TWO GENUISES

and a klutz

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Note that I am using the English manga and English dub’s wording in this story. That means Lady and Lord, not –sama; Hyūga, not Hyuuga; a mix of English jutsu names and Japanese jutsu names, etc.

However, it should be known that I’m thinking of Neji’s Japanese voice with Yuri Lowenthal’s (English dub’s) Sasuke.

This is alternate reality pre-timeskip; it fits no where in the timeline. I prefer thinking that it would be with Retrieval Arc Neji, Kakashi Affected Sasuke (without the Sound butting in), Retrieval Sakura, Post-Chūnin-Exam Hinata, and well, Naruto’s always the same lovable guy personality-wise, so I won’t specify. If it were to fit in the timeline, I’d say it would be two to three months after Kakashi talks to Sasuke, should the Sound not have come to change Sasuke’s mind.

And this is... actually pretty old. Hence why it's a bit choppy; I apologize for that.

- DAY ZERO-

The pebble fell gracefully into the rushing water flowing south and floated down the river bank. Sasuke sighed, moodily kicking another small rock. He had absolutely nothing to do; he’d trained for hours alone and still he felt he was making no practice. Anyone whom Sasuke could’ve asked to train with him was busy; even Sakura and Ino were too busy to pay attention to Sasuke. He was positive that Naruto was trying to show off to Kiba, Shino was likely on another mission with his father, Shikamaru busy being lazy with Choji. Rock Lee was training with Gai, but Sasuke really didn’t feel like going to train with… them. The second pebble fell not-so-gracefully into the river also, and with a moan of utter boredom, Sasuke sat down by the water.

Who was left? Hinata Hyūga? No, Sasuke couldn’t train with her; he was sure it wouldn’t help him at all. Then there was no one left – Sasuke was going to have to spend his time brooding. It took Sasuke about three more minutes until he finally realized whom he could train with, who wasn’t too busy. In fact, he was probably training himself!

But… where was he? Sasuke knew he wasn’t at the Hyūga’s complex, and even if he was, Sasuke wasn’t going to go inside to get him. The white eyes of their clan members always burnt on his back annoyed Sasuke, and he wasn’t about to get more annoyed than he was at the moment. Sasuke stood, readying himself on the long and treacherous look for Neji Hyūga.

Or rather, short and easy; Neji was about a five-minute walk away, helping Hinata with her Jūken. The moment Sasuke entered Neji’s vision, they both had a quick glaring contest in which they tried to stare each other down. It was a bit difficult for Sasuke to stare Neji down though; curse his genes, Sasuke was shorter! Finally, they both gave up the glaring/staring contest and proceeded to state each other’s names menacingly.

“Uchiha,” said Neji menacingly.

“Hyūga,” said Sasuke menacingly. Sasuke won this speech battle because his phrase contained a special character.

After that mini-battle, Neji and Sasuke began to circle each other, Hinata left forgotten, both not taking their eyes off each other. They asked each other a few questions to which they gave nonchalant responses. (For example, Neji asked Sasuke about the weather, to which Sasuke calmly responded that it was rather blue outside.) As this was taking longer than it was supposed to, Sasuke finished it by asking, “So, wanna go out for coffee later or something?” to which Neji replied, “Yeah, sure, whatever.”

They stopped and shook hands in a truce, smirks upon their faces.

Hinata just sort of stared.

“Sasuke, I believe you know my cousin, Lady Hinata,” said Neji, presenting the sweaty and dirty Hinata to the clean-ish Sasuke.

“Yeah,” said Sasuke, “We were in the same year at the Academy?” He stated it as though it was obvious. Neji nodded as though this was of no importance in the knowing-each-other world and then asked Sasuke what he had come here for, bothering Neji when he was so very busy trying to please Lady Hinata with flow—training! Training, really!

“I need a training partner,” stated Sasuke in a very Sasuke-ish way, a trademark Uchiha Smirk™ on his face. It was obviously supposed to be an honor to be able to train with him. He crossed his arms over his chest. “Everyone else is busy.”

Neji nodded, “I understand.” He took a moment to look back at Hinata, who was just sort of standing there, and then look backed at Sasuke. “However, what of Lady Hinata…?”

Before he knew what he was saying, Sasuke said, “She can join us. I really don’t care as long as I’m training with someone who is worth a damn.”

“Is that okay with you, Lady Hinata?” asked Neji, his gaze locked upon her eyes.

Hinata sort of stumbled and choked before a high-pitched, “Huh? O-Oh, sure! I don’t mind – I-I’ve actually been planning to try a new j-jutsu that Ino was helping me with…” She looked sort of lost without Neji to guide her somewhere, to which Neji looked concerned. She gave a confident nod then, which seemed to reassure him.

