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The heat was oppressive enough that Neji could feel it before he had even finished tying his forehead protector. The morning had started pleasantly enough, but sometime before they reached the training grounds, the clouds had disappeared and left the sun glaring down over Konoha with an intensity that made the air feel almost motionless. The trees surrounding the clearing offered shade but very little breeze, their leaves hanging limply from the branches, and even the packed earth seemed to have absorbed the warmth and was giving it back beneath their feet.
Guy-sensei, naturally, appeared completely unaffected by any of this. He stood in the middle of the training ground with one hand raised dramatically toward the sky, explaining the day's exercises with the same boundless enthusiasm he would have possessed in the middle of winter, while Tenten sat on a fallen log and listened with the expression of someone already regretting every decision that had led her here. Lee, meanwhile, looked delighted.
"Today, my youthful students, we will be focusing on endurance!" Guy announced, his voice carrying easily across the clearing. "Strength without endurance is merely potential, and potential without perseverance is-"
"Can we start before you give us a lecture about the philosophical meaning of sweating?" Tenten asked, wiping her face with the back of her wrist. She looked toward the cloudless sky and sighed. "Because I'm pretty sure we're already doing enough of that."
"An excellent observation, Tenten!"
Lee laughed, and Neji found himself suppressing the smallest twitch at the corner of his mouth. This was familiar. The heat was unpleasant, but the morning itself was not. Guy-sensei made every training session sound like the beginning of some grand test of character, Tenten complained about it, and Lee enthusiastically agreed with Guy-sensei no matter how absurd the exercise happened to be. Neji had spent enough time with them that he no longer needed to listen to every word to understand the rhythm of their conversations, and normally that familiarity would have made it easy to settle into the training. Sweat had already begun gathering at the back of his neck despite the fact that they had not started moving, and when he swallowed, his mouth felt faintly dry, but Neji ignored the sensations for stretching as his teammates chatted.
"Pair up!" Guy called, finally moving on to the actual exercise. "Ten minutes of continuous sparring! No holding back!"
Neji stepped forward, and Lee was already waiting for him. Tenten rolled her eyes and reluctantly stepped towards Guy-sensei, and Neji smirked as he saw her give him a dirty look.
"Shall we, Neji?"
"Of course."
Lee grinned and dropped into his stance, and Neji did the same. The first exchange was quick enough that the heat disappeared from his mind entirely. Lee came toward him with a straight punch, Neji redirected it with his palm, stepped inside his guard, and was forced to twist away when Lee followed with a kick. Their movements were familiar, almost instinctive at this point, and Neji found himself settling into the rhythm as they traded blows across the clearing. Lee's attacks were energetic and relentless, but Neji had fought him often enough to anticipate the patterns beneath them, and for several minutes there was nothing unusual about the match.
Lee was fast, and the heat was unpleasant, but neither of those things were particularly concerning. Neji simply needed to stop allowing the temperature to distract him. He sharpened his focus, adjusted his footing, and managed to catch Lee's wrist before using his momentum to send him stumbling several steps backward.
"Excellent!" Guy shouted from somewhere behind them. "That is the spirit!"
Lee laughed as he regained his balance, "Very good, Neji!" He exclaimed, and Neji felt himself blush, but before he could answer, Lee attacked again.
By the time Guy called for the first break, Neji was sweating heavily. His hair clung damply to his forehead, and his shirt had begun sticking against his back, but that in itself was hardly remarkable. Tenten looked just as uncomfortable, and even Lee was wiping sweat from his face every few minutes. Neji walked toward the shade with the others, reaching automatically for the water bottle he'd left beside his pack.
He picked it up and tilted it.
Nothing came out.
Neji frowned and looked inside, sighing as he realized it was empty. He must have forgotten to refill it after yesterday's training.
"Neji?" Lee asked, and Neji held up his bottle with a frown, and Lee frowned back. "Your bottle is empty," Lee said, glancing between Neji and the container in his hand.
"Yes."
"You should have some of my water!" Lee insisted, holding his water bottle out to Neji. Neji shook his head, shivering as the mental image of himself catching Lee's appearance popped into his head... he would look awful with a bowl cut.
Tenten, who had been drinking from her own bottle, lowered it and looked at him. "You haven't had anything to drink since we started."
