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Giving Gai a Genin team was a mistake, or a well calculated move, the Hokage couldn’t tell yet. Instead, he looked at the three worn out children in his office, and tried not to smile.
Youth, as Gai would call it, but he would call it the future. More sane individuals would call them all lunatics, and ask what the fuck Konoha-nin smoked. The future generation was right in front of him. They were already older and seemed more stable than the children he once had in his office before; sometimes the thoughts of sending boys and girls too young for their minds to war never left his mind. These kids in front of him were already years older than the ones he used to send out at wartime, and for that he is grateful.
Neji looked livid, and the more his sensei went on about how marvelous their mission was, the more he looked like he was going to snap and commit treason. Ah yes, he misses his Genin days.
In his old heart, he misses when his students were small and young, when they would argue about stabbing people and not arguing about stabbing each other. Man, where is the Orchimaru who asked him timidly for advice on the best part of the neck to mutilate? Tsunade would blink and ask him about dinner while beating someone’s face in; those were the days.
He draws himself out of the memories, flashes full of regret in his eyes that only old men have for their past. The future is in front of him, after all.
Lee even looked tired, or exhausted enough to not mirror his sensei’s energy. Tenten looked like she was seconds away from stabbing someone with one of the senbons she was fiddling with in her hands, long tan fingers holding the metal like it was the only thing holding her back.
Seems like they haven’t had emotional training yet, but he was sure Gai could handle that soon enough. He was pleased with how hard their sensei was working them already.
That was about the Maito Gai experience, to be fair, he was one of the most spirited shinobi they had. Saying he was spirited was doing Gai a dishonor, he was so much more. More dangerous, if he ever had a mission where he needed to piss off the client, he counted on Gai to do it utterly so, with the grace of kindness to it.
“I’m glad your first day was productive, Gai-san.”
“It’s the first day? I am going to die.” Tenten said dramatically as she curled in on herself, flinching when her sensei started going on about how she was going to persevere this.
…
Tenten decided training was hell. Cross that thought, Gai-sensei was hell. Even Neji couldn’t keep up with how they were being pushed, by the fifth hour he was just as dead as they were. The moment she saw him hit the ground was when she knew that this wasn’t training. This was war and she did not think they were ever gonna win.
Later, when she is older and more of a tool than flesh at times, she realizes that her training wasn’t a battle at all. It takes her being in a war to understand completely why their training was so harsh. Gai was raised in war-time, after all. His face didn’t show it, nor did his smile, but his hands did.
But that is later, right now, Tenten does not have metal for nerves and a heart of steel.
How could she survive this? It seemed like they were always fighting. Neji was a walking stick in the ass of pride and Lee had no sense of boundaries. She would often crack and they would all end up fighting in a full out brawl, Gai, the monster he is, giving pointers as they went.
She did take his advice, using her elbow to bash Neji’s face in.
Jounin are insane, she decided. They are menaces to society; if she knew being a Shinobi ended up with her running around the village thirty times for a warm up, she would’ve quit years before. The elite in the village looked amused. They even asked Gai if they could ‘spar’ with the Genin. She and her team had never had a reality check so fast, so many people in the village could take them all on with no effort. It was humbling, to say the least, when Iruka himself had Neji on the ground and was quietly telling them on how to avoid head injuries.
Neji looked furious, holding his head, a small gash there.
By the tenth day of their training, they didn’t even have the energy to fight anymore. In fact, Neji and Lee were actually using each other as pillows, with her watching guard uselessly. Gai-sensei would just pop up without any of them realizing, but he made her paranoid. She saw his hellspawn of a green jumpsuit in the corner of her eyes everywhere she looked.
Gai-sensei had offered it to all of them, but even Lee was spiteful after they went up the Hokage mountain on their hands. They all looked at each other in equal trauma. All of their gazes held one equal thing in common, fuck that. Even Neji’s pale eyes conveyed hot anger in them.
Her team were not friends, not even comrades. She looked at the two guys in front of her and decided, they were survivors. Tenten would shake her head and call herself dramatic any other time, but just thinking about their training made her shudder in fear.
After a couple of minutes of watching painfully, she just plopped on both of her teammates, who were too tired to move, and just slept. All Neji did was grunt rudely, and she almost had the urge to smack him for it. Lee grabbed onto her with the arm he used to have gripping on to Neji.
She wondered how many fangirls, or former friends, would kill her to lay on Neji right now. When he had first got dumped into the mud by Gai-sensei, he had screeched for a whole thirty minutes. The male Hyuuga did his hair every day, better than hers at least, even after the training they had to ruin it almost every day. She reminded herself to teach him how to braid it later.
Neji stuffs his face into her neck and she decides that maybe, maybe this wasn’t so bad.
…
If Neji thought he was above everyone before, it was nearly preached into his clan his whole life, and evident in the capability of his classmates; it got ripped away from him a few days into being on Team Ten. The Jounin and Chuunin who had fun kicking their asses proved that.
