Commander Kitsune

Fifteen

Naruto's POV

Neji raises his hand again, looking to land one final, fatal blow. To her heart. He launches- but just as it almost hits her heart, I switch with a clone and appear between them in my Anbu uniform in a shunshin, a hand raised.  His gentle fist blow hits my hand instead of Hinata's heart.

"That's quite enough, Neji Hyuga." I say, my voice emotionless. His eyes widen, and he looks at my hand.

"What- that should've- I had enough force to stop a heart-"

"Yes yes, but now isn't a very good idea to announce your 'assassinate the Hyuga heir' plan for everyone to hear, now is it?" I mused. I can feel everyone's eyes on me and the arena has gone strangely quiet. Neji's face shifts from shock to disbelief.

"I wasn't- I wasn't trying to-"

"That's what it looked like though." I say, letting icicles seep into my voice, my face turning serious. "I don't care what the side branch has with the main branch, or- what you have with the main branch, Neji Hyuga, but she is your cousin. Your family. Your fellow comrade of the Leaf. You don't try to kill her just because of some indirect hate for your family's systems."

"To hell with all that destiny shit." I continued. "The future isn't planned out for you, only you can control what happens in your future. Keeping this up, thinking talent beats hard work, thinking destiny and fate are the only things in this world- and that will get you killed so quickly in the real world."

Neji stares at me with a mixture of regret, anger, and stubbornness. He clenches his fists. Suddenly, Hinata coughs from behind me, and collapses onto the floor. Her damaged core chakra point is starting to harm her body. 

I drop down next to her, and make her lean forward. Adding chakra to my fingertips, I hit a few specific chakra points in her back- making her cough out a river of blood. Then I put my hand on her back and start healing her using medical ninjutsu, letting all the blood come out.

"W-what the hell are you doing to her?" Neji shouts, his voice laced with concern.

"I'm helping her recover from the person who gave her these wounds." I say dryly, and he twitches. "Such a change of mood from wanting to kill her, Hyuga. But doing this will unblock her system. Her lungs were clogged with blood."

I give the medical nin situated at the end of the arena a pointed look, and she rushes toward me. 

"She should be fine now. Be sure to check her systems and her chakra points- make sure nothing else is blocked." I say to her. She nods uneasily, and takes Hinata away. I stand back up and turn to Neji lazily.

"Heed my words, Hyuga. I'm pure proof myself that hard work will always beat talent." And with that, I disappear in a puff of smoke, switching with my clone back upstairs, dispelling it. I hear Hayate announce Neji as the winner.

Upstairs, Sasuke and Sakura are staring at me wide-eyed. I turn to them slowly, narrowing my eyes.

"What."

"That was awesome!" Sakura whisper-hissed. "Well, not Hinata being hurt of course, but how you healed her! What was that? What did you do?"

"That was medical ninjutsu. If you're interested, I can put in a favor and ask a friend of mine to teach you. You have good chakra control, so you'd be good at it." I replied calmly. Sakura continues to stare at me with awed eyes for a while- before she paused and remembered where we were.

"Ah. Sorry, and thank you. I would love to learn." She says, smiling nervously at me. I refrained from raising an eyebrow. A sudden weight appears in my chest. ....I scared her. Didn't I?