"I am aware." Tenten gave him a hard look, and Neji sighed. "I will get water when we finish."
Tenten stared at him for a moment before shrugging. "Fine. But if you collapse, I'm telling Guy it's your fault."
"How reassuring."
The break ended before the conversation could go any further.
The second exercise was running, and Neji was over it almost immediately. There was nothing complicated about it. Guy had marked out a course around the perimeter of the training grounds, and they were expected to maintain a steady pace for as long as possible. The first few laps were easy enough, although Neji quickly realized that his legs felt heavy. It was subtle at first, a slight resistance each time his feet struck the ground, as though his muscles were reluctant to cooperate with the pace he had set. Neji forced himself to keep his pace.
Lee was running beside him, close enough that Neji could hear his breathing. He knew Lee would notice if he fell behind, so he made certain that he didn't.
Then a sharp pain seized his right calf.
His foot landed awkwardly, and he stumbled before coming to a halt. He grabbed his calf as the muscle tightened painfully beneath his fingers, his jaw clenching as he waited for the spasm to release.
Lee stopped almost immediately. "Neji?"
"It's a cramp," Neji said through his teeth. He rubbed the muscle firmly, trying to coax it into relaxing. "It will pass."
"Do you need to sit down?"
"No."
"Water?"
"No."
Lee hesitated, so Neji gave him a reassuring look. "I'm fine Lee, I'll catch up." Lee started running again, but backwards, his eyes on Neji the whole time.
The cramp eased after another few seconds, leaving Neji with a dull ache that remained whenever he put weight on the leg. He resumed running, refusing to acknowledge it. He had to speed up to catch Lee, and if his vision blurred momentarily, it was only because he was running so fast... A muscle cramp was hardly a serious injury, and he had no intention of allowing something so insignificant to derail the training session.
Still, the next few laps were considerably harder.
The headache began sometime after that. It settled behind his eyes, dull at first, then gradually becoming sharper with every step. Neji tried to ignore that as well. He had learned long ago that pain was often easier to tolerate when it was treated as information rather than an obstacle, and there was nothing useful about a headache.
"Break!" Guy's voice reached them just as Neji's vision briefly blurred again. He slowed to a walk, breathing hard as the clearing seemed to sway.
"Neji?" Lee's voice was soft, and Neji bristled against the attention. He looked towards Lee, shaking his head. Thankfully, Lee dropped it.
Tenten joined them, carrying her water bottle. Neji swallowed thickly.
"You look awful." She told him flatly, and Neji rolled his eyes.
"Thank you." He huffed, crossing his arms as finally allowing himself to come to a stop, resting against a tree.
"You know what I mean."
"I'm hot."
"So are the rest of us." Tenten studied him for another moment before holding out her bottle. "Here."
"No."
The conversation should have ended there, but then Lee spoke up quietly "You've been getting slower."
"I have not." Neji retorted, offended and defensive in the same breath. "I've just been pacing myself." He rationalized, waving his hand in the air dismissively. Lee swelled, clearly about to start an argument but then Guy called them back into position. Neji was grateful.
The next exercise involved repeated strikes against a training post, followed by a series of defensive movements that required them to maintain a stance while moving around one another. It should have been simple. Neji had done variations of it hundreds of times, but his body seemed determined to make every movement more difficult than it needed to be. His arms felt heavy. His legs ached. His head was pounding now, and the heat seemed to have worked its way beneath his skin until he could not escape it.
He was still sweating, it was dripping from his chin and onto the ground. He wiped his face again, but this time his hand was shaking. Neji stared at it for half a second before lowering it. He was tired, that was all, there was nothing unusual about being tired during training.
"Neji!" Lee called from somewhere to his left, and Neji turned too quickly, and the world lurched.
He caught himself against the training post, closing his eyes as he took a moment to stabilize himself. Lee was beside him almost immediately, eyes wide and full of concern
"What happened, Neji?!" Lee shouted, and Neji pushed off the post, shaking out his sore limbs.
"I lost my balance." He replied shortly, pushing Lee's hand away when it came towards him. "I'm okay, Lee."
Lee looked at him for several long seconds. "No, you're not." Lee said firmly, Neji sighed, resigned. He should argue, should insist on his fineness, but he was tired and dehydrating himself wasn't doing anything. It was a pointless exercise, and Neji was stupid to have done it.