Both of them stepped into battle formation and leaped at each other in slow motion. Since both of them were powerful but Sasuke was Kishimoto’s Broken-Character-of-Doom, after a three episode battle sequence, Sasuke came out as the winner in their spar.

They both fell back onto the grass and laid there, thinking about their depressing pasts while Grief and Sorrow played in the background and Hinata fumbled with herself, practicing that jutsu of hers. When the song was over, Neji and Sasuke breathed harshly and said between breaths how good of a spar that was.

“—J-jutsu!” Hinata’s trembling voice just now came over their heavy breathing. They couldn’t catch her first word, and so they had no idea what was headed their way. Sasuke and Neji jumped to their feet, jets of lavender light were shooting from Hinata’s hands towards them!

Neji and Sasuke quickly blocked the lights; the lights went right through them. Hinata gasped, bringing her hands to her mouth, muttering constant apologies. She shouldn’t have apologized that soon – behind the boys, the lights materialized again and they barely dodged them!

This continued for a few moments, the lights shooting towards them and the two dodging and blocking all they wanted, but the shots would just reappear and aim again. ‘What kind of jutsu--?’ was on both of their minds and for a second Sasuke stopped to think. The second was all that was needed for the tired Sasuke to be hit with the jutsu. He fell back, eyes squeezed shut.

When Sasuke was hit, Neji made the mistake of looking back at him to see what happened. This was what the jutsu after Neji needed as well. He too was hit, and he too, fell back, though his eyes were open.

It was strange – they had expected something to happen, some pain to shoot through their bodies, but nothing happened. After a few seconds of catching their breath, both Sasuke and Neji stood, perfectly normal as though what had just happened hadn’t happened at all. Hinata was shock still, biting her lip and biting back a sob. Neither was hurt! Thank whoever was listening!

Sasuke looked himself up and down, behind and front. There was nothing wrong with him. “Well,” he said, glancing at Neji, “that was anticlimactic.”

Neji dusted his clothes off and pushed his hair back, his loose tie falling off. Neji’s hair fell down gracefully, little dust coming down. Neji shook his head so as to get it out of his eyes. Sasuke made an odd cough that sounded oddly like “Girl!”

Neji ignored Sasuke, opting to instead comfort Hinata, who was sobbing. As a shoulder had been provided to her, Hinata decided it was time Neji’s shirt should be wet beyond belief. Neji pulled a face before the warmth of Hinata spread throughout his body and then his eyes widened at Sasuke before they relaxed.

Sasuke sort of stared.

Neji stuck his tongue out.

Sasuke continued to stare.

Hinata stopped sobbing but didn’t get off of Neji.

Neji half-choked looking down at her, so he looked up at Sasuke and said in a very high-pitched voice, “Er, um, well, that was a great spar, Sasuke! See you later.”

Sasuke twitched. “Yes, er, I’ll see you when we get that coffee!” Sasuke spluttered. He awkwardly turned around and ran away really, really fast. Neji just stood there because Hinata still hadn’t moved.

“Eh, Lady Hinata?” Neji whispered, gulping, “C-could you get off me?” Neji felt her get off instantly, her eyes wide.

“I’m sorry!” she said, “Really, I didn’t say it right! I won’t try that—“ Hinata stopped and looked at Neji’s shirt and gasped, pointing at his shoulder, “You’re wet.” Hinata sounded lost. Neji glanced at his shoulder before shrugging.

“I’ve had worse,” he mumbled. Looking to his sides quickly, Neji said, “Listen, Lady Hinata, I forgot to give Sasuke something. You go home, and I’ll come back in a half-hour, right?” Hinata nodded. “Good.” Neji turned and walked away, shaken. He stopped and took in a breath, not bothering to see if Hinata left or not before heading off to blindly follow wherever Sasuke had been headed.

After thirty seconds of blindly following, Neji realized that he had the Byakugan and could easily track down Sasuke if he used his head. He was having an off day though, so it was okay. Using his handi---special eyes, Neji found that Sasuke was at the Ramen Bar Naruto could always be found at. This was really kind of weird.

He shrugged, heading towards Ichiraku’s. There, he found Sasuke and Naruto talking. Or rather, Naruto blabbing about his favorite type of Ramen while Sasuke sat there and nodded as though he was paying attention. Neji noted that Sasuke was smiling. This was also really kind of weird.

Neji decided it was time to ruin the precious Naruto-Sasuke brotherly moment. He needed to talk to Sasuke before his half-hour was up and then meet Hinata again. He was already twently whole minutes into the limit he set for himself!

“Hey! Uchiha!” yelled Neji.

Sasuke didn’t hear him.

