Neji Hyuga Love Story: Into the Dark

Chapter One

Chapter one

Hanae typically went unnoticed until she was 17 years old, a chunin. She was sitting in the old classroom at the academy, right next to Hinata in the back. Iruka, Kakashi, and Gui Sensei, had told all of the current chunin to report there at noon to discuss a de-briefing instructed by Lady Tsunade. The amount of chunin to debrief was far too big and too much work for Tsunade to do, so she simply assigned the minor task to a few Jounin and Iruka Sensei. "As most of you know, Taka, the group of ninja formed by Uchiha Sasuke, has been spotted, vaguely, around the neighboring villages of Konoha." Iruka Sensei said to initiate the debriefing. This created some chatter amongst the group of chunin, not to Iruka's liking. "Listen! This is a debriefing! You can't just-" Iruka started to blurt out when Kakashi, who had his nose stuck in that little orange book of his, leaning casually against the front desk, cut him off and said cooly, "Come on Iruka, they arree just recent chunin. Relax a little." Iruka shed off Kakashi's comment, mildly glaring at him sideways, and continued. "Starting tommorow night, we will have a pair of each of you walking the perimeter of the village once at nightfall, every day this week as a precaution."

He started to list off the names of each pair, while Hanae was spacing out, looking at how Hinata stared at Naruto from a far, when she suddenly heard her name called from Iruka. "Tonight, Amagiri Hanae, and Hyūga Neji." Hanae instantly turned to face Iruka and nodded her head once, to show her understanding, and Iruka continued to read down the list. Hanae was paying attention to the debrief, listening to who was with who on which night, when she got a weird feeling in her stomach... Like, someone was, watching her? She looked around the class, eyes landing on Hyūga Neji, looking at her with that cool, stoney expression that he always managed to keep. Hanae was caught off guard by the sudden form of attention, and quickly lowered her eyes to her feet. She felt her cheeks growing hot and could tell she was blushing. When she remembered that he was her partner for night watch, she scolded herself for having acted like a child, she should have waved or smiled nicely. She wondered what he was thinking.

Hanae had very few encounters with the Hyūga boy, despite how she and Hinata were such good friends. Any time she would be at the Hyūga Manner with Hinata, she barely saw him, and if she did, he would be brawling with Hiashi Hyūga, Hinata's dad, in the courtyard, very preoccupied. She supposed this was because he was always off training with Team Gui, his squad. But all the training had to be worth it, since he was the only jounin of their class so far. Hanae thought about this and flashed her eyes at him again. Thankfully, his attention was now Kakashi sensei, who was saying how if any of us decided to miss our shift for the week, we would have to answer to him, and everyonee knows what Kakashi's punishments are like. "But I expect no less, from all of you young talented shinobi! Especially you Team Gui. You all possess the power youth!" Gui Sensei exclaimed confidently. Kakashi Sensei rubbed his temple from Gui's... Encouraging remark, and announced that they were all dismissed.

Hinata and Hanae walked out together, and Hinata started to talk to her about the new 'mission.' "Hanae your with Neji right?" Hinata asked, and Hanae started to blush, for some reason she could not explain, and nodded. "Oh! Have you ever met him before?"

"No I haven't, he always seems so busy..." Hanae replied, and a small smile grew on Hinata's face, her eyes straying up ahead of them.

"I'll have to introduce you to him then, you know, so it's not-" But Hinata's sentence was cut off by the presence of someone else stopping them from walking. Neji had came up to them seemingly out of no where, and stopped in front of them, looking at Hanae blankly. "O-oh, Neji, we were just, t-talking about you." Hinata stuttered from the prompt encounter. Hanae's cheeks turned a light shade of pink. "I-I was going to introduce you two! Hanae, this is my cousin Neji, Neji, this is-"

"Hanae." Neji interrupted as he switched his glance to Hinata, then back to Hanae. He always seemed so serious, which only made Hanae more unsure of herself in front of him. "Our shift is tonight, yes? We can meet at the front entrance of the village at sundown. Will that suit you?" Neji asked flatly. Hanae simply nodded her head, wide eyed and blushing. "Excellent. I will see you then." He added flatly again, and walked off in the opposite direction, while Hinata watched him.

"He likes you." She said.

"W-what?!" Hanae replied with a shocked, however, not excited, look on her face.

"He does, I can tell! He iss my cousin you know. I know him better than you'd think." Hinata said with an innocent smile.

"Ya, well, I doubt it, but I'm sorry, I have to go back to my house, maybe I'll see you tomorrow Hinata! Goodbye," Hanae waved and smiled sweetly.

"Goodbye Hanae!" Hinata waved as she walked towards the direction where Neji had gone.

Hanae had never thought of herself as drop dead gorgeous, but she didn't think she was unattractive either. She was comfortable with her looks. She had long, waist length dirty blonde hair, that she wore with a clip to hold back her bangs, brilliant green eyes, and a collective spattering of small freckles over the bridge of her nose, that sort of made her look like she was always modestly blushing. She was about 5'3", and usually wore: black shinobi sandals, with her lower left leg wrapped in bandages, a smallish black skirt with a buckled strap, a kunai holster on her right thigh over upper thigh bandages, a slightly too small grey-green zip up top, grey elbow protectors, and her forehead protector around her abdomen.

She walked home, to her apartment in the village, and thought about what Hinata had said. She simply chose to ignore the observation. That would never happen. I mean, Neji is a jounin, he doesn't have time for silly, time consuming crushes. She brushed off the conversation, and continued inside her apartment.

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A/N: Starting out with a little plot and character development! Yes, it is an OC, but just stick with me here! This is not going to be one of those fanfic's where the OC is completely out of character from one in the Anime/Manga, I promise she will be on spot. Hopefully you guys like the story so far! It is up to you if I keep going or not! I appreciate reviews:)