He learned things he didn’t think he could. Almost all of the adult Jounin and Chunnin in their village could’ve killed all of them when they were ten. The awareness that his generation was babied with rough hands, as much as Shinobi dare anyway, made him paranoid. Konoha was known for being nice after all, who knew how the other villages handled their children.
Konoha wasn’t kind itself, after all.
But his team was spiteful, they had enough conviction to burn the world. He knew it in the ways Tenten’s eyes were icy and sharp as the wind when it turned cold, and how Lee could be trembling and tired but still smile, still fight.
He didn’t think he would care so much, after fights. After spars, whether his team needed medical attention or not, and even to their own capabilities. Half of that was the urge to see Gai get punched in the face, or any of them stand a chance at all.
Hyuuga don’t study medical jutsu, he tells himself.
Then again… what he didn’t tell his clan, what a naive thought, couldn’t hurt them.
Lee looked exhausted, but Gai-sensei had said whoever lost would get more of his so-called training. Needless to say, Neji found that the Academy seemed years away, and meant nothing in this cruel world he lived in. He was pinned to the ground and succumbed to his fate, he would suffer for hours more to come. Lee was stronger than him, and could be ruthless for such a thoughtless, but surprisingly kind and overly sensitive person.
Neji was a prodigy, or was he really compared to all the prodigy before him? He swallows the self hatred that has been growing in him, and he realizes that he needs to get stronger, fast. To become a Chunnin and leave this monster that calls himself their sensei.
Lee helps him up with sympathy in his teammate’s eyes, not enough to let him win though. Neji decides that it was okay, seeing the demon that has been training them appear. It doesn’t stop the mild resentment popping up, however illogical it is.
The Hyuuga has felt terror throughout his life. Such as when he thinks he has gone against his clan's wishes, when he loses spars like these, or the mere sight of his sensei. The man was a monster, he now knows why people say Shinobi are nothing but things to kill you in the dark. Gai didn’t even bother to wait until night to try and kill them.
...
He stomps into the library, because his team is useless at chakra control and he would rather die than go home with bruises again. Neji starts to learn medical jutsu at a prodigious rate in pure spite, or prodigious according to everyone around him.
It wasn’t good enough for him, nothing was.
“Why are you reading like you’re running out of time?” A Jounin asks him in the library, Neji doesn’t bother looking up. He stares at the terminology and theories in front of him with pure determination in his eyes. Kunai-fuck, he hates Jounin.
“I never know when I will.” He shudders and thinks about how Gai said they were going to go up the Hokage Mountain for ‘youthful activities’ today.
They get fast enough for Tenten to start to practice throwing stuff at them to improve her aim; she works with Lee’s aim as well. Neji just grumbles and pulls out a book to try medical jutsu on them.
Tenten is using Lee as a pincushion, to get back at him for making her Gai’s ‘special training’ victim of today.
Neji is so frustrated he doesn’t know what to do, and when he snaps at Lee, the other teenager blinks at him. He hasn’t had the energy to snipe at his teammates for days. He is used to getting things on the first try, and the bruises are fine, but as soon as he gets to cuts, it crumbles. He can’t wrap his head around the theory swimming around the page in front of him.
The words mix together in his head like Lee’s stories fall out of comprehension. They don’t make sense worth a shit.
Neji could do this, however, he was a prodigy, he could do anything. What was happening was just a minor barrier to his progress, after all, if he couldn’t do it, who could? He fights the voice in his head that tells him he is weak.
It is stupid, he realizes later. When he fucks it up and Lee can’t move his fingers, they just say it was a training accident when the people at the hospital desk ask.
Their sensei is too busy gushing about how youthful they were to refute them. After the glaring of multiple nurses, and Tenten, Neji promises to look more into what he uses on them. Lee just makes fun of his grumpy expression and Neji has a hard time not hitting him for it.
…
“Gai, your kids are feral.” Asuma says as he watches them spar, the kids are utterly brutal and faster than they should be. The man just pulls in another smoke at the loud explosion of Gai that comes with his statement. Weren’t they supposed to be kinder to these kids than how they were treated as children?
Gai seemed to have no mercy though.
“I know! I’m so proud-”
“Yo, your Hyuuga brat just bit the bun girl.” He hears a shriek come out of the bundle of limbs and oh, that is a glint of metal.
“She is about to stab him, how cute-” Gai is just in the middle of the pile in a mere moment, grabbing Tenten’s hand and throwing her into the river they were sparring by. Neji’s face is red, hair a mess and Lee is laughing at his teammate in the water.
…
Their missions went like this:
Neji usually with his finesse helping them refine them, Lee with his brute strength, and Tenten with her sensibility.
Another thing:
They did them like their life depended on it. You see, they had two hours every day to complete two D-rank missions, chores. Every minute above that time limit was a lap around the village.
You see, with their paranoia, they managed it fine for a first few weeks after some hurdles. Then, hell appeared in the form of a cat.
Never had Tenten felt so much pain in her life, watching the time count down slowly. Knowing what was coming.
She hated that fucking cat, she thought as she picked up Neji and ran before they both got ‘punished’ by training.
…
Lee wouldn’t admit it out loud, but he loved his teammates. It was a guilty thing he thought at night, alone and exhausted. He was once told he cared too easily, but kami he loved them.