“Yo! Uchiha!” yelled Neji.

Sasuke didn’t hear him.

“Hearken, Uchiha!” yelled Neji.

Sasuke heard him this time, but he was enjoying himself so acted as though he didn’t hear him. Meanwhile, Neji was running out of ways to say an English ‘Hello’ without sounding British. He decided to bypass and trade the explanation point with the period in his first attempt.

“Hey, Uchiha!” yelled Neji.

Sasuke looked up this time, as did Naruto. Sasuke rolled his eyes and hopped off his stool, informing Naruto that Sasuke was not paying for the bill. (“You said you’d treat me!”)

Sasuke and Neji proceeded into their rivalry ritual.

The two stared each other down, Neji succeeding since Sasuke was still shorter. How unfortunate that he did not have a growth spurt in the past hour!

They continued the ritual.

“Hyūga,” said Sasuke menacingly.

Neji was determined not to lose this time.

“Ûchiha,” said Neji menacingly. Neji won, not only because he had an accent, but also because his was pointing up and was on top of a capital letter. Extra points for the pointing thing.

Finally, the two circled each other and asked each other questions before realizing that Neji would win 2 out of 3 if Sasuke got this one anyway. They shook hands and Neji directed them to a coffee shop called Niraku’s Coffee. Over coffee, the two discussed things of utmost importance such as how it was possible for Sasuke’s hair to stick at such angles.

“Anyway,” said Neji once they had agreed that it was the Third Law of Pop Culture that stated that one of the main characters in a series must have strange hair, “I think that Lady Hinata’s jutsu might’ve worked!”

Dramatic music played in the background. Sasuke mocked surprise and spit out his hot coffee all over Neji’s shirt. Neji looked down, mortified, at his poor shirt. He then noticed a sign above his head on the window that said ‘Abuse Neji’s Shirt Day – 0 Day(s) Left!’

“No way!” said Sasuke, “I don’t believe you! It could not be possible that we are setting a plot point here!”

“Stop breaking the fourth wall, Sasuke!” hissed Neji. He covered Sasuke’s mouth with his hand and looked around suspiciously. After he deemed it okay to let go (when Sasuke’s hot tongue decided to lick his hand), Neji backed into his chair and took a sip.

“What could Hinata’s jutsu do?” asked Sasuke nonchalantly, looking over a flyer about ‘Abuse Sasuke Day – Coming Next Week!’ that had just been handed to him.

“Lady Hinata’s jutsu may be weak,” said Neji, looking over one himself, thinking that he may perhaps participate in the ‘Attempt to do Your Hair Like Sasuke’ contest, “but they also have a tendency to work and bring unfortunate circumstance. For all we know, we could end up with normal manly hair tomorrow morning!”

Thunder struck and lightning flashed somewhere in the distance. Sasuke looked at Neji with horror etched onto his face. “Not my hair!” he proclaimed sarcastically, “Anything but that! Take Itachi for all I care! Just leave my hair alone, dammit!”

Neji stared pointedly at Sasuke. Sasuke stared right back. A staring contest was about to commence, but Neji thought that might take a bit too long so instead he just poured what was left of his coffee in Sasuke’s hair. Sasuke pretended nothing happened, but did blink, and the two stopped staring/glaring at each other.

“So we’ve established that something is going to end up happening to us?” asked Neji.

“Yes, we’ve established that we’ve established that something is going to end up happening to us,” replied Sasuke. He rolled his eyes and called a random waitress, asking for a cold coffee. (Specifically, he asked for “Another one, but make sure it’s cold so it won’t hurt poor Neji’s beautiful hair.”) “And bring the check too!” shouted Sasuke after the waitress. She was giggling for some unknown reason.

“Okay, I was just warning you. Are you going to hurt me for being nice for once? I can always be a jerk, y’know,” said Neji, more to himself than Sasuke. Sasuke murmured something about hating the jerk-Neji less.

The waitress returned with the cold coffee, but not the check that Sasuke asked for. Sasuke glared at her instead of inquiring, because it was just one of his natural instincts. Glaring.

She sort of stumbled when looking into Sasuke’s black eyes, but managed to splutter, “S-someone has offered to pay for y-your meal…” she seemed lost. Sasuke arched an eyebrow (yet his glare didn’t falter, somehow), a silent inquiry at who paid for him. “T-they left!”

She ran away and Sasuke looked at Neji. The two just stared at each other for a moment.

“…Yeah, I’m leaving now,” said Sasuke, taking his cold coffee and standing up. “If I’m lucky I won’t see you tomorrow?” Sasuke’s chair screeched when he pushed it under the table.

Neji nodded, getting up also. Neither left a tip.

- END DAY ZERO –