Chapter Text
The mission was supposed to be simple.
A courier had gone missing on the road between Konoha and a small village several hours away, and Neji's team had been assigned to locate him and escort him back. It was the sort of mission Neji had completed dozens of times before, low risk and relatively uncomplicated, but halfway through the briefing, their client had changed the request. They needed someone who could scout ahead without being noticed, and Guy-sensei had looked toward Neji.
"Neji, what do you think?"
Neji straightened immediately. "I can do it."
Guy smiled, clearly pleased by his enthusiasm. "Excellent! Then you will scout ahead while Lee and Tenten remain with me."
Neji nodded, trying not to show how proud he felt. He had been hoping for an opportunity like this, something that would let him show how much he had improved.
The forest was quiet when he left the others behind.
Neji moved between the trees with ease, his Byakugan activated as he scanned the area ahead. He could see farther than he ever had before, picking out chakra signatures through the dense forest and tracking their movements without losing focus. It was exactly the sort of exercise the Anbu had been giving him.
He pushed himself a little harder, and found the courier's trail less than twenty minutes later.
There were footprints in the mud, broken branches, and footprints. Neji crouched beside them, studying the tracks carefully. Three people had passed through here, and one had been injured, judging from the uneven depth of the footprints.
Something about it bothered him. Neji activated his Byakugan fully, searching the surrounding forest. For several seconds, he saw nothing unusual. Then, farther ahead, he noticed a faint distortion. Almost nothing, but enough to make him stop.
A trap. Neji didn't move closer. Instead, he turned slightly, scanning the area around him. There were chakra signatures hidden farther ahead, their presence deliberately suppressed. They were waiting for someone to follow the trail. His fingers tightened around the kunai in his hand.
Neji looked back in the direction he'd come from. His team was too far away to see him through the trees, and he didn't want to risk calling out and alerting whoever was waiting.
He needed to draw them away from the courier's trail. Neji moved carefully around the trap, deliberately making enough noise to suggest he had not noticed it. He reached the edge of the clearing and waited.
The first attack came exactly where he expected.
Neji twisted aside, avoiding the kunai as it passed his shoulder, and immediately countered. His palm struck the attacker's chest, disrupting their chakra before they could recover. Another enemy came from behind, but Neji had already seen the movement through his Byakugan.
He turned. Blocked. Struck. Moved.
The fight was difficult, but it wasn't unexpected. They had numbers, but Neji had the advantage of knowing where they were, and for several minutes, he managed to keep them from surrounding him.
One opponent fell, then another.
Neji's breathing grew heavier, but he remained focused. He could do this, he reminded himself, he had trained for this.
He had spent weeks learning to see openings before they appeared, to recognize patterns and anticipate movement instead of simply reacting to them. Every lesson the Anbu had given him seemed to settle into place naturally.
Neji shifted his weight. The third opponent fell. Then the situation changed, the remaining enemies stopped attacking him directly. They were retreating- no. They were moving around him. He turned sharply, realizing what they were doing just as one of them disappeared deeper into the forest.
They weren't trying to defeat him, they were trying to get past him. Neji immediately changed direction. He reached the clearing just in time to see the missing courier being dragged from behind a tree.
"Stop."
The men froze, and Neji's Byakugan revealed two more chakra signatures hidden behind him.
He spun just as the first attacker struck.
Neji blocked the blow, but the force drove him backward several feet. He landed lightly, barely having enough time to recover before another attack came from the opposite side. His shoulder was grazed by a blade, and pain flashed through his arm, but he ignored it.
He couldn't let them get past him, couldn't lose track of the courier.
Neji pushed harder, using his Gentle Fist to force the attackers back. He managed to disable another opponent, then another, but the remaining two were stronger than he had expected.
One struck him across the ribs, and Neji staggered. Then the courier shouted, and Neji's attention flickered toward him for half a second, and that was enough.
A kunai struck the ground beside his foot, forcing him backward, and the enemy used the opening to grab the courier and retreat into the trees.
Neji cursed under his breath. His team was still behind him, and pursuing the courier alone would leave him vulnerable to another ambush, and them to any other enemies lurking in the woods.
So he did the only thing he could, he turned and ran back toward his team.
He made it less than a hundred metres, then he heard footsteps.
