broke off and fell, striking only empty ground.

Through settling leaves and more dust Neji walked over to join Lee, and out of the gloom Tenten appeared, a little dirty but unharmed.

"It must have been rotten," she said as soon as she saw him. "There no way that charge was strong enough to take out a healthy branch. I checked it myself."

He turned his head to peer up at the tree in question. "It is rotten," he told her. "And even if it hadn't been, you did well not to kill him. And you, Lee – you saved our mission from failure." Giving praise did not come naturally to him, but it was a vital part of leadership. Neji had believed that even before Gai had forced him to spend an entire afternoon giving compliments to people, calling it "jounin training."

"Yeah, though you could have done it without the insane shouting, Lee," Tenten pointed out. "I'm just lucky my hearing hadn't quite recovered from the explosion, or you might have damaged my eardrums."

"The enthusiasm of youth cannot be stifled," Lee answered stiffly. He hoisted Takada's limp form up to his shoulder. "Shall we return to the village now, before he wakes up?"

"Of course," said Neji. He gestured in the direction of Konoha and Lee started off at once, moving quite as quickly as if he hadn't had an unconscious adult male slung over his shoulder. Neji let him get a little ahead and then fell in to walk beside Tenten. "Just be grateful," he said to her in a low voice, "that it wasn't 'youth' this time. Don't you remember when he thought that was the ultimate battle cry?"

She snorted. "Of course I remember. And I guess you're right – from a certain perspective, this is progress."

***

About halfway home they halted, because in spite of his objections it was clear that Lee was tiring of his burden. "I'll carry him after we start off again," Neji said firmly.

It was now afternoon and they sat in a little clearing, bathed in sunlight that had become darker and richer since the morning. They would surely reach Konoha before nightfall, but Neji saw no reason to arrive bedraggled and exhausted. They rested, drinking water and eating whatever rations they had brought along.

"All things considered," said Tenten around a mouthful of food, "it was pretty easy, wasn't it? I mean, it's not every day you come across your enemy asleep."

"That's true," Neji agreed. "We were lucky."

"I do not consider it luck!" said Lee. "I did not even get a chance to throw one punch. It feels unsatisfying somehow."

Neji's eyes had shifted from Lee to the body at his feet. "It appears," he said slowly, "that our luck may be changing. He's waking up."

Neji did not have his Byakugan engaged, and had instead made his announcement based on the fact that Takada was moving, stirring slightly on the ground. Eventually he gave a small moan and rolled over. His eyes opened and met Neji's.

"Water," he croaked painfully.

"Should I knock him out?" asked Neji without taking his gaze from their prisoner.

"Can he take that, after being hit by an explosion?" Tenten wondered.

"Good question," said Neji. "I'm not really sure. Normally the procedure is harmless, but injury can change the chakra pathways temporarily. In this condition it might kill him."

"Please," the man croaked again. "Water."

Neji activated his Byakugan again and focused hard on the prisoner. It appeared he had taken a blow to the head, for his chakra flow in that region seemed disturbed. It was nothing life-threatening – unless of course the chakra were disturbed further.

"I won't risk putting him in a coma," said Neji decisively. "That means we'll have to take precautions. Lee, tie his hands and feet, and be sure to remove any weapons he's carrying."

Lee moved immediately to obey, crouching by the man's head and seizing his wrists. Tenten, who always carried such things, had removed two lengths of rope from her pack, and within seconds had securely tied Takada's feet. "Here, Lee," she said, handing the second coil over to him.

"Wait," said the man desperately. "Before you tie me up, I need some water. Please – I'm in so much pain." His voice was pleading, pathetic, and he made no move to resist as he was bound.

Neji scowled. He didn't have a lot of sympathy – from what he understood, Takada was guilty of some serious offenses, possibly including espionage. But in all of his alleged crimes, he had always stopped short of killing, and that earned him a little consideration.

"Fine," said Neji. "Sit up."

Assisted by Lee, Takada did as he was told. Neji removed the canteen from his own belt and held it out to the man, who snatched it up and began to drink greedily.

"You should drink your fill now," said Neji coldly. "We won't stop again until we reach Konoha, and then you'll be handed over to Ibiki."

Takada lowered the canteen and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. He looked quite pale and shaken at the mention of Konoha's chief interrogator, whose reputation reached throughout the five great ninja nations. "Won't I get some sort of medical treatment first?" he asked. "My head really hurts."

"That's not up to me," Neji replied. He was a bit embarrassed by the prisoner's obvious groveling; shinobi were supposed to comport themselves with more dignity. "Lee, pass me the rope. I'll tie his hands."

Takada took a final swig of water, handed the canteen off to Tenten, then held his hands out to Neji. His head jerked oddly to the side and his eyes suddenly seemed brighter, and in that instant Neji realized he hadn't heard the man swallow.

"Wha—" he had time to say, before Takada opened his mouth and spewed some yellowish substance at him, hitting him in the face. The liquid was in his eyes and it burned, and the pain was beyond anything Neji had ever experienced before.

It seemed he had lost control of his own voice, for he was yelling unintelligibly, doubled over with his hands pressed to his face. Dimly, as if from a great distance, he heard Tenten's voice, and then Lee's, and then the dull thud of flesh hitting flesh. Just what it all meant he could not immediately ascertain; at this moment nothing was real except the agony. He writhed horribly and waited for it to end, and it did not.

But Neji was strong, he was disciplined, he was a jounin. He grabbed hold of the pain, embraced it, forced it to one side. It wasn't gone, but neither did it control him any longer.

"Neji, Neji!" Tenten was shouting frantically. She sounded panicked, and he realized that her hands were on his wrists, trying to pull his hands down to assess the damage. "Neji, let me see!"

"What—what happened?" he heard himself ask shakily. "What did he do?"

"There was something in his mouth," said Lee's voice, coming from somewhere beside Tenten. "Something, that when he mixed it with water …"

"Let me see," Tenten insisted, and finally Neji let her pull his hands down.

Her gasp told him all he needed to know.

"Describe it," he ordered firmly.

"Oh Neji," Tenten whispered tearfully, "you … your eyes …"

Then it hit him, what had been previously obscured by confusion and pain. For the first time since his Byakugan awakened at the age of three, he couldn't see at all. For the first time he could remember, he was truly blind.