fastrthnwind
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Chapter 4 Revelations
This couldn't be right. This man standing in front of Neji, was claiming to be the notorious, world renowned Madara Uchiha. He died several centuries before by the hand of the First Hokage himself.
"No, you can't be him. He's been dead for centuries now, killed by the First Hokage himself. Who are you really?" Neji demanded. Though he was relatively calm at the moment despite his current predicament, he couldn't help but feel a twinge of uncertainty about this man's identity. This man was able to completely bypass the all-seeing byakugan, a feat that no other ninja has ever managed to accomplish.
"Neji, I only want to talk to you." The masked man continued, the full moon casting a deep shadow over his mask, making him seem even more menacing. However, Neji remained unwavering in his fighting position. He refused to believe that this man could be Madara Uchiha. Even if he was, what could he possibly want with a branch member of the Hyuuga clan?
"What is it that you want from me?" He demanded, his tone less threatening, but still retaining its firmness.
"There is something that I must tell you about your clan. It has actually been kept secret from you and many of the other members for a long time now." The man began slowly walking towards him, the other creature following him as he grew closer to Neji's position.
"However, I cannot talk to you here. There are likely more people who could be heading this way at any time. After all, I believe the ANBU are still searching for our friend, Zetsu, here." The man/plant creature smiled a toothy grin.
"Those ANBU shinobi couldn't catch me even if they had me in chains," Zetsu responded in a light, but annoyingly creepy voice. At that moment, several more Zetsu-like creatures emerged from the trees around the clearing, completely surrounding him.
"Come, there is much that I must tell you." The masked man, now only a few meters away, reached out with a dark-gloved hand.
"I'm not going anywhere," Neji stated resolutely. He leaped back several feet behind him, landing with one shoulder facing the self-proclaimed legend and the other towards the trees.
"Hakke Kusshou!" Thrusting both arms out to his sides, Neji hurled a blast of concussive force towards the Zetsu besides the masked man and the closest one blocking his way out through forest. Both Zetsus caught off guard by the speed of the technique were immediately sent flying through the air, collapsing into a pile of white gunk on the ground a good 20 meters away.
Neji took this time to escape, throwing several kunai at the Zetsu near him that tried to pounce on him before hopping into the woods and deftly moving through tree branches. Though the Zetsu tried to follow him, their speed was no match for his. His speed was quite impressive due to his training under his sensei's tutelage and was able to put a good amount of distance between him and the Zetsu following him as well as that mysterious masked man. After several minutes of intense jumping, he had completely lost sight of them. It was then that he saw a familiar figure approaching his location.
"Neji-san!" Hinata called out to him. Apparently she had taken it upon herself to follow him outside, while keeping her presence hidden to both the disguised Zetsu and himself.
"Hinata-sama! What are you doing out here?" Neji didn't want to involve Hinata into this mess, but it seemed like she thought otherwise.
"W-WelI, I couldn't just let you go out in the m-middle of the night by yourself. I-I believe that it's important that we stay together, no matter what happens." Hinata responded timidly. "B-by the way, w-who are those people anyway? T-that man in the mask looked like the man I saw before from the akatsuki. Did they hurt you?"
"No, it's ok, I'm fine. You should head back to the compound Hinata-sama. I don't want you to end up getting hurt worse than you already are. After all, you're still recovering from that last injury." Neji reminded her , though he also didn't want to be responsible if anything did happen to her. He couldn't even bear to think about if something happened to Hinata and he was the cause of it.
"B-but-"
"No buts Hinata," Neji's voice was hard and demanding, "I want you to head back right now and let me and the rest of the shinobi handle this." It wasn't like Neji not to use honorifics or to order her around, but he had to let her know how serious he was taking this, and that it was his job as a branch member to protect her at all costs.
Hinata was taken aback for a moment, but replied with a quiet, "H-Hai, Neji-san," and broke away from him towards the compound.
Neji kept rushing ahead towards the center of the village, the lights only several hundred meters away where he could find some help. If he could make it to the middle of the crater, then they had a chance to drive away the intruder.
However, luck didn't seem to be with Neji as the masked man suddenly appeared again out of thin air just in front of him, causing him to stumble off of the branch he just landed on and fall to the ground. He corrected himself mid-fall and landed semi-gracefully on his feet. The masked man was already there to meet him on the ground. What kind of jutsu does this guy use? He was sure that he left him in his wake back outside the village walls! Not only that, he was only a mere 15 meters from the crater hole where people could see them!