Neji stopped. His Byakugan revealed the remaining enemies spreading through the trees around him.
They had anticipated his retreat, and he had been forced into the exact position they wanted.
Neji's stomach tightened, but he didn't panic. He looked around carefully, calculating the distance between each opponent, the terrain, the direction of the wind, and the quickest route back toward his team.
He could still get through.
Neji lowered himself into his stance.
The first attacker moved.
For several minutes, Neji fought without giving them the opportunity to surround him. His body moved almost automatically now, every strike precise, every rotation controlled. He wasn't stronger than them, but he was faster, and he knew exactly how much energy he could afford to spend.
Then the ground beneath him gave way, and Neji's eyes widened as a concealed wire pulled tight around his ankle. He twisted midair, cutting it before it could fully tighten, but the movement threw off his balance. He landed hard on one knee.
There were still three of them, and his team was nowhere in sight.
He was alone. Neji clenched his jaw, and forced himself up. He simply had to keep fighting.
Another attacker lunged, and Neji moved, but someone else moved first.
A body dropped into the clearing between them.
The masked figure turned slightly, the animal mask immediately recognizable.
The Anbu didn't look at him. Their attention remained fixed on the remaining enemies, and within moments, the fight was over.
Neji stared at them, his heart beating painfully hard in his chest.
They turned toward him, their gaze immediately went to the blood running down his arm, and they stepped forward. "Neji."
Something about hearing his name in their voice made his chest tighten.
"You're here." The words escaped before he could stop them. The Anbu crossed the distance between them, catching his arm when his knees nearly buckled.
"I'm here." They replied simply, and Neji stared at them.
The Anbu looked over him again, checking his injuries before asking, "Can you still walk?" Neji nodded, dazed. "Good."
They kept a steadying hand on his arm for another moment before looking toward the direction the courier had been taken.
"You did well."
Neji blinked, shaking his head. "I lost the courier."
"You stopped them from killing him." They said, and Neji looked down, unable to argue with that. The Anbu's voice softened. "You saw the trap before it was sprung. You recognized their strategy, adapted, and kept yourself alive."
Neji looked back at them. "It wasn't enough." He mumbled.
"No." They agreed, and the answer made Neji's stomach drop, but the Anbu continued before he could misunderstand. "But you weren't supposed to be enough." Neji stared at them. "You were one genin against a group of experienced shinobi." They explained calmly. "Knowing when you cannot win is part of being strong enough to survive."
Neji swallowed. Usually, when he failed, people told him what he should have done differently. The Anbu wasn't doing that, they were looking at what he had accomplished.
"You did exactly what I would have expected you to do." The Anbu's hand moved from his arm to his shoulder, steadying him. Something about those words made Neji's heart stutter.
"You were watching?" Neji asked quietly.
There was a pause. "I was nearby." They answered, and Neji nodded slowly. Of course they were, they always seemed to be nearby. It was a comfort, at this point.
The Anbu glanced toward his injured arm. "Come on. Let's get you back to your team."
Neji followed without hesitation.
Guy-sensei had been furious when they returned, though the Anbu had left to retreive the
courier before he could question them.
He had apologized repeatedly for allowing the mission formation to separate them, checked Neji's injuries several times, and insisted that they return to the village immediately. Lee had stayed close the entire way back, asking if Neji was sure he was all right, while Tenten quietly handed him bandages and complained that he had a terrible habit of pretending injuries weren't
Serious. Neji talked to them all as best he could. He knew they cared, but every few minutes, his thoughts returned to the forest.
To the moment when he had realized he couldn't win, and to the relief that had settled over him when he saw that familiar mask.
That night, Neji lay awake in his room, staring at the ceiling.
He should have been thinking about the mission. About the enemies, the trap, the mistakes he could have prevented, and everything he needed to improve before his next assignment.
Instead, he kept remembering what the Anbu had said, nobody else had ever sounded so certain of him. Guy-sensei believed in him, of course, and Lee and Tenten trusted him, but there was something different about knowing that someone had watched him from a distance and still believed he was capable of more.
The Anbu had seen him at his strongest, had seen him when he couldn't win, and they hadn't been disappointed.
For the first time, Neji wondered if perhaps he didn't need to prove himself to them at all. It was another relief. He closed his eyes, and dreamt of being strong enough to beat his Anbu sensei.