But it’s not the way someone would assume. Lee doesn’t think he feels… romantic feelings for either of them, not in the way he could word articulately. He wanted them, in the way they spoke to him. The way they moved. Lee wanted to be a part of them, so intertwined they would never leave him.
It’s selfish, oh so selfish. Lee wishes though, that he could be free to lean on them how he wished. There was something starving in him, and the touches of Neji and Tenten filled it. He doesn’t want kisses, he wants punches. He wants spars, he wants Neji to do his small smile at him, he wants Tenten to hold her arms around him.
They push him forward in a way he never could have done on his own. It’s too cheesy to say, but they were his Nindo. Lee is an orphan, he has nothing. He has never attached himself to any physical object because it could get taken away from him in an instant.
His team however, were loved. He did everything in his power to know they realized that.
…
Fate, stupid fate. Neji had truly been stuck in his pure belief that fate was set, everyone had a destiny. It wasn’t only planned out, but you had a duty to carry it out no matter what occurred to you. All your pain, your sacrifice, was your fate.
The breaking of this teaching came in Lee and Tenten.
They were both orphans, statistically at a disadvantage. Then, Lee’s issue with forming and articulating his chakra. It was abysmal for him to become a ninja.
The inkling was there, with how strong they were becoming. Still, at the beginning he held on. Who was anyone to tell him that his suffering was wrong? That people’s fates weren’t sealed. He had lived as branch member, was shaped by a hierarchy. He knows he is superior. He should.
The second thing is how much he gets knocked around by almost every competent shinobi in the village. He learns that well, his clan was wrong about where strength lied. They were powerful, but so was everyone else in the goddamn village apparently.
He was frustrated.
The third thing, the final thing that shattered his viewpoint, was someone named Hatake Kakashi. Neji knew he was getting thrown under the bus for something horrific as Gai ushered his ‘precious babies’ to go rest while Neji learned!
It was a nightmare. Hatake-san told him every single thing that was wrong with him. Over and over and over again. It destroyed every single thing he thought he had worked up for nearly a decade. Shattered to pieces.
Then the man told him to get stronger, so he could be something more than cannon fodder in a dead voice. Dangerous and without a care in the world.
Neji knew though, that realistically he could never amount to this level of strength, Kakashi was more of a genius than he can imagine being.
But, the words sit in his head. The silver-haired man admitted to him to get stronger, to change that.
Something so simple shouldn’t change so much, but it did.
Neji could change his fate, he could defy his limits. The idea made him attack Kakashi with vigor, not out of anger, but passion. Something he suddenly realized he lacked, what Lee was dripping in.
Neji desperately reached, and was beaten down again. His sensei, demon as he may be, was right about one thing.
Everytime you stand up, your bones are stronger. Your mind sharper, You learned something new, you just had to learn how to apply it. You grew, you learned, you defied, you changed. Fate was never predetermined, it was whatever you could build it to be.
So Neji vowed to be a big enough monster, like his sensei, where he would never have to listen to his clan again.
…
Gai decided that Lee had the power, and the strength, to start trying him for weapons. The teenager needed refinement, and more speed. Lee was terrified, he was used to doing the same training as his teammates, being alone terrified him.
They all started weight training that week, and everytime Lee took them off it felt like he was half his mass. Tenten took it the harshest, but she bit through it. Gai had ordered Tenten and Neji to spar, for Tenten to practice dodging and Neji his healing of bruises.
Gai privately guided Lee’s form, meticulously showing Lee a kata for an instrument of destruction he had no idea he was practicing for. He practiced for weeks, until it felt like air.
Then Gai handed him a heavy Bo Staff, so heavy but with his training it was manageable, and he fell in love.
…
He started staying over at Lee’s house with Tenten, he told his clan it was for team training. Mostly it was, but his uncle was very pleased with his progress, so he was lenient with Neji. He hated that.
It took some time, Lee tried to hide it, but he melted whenever Tenten touched him. He would collapse into her arms, turn into a puddle with a brush of a hand. He tells himself that it’s embarrassing to witness, and not that he wants to remedy how lonely Lee looks.
He feels it too, in some way. It was trained out of him, rather early though, to want touch in such an unprofessional way. As the days went on however, he gave in.
Lee smiled, and it made him feel as if the world was lifted off his shoulders, like for a moment it didn't matter who he was. Then he would go back to stony silence, his carefully conducted persona of indifference.
Neji still held Lee in the privacy of his team, he had to get past his own initial resignations, but it was comforting. Lee was safe, comforting, kami it is weird to grasp on to. Especially as their sensei had been drilling into them about protocols, what they would have to endure and stand for. The darkness in Konoha, assinations of children. Letting people suffer. It tore Lee to pieces.
So Neji held him, and the young teenager breathed him in like he was going to die without it. Trembling, vulnerable, opposite of what Gai–sensei told them to be. He brushed Lee’s hair back, soothed his back with a relaxing jutsu he learned as an exercise from his medical jutsu studies, and he lived.
Even if he was in denial about it later.