"There is much that you don't realize about your own clan. I have known their secrets for some time now, waiting for the chance to talk to you about it, but you were always accompanied by your teammates, making it difficult to catch you alone. Therefore, I had to trick you into coming to me."
Neji knew that there was nothing that his clan kept from him besides the truth of his own father's death, and even then they told him eventually when the time was right. He faced the masked man once more, his byakugan still actively reading his chakra network and watching his every move. What more could his own clan be hiding? "There is nothing that my clan hides from me. I have long since been freed from the chains that they held me in."
The masked man didn't even hesitate in responding. "Is that really so? Then why is it that you still bear the mark of the caged bird on your forehead?"
"To keep the byakugan from falling into enemy hands and protect the clan's bloodline of course," Neji answered confidently.
"Have you ever considered that they kept it on you because they still don't fully trust you, even though you have demonstrated your utmost loyalty to your clan and have shown yourself to be the most talented of them all? Even your own father was born from the main branch yet was cast into the side branch after you were born just because he was born last, despite being as powerful as his older twin."
At this new realization, Neji's cool and confident expression furrowed into one of confusion. Though he was right about his father being born into the main branch and about Neji's being gifted with the greatest talent in the clan, he couldn't believe that his clan didn't trust him. After all, they have him protecting the next heir to the clan, his own cousin, Hinata.
"You're wrong. The Hyuuga clan does trust me. I am entrusted to protect their most precious asset, the heir to the clan head, Hinata Hyuuga. Also, the curse seal itself can only be removed through death."
"And you believe that is the height of their trust? Neji, if they trusted you, they would have long since done away with your curse mark and allowed you to become a part of the main branch. Certainly the one who created the seal must know how to remove it. There are still things that the Hyuuga clan are keeping from you just so that you wouldn't turn on them and lose their trust. After all, you are their most prized shinobi. It would be a waste if they had to kill you once you learned the truth about your own clan."
Neji glared back at him coolly, "How would you know if they kept any secrets? You're not even a Hyuuga!"
"Because I was there when it happened."
Neji huffed softly in slight frustration, " None of what you say makes any sense. I am wasting my time conversing with the likes of you, who doesn't know what he's even talking about," Neji lowered into his fighting stance again.
The masked man sighed deeply. "You don't even know the half of it."
Neji thrust his inside palm out to him, "Hakke Kusshou!" A blast of compressed air and chakra was launched at him, but when the jutsu had hit the intended target, the man didn't even budge. Instead a loud booming sound could be heard as the blast of air sailed through him and hit a tree trunk directly behind him, displacing a decent chunk of wood from the base.
"How…?" Neji was absolutely stunned. The attack hit the target head on! He tried again with another shot from his other palm. It had the same effect as the last one; It went through the masked man, completely sundering the rest of the tree behind him.
The masked man simply waved his hand in front him. "Your attacks against me are futile. Just come with me quietly."
"Like hell I will." Neji replied coolly and dashed towards him, his right arm already poised to deliver a quick jab to his gut. The moment his palm connected with the man's body, it phased through him, along with the rest of his body, leaving the man completely unharmed. The man turned to looked at Neji, his sharingan eye trained upon him. This, however, didn't keep Neji from sharply spinning on his right heel, his left hand attacking the tenketsu in his chest with a series of finger jabs. Again, those attacks simply phased through his body like nothing was there to begin with. Why were none of his attacks working?
He stepped back for a moment to analyze his opponent. He knew that there had to be some limit to this intangibility of his. His sharingan could also predict his movements, so a straight forward attack would be pointless. For now, he would just have to keep fighting until he could find an opening outside of the man's line of sight where he could land a good hit.
Neji lunged again, his right hand attacking the man's right shoulder with a circular palm strike. Again the attack simply phased through him, but if he could maneuver behind him, the man wouldn't be able to see him or track his movements. However, before he could test his theory, the masked man turned his body a little and caught Neji's wrist in mid-swing as it phased through his body. "You are coming with me now."
Neji didn't even have time to respond before he felt his entire body being sucked in by an unusual vortex. What was happening to him now? Whatever it was, he was helpless as the suction vortex swallowed the rest of his body into nothingness. His last thoughts were about Hinata and how he at least saved her from this man by sending her home.
Once the masked man had finished absorbing Neji, Zetsu appeared next to him from one of the nearby tree trunks. "So are we finished yet, Tobi? The ANBU heard the explosions from the tree trunk not too far away from here and are already almost upon us."
