Neji's Romance

That one mission

Since their first mission together, she and Neji had been working together almost tirelessly, jumping from one mission to the next, regardless of how trivial the goal.

She felt her confidence increase, her strength, which had been slowly waning, was returning and she felt right again, the restless feeling became almost non-existent and she started feeling like herself, as if she was returning to a long set out routine.

Her relationship, or rather lack thereof with Neji, was still a thorn in her side. She did not know where she stood with him. Neji fluctuated between solemn and surely, to, very rarely, making a sarcastic comment, or telling a story about the village. The latter were moments she cherished dearly.
During their time as a support team she learnt many things about herself and most of these ended up surprising her. She found she had exceptional control over something called chakra, and had, in a short period of time, been able to mould it with wonderful success and often, during their sparring sessions she had started to beat him back.

There was one mission that still haunted her today, though it had occurred a while ago.
She and Neji were receiving more and more dangerous missions and together they would complete one after the other, but this one confused and scared her.

She had been made aware of, and had encountered people, beings and even creatures in this place that had amazing and dangerous abilities, from controlling the elements, to contorting reality, but so far, none had an impact like this one.

Encountering someone with physical strength was one thing, she could counter this with strategy and teamwork. The psychological abilities left her feeling more vulnerable, and there were a few that had already touched a nerve when she was targeted. The previous instances were the reason why she had put so much time into guarding her mind, because she knew that often the attacker was vulnerable when they could not reach their target's mind.

Kagame had learnt, with lots of time, to protect herself against what they locals called genjutsu.
While she had prepared herself for such attacks, she had not prepared herself for the instance when such an attack took hold of Neji.

They had been sitting around the evening fire, a small flame that was semi concealed, since they had cleared the surrounding area of threats, they were readying themselves to settle down for the night, Kagame prepared to take the first shift of watch.

She enjoyed these moments, the calm between the storms, where even Neji relaxed to the point where his sullen mask would drop. It was no surprise then, that the attack came when they let their guard down. However, because of her extensive training, she was able to deflect the barrage on her mind.

Unfortunately the psychological attack bounced from her mind, to Neji's, catching him completely unaware, and so fast, that she had no time to utter a warning shout.

Suddenly Neji was gone.

In his place was someone colder and harder and it dawned on her just how much Neji was holding back during their sparring lesson. He was fast. Faster than she could have imagined, and his movements blurred as he barrelled out attack after attack. She knew from her time with him that he was a close to mid-range fighter, but he was so fast that she could put no distance between them so that she could counter his style.

It was the one advantage she would have over him. She could adapt to almost any style of fighting, but that did not help her at all, if he would not let her get in even so much as a blow.

The fear that gripped her was one she had not experienced before. There was no arguing that she had indeed been scared during multiple of her missions, and that danger was always a factor, but this fear was completely different. It gripped her heart and filled her with dread. Every time she moved it was as if she was being drenched with an ice cold bucket of water, and this subsequently slowed down her own movements.