"I don't feel well." Neji admitted, leaning against the post again as sweat poured down his face. Lee's entire expression changed, going from a sort of persistent determined look, to something much softer. "My head hurts."
Lee took his arm, and Neji stared at the offending appendage for a moment, before giving Lee an incredulous look.
"Come on, Neji." Lee said, lightly tugging on Neji's arm.
"I can walk." Neji grumbled, but he stopped resisting regardless, letting Lee tug him towards the shade. Tenten rushed over too, grabbing Neji's other arm with a wink.
Neji managed the walk without falling, although by the time he reached the tree his legs were trembling enough that sitting down felt less like a choice and more like a necessity. He leaned back against the trunk and closed his eyes, grateful for the coolness of the bark against his overheated skin. Guy-sensei rushed over, and Neji could hear Lee explaining what had happened to him.
Tenten crouched beside him, and pressed a hand to his forehead. "You're really warm." She said, frowning. "Do you feel dizzy?"
"A little." Neji acknowledged, sighing softly. Guy-sensei knelt in front of him and held out a bottle. Neji had the delirious thought that drinking from the source was even worse than the progeny.
"Small sips, Neji." Guy-sensei instructed, and Neji nodded. The first sip was almost painfully refreshing, but the second he took a deeper drink, only for his stomach to twist violently. Neji pressed a hand over his mouth, fighting back a gag, but the feeling passed after a moment.
"Small sips," Guy-sensei repeated, giving Neji a look that had Neji shrinking back against the tree. After a minute, he took another sip, and another, and gradually he started feeling better.
The headache remained, but the dizziness began to ease as he rested in the shade, and the frantic pounding of his heart slowed. His skin was still burning, but the air felt cooler now that he wasn't standing directly beneath the sun.
Tenten sat beside him, and she let their shoulders bump as she sat.
"You scared us." She said quietly, and Neji stared at the grass. "You nearly walked into a tree." She added, and Neji whipped to look at her, frowning.
"I didn't!" Tenten laughed, and Neji bumped her with his shoulder again. "I said I was sorry." Neji huffed, wiping the sweat from his brow again.
"You didn't." She reminded him, and Neji rolled his eyes,
"Well, I was going to." He said, and she laughed again.
"Good enough, I guess."
Lee laughed softly, and Neji glanced at him. "What, Lee?" Neji asked, because Lee had a look on his face.
"I was thinking." Lee began, a bright smile crossing his face.
"About?" Neji and Tenten asked at the same time, sharing a look that had her breaking into giggles, and him smiling.
"About how stubborn you are." Lee finished, and Neji let out an offended sound while Tenten laughed harder.
"You say that as though you are any different." Neji pointed out, and Lee started shaking his head.
"I am much more sensible." Lee insisted, sending Tenten off again.
"That's a lie." She managed between her hysterical laughter, and Lee gave her an offended look.
"How could you say that?" Lee whined, and Neji had to stop himself from laughing at his pouty face.
"Because I've met you." Tenten howled, laughing so hard she was doubled over, and it was contagious because Lee started to laugh too, and Guy-sensei, who had been watching them with a fond smile, started laughing as well.
The conversation faded after that, leaving them in the shade while Neji continued taking small sips of water. He hated that he had been the one to cause an interruption to their training. He should have realized sooner than he could not cope with the effects of dehydration. A lesson learned the hard way.
Neji rested his head against the tree again and closed his eyes. His muscles still ached, his head still hurt, and he suspected he was going to hear about this training session for the rest of the week, but the worst of the dizziness had finally passed.
Guy eventually stood and stretched. "Well! Today's training has certainly been educational."
"If you turn this into a speech about the importance of listening to your body, I'm leaving." Tenten groaned, and Neji couldn't help but chuckle into his palm.
"I was going to say that we should all remember to bring enough water tomorrow."
"Much better." Tenten said, primly, like she was praising a dog for performing a trick.
Neji closed his eyes again, listening as Tenten and Guy started an argument about whether tomorrow's training should be moved somewhere cooler. He let their voices wash over him while he rested, and when Lee handed him the water bottle again without saying anything, Neji accepted it without protest.
He had been wrong.
He could admit that much.
Just... not out loud.