Tobi gazed at the moon once more before answering his question, his body already disappearing into the hole in his mask, "Hai, we have what we came for. Let's go."
Hinata looked out the window from her room in the Hyuuga compound the next morning. She didn't see Neji come home from the attack by the masked man, Tobi, from the akatsuki. She knew that Neji was in trouble, but she knew that she couldn't do anything to help him, especially in her condition.
She knew that he would never let anyone take her away, but she had to look for him to make sure that he was alright; he was her cousin after all. It was time for her to return the favor that Neji had done for her so many times before, even though protecting her was his born duty.
She got up out of her bed, and proceeded to grab the half-empty vial of medicine in the kitchen to drink along the way as she went out to find her teammates. Their tracking abilities could be useful in helping to find him. While she had briefly considered informing her father, Hiashi, as well as the rest of the Hyuuga clan about the matter, she felt confident that it wasn't necessary to bother him unless she knew that he was gone.
She found her two teammates performing their usual duties around the village, which mostly consisted of transporting supplies and the destruction of collapsed buildings.
Kiba, of course was the first to notice her, his extremely acute olfactory senses alerting him of her presence well before he saw her, "Oy, Hinata! I didn't realize that they released you from the hospital! Anyways, how's it goin'? You feelin' any better?" Kiba's over-sized dog, Akamaru, barked his welcome from beside his master.
Shino turned his goggled eyes to face his rather brash teammate, "Of, course she would be feeling better. Why? She has been released from the hospital. Hospitals only release patients when they have mostly recovered from their injuries."
"You know, I didn't really ask you, I asked her." Kiba said referring towards Hinata, his expression clearly annoyed at the bug-user's unnecessary explanation.
"I-it's alright Kiba, I feel fine now." Hinata said with a small smile, not wanting her teammates to start irritating each other as they sometimes did. She continued to the point, "A-anyways, I was hoping I could use your help. I need to find my cousin, Neji. I-I think something might have happened to him, and I need to know if he's ok."
"Neji, eh? Well, I'm sure he's somewhere around here? Why? Wasn't back at home with you?" Kiba asked.
"No, w-well…. He was for a while, but then something happened last night and he went to talk to Shizune somewhere outside the village walls, but I was curious, so I followed him. T-then I saw Neji talking with the masked man, Tobi from the akatsuki, and I tried to follow him when he was escaping, but he told me to go back home and leave the rest to him and the other shinobi. I haven't heard from him since and I'm worried that something has happened to him." Hinata's expression was overcome with anxiety, "Please help me find him. I need to know if he's ok."
"Wait a second, that guy Tobi was here? And you didn't tell anyone!?" Kiba nearly shouted.
"B-but Neji told me that he and the rest of the shinobi would take care of it, a-and I didn't know what to do, so…" she began trailing off, unable to admit out loud that she had made a terrible mistake of letting Neji go on his own. She could feel her confidence dwindling.
Kiba sighed heavily, his hand rubbing the already scruffed up mess of hair on his head "Alright then, listen, we'll help you find Neji, though I'm pretty sure he's still around the village somewhere, but you need to tell someone about what happened last night." Akamaru barked in confirmation.
"If the akatsuki were here, then something big might be happening, especially if it involves someone like Neji. Why? The byakugan is a powerful kekkei genkai. Should it fall into the akatsuki's possession, then they would be even more powerful," Shino decided to add his bit into the conversation.
Hinata nodded slowly, her head hung slightly in shame for her mistake, "OK then, but who should I tell? The Fifth Hokage is not available now."
Shino's responded this time, "Tell the other jounin and the rest of the Hyuuga clan. They might already know from Neji and just didn't tell you yet. Why? They could be trying to deal with the situation as we speak."
"O-ok then. I'll talk to the clan about it," Hinata raised her head
"Right, me and Shino will tell the other jounin about what happened and try to find Neji as we go."
"Arigato Kiba and Shino. It means a lot to me." Hinata turned to leave for the compound. She had quite a bit to explain to her father today.
Kiba, Akamaru, and Shino headed off in the other direction to find the other jounin, including Neji himself.
AN:
I must apologize for updating so late. I just started my first day of college today and I spent the entire weekend prepping for my first semester. Anyways, I hope everyone is in-character enough for you guys. Please R&R! It keeps fanfic writers like me going! 
