Chapter 4 - Chocolate Eyes

Tenten woke up in the late evening just as the sun was setting. She sat up to admire the beautiful colors of the horizon as the sky went down into the earth to sleep. The clouds in the sky above turned first red, then orange, then finally purple as the sky dimmed. Just when the light was very dim, Tenten realized that the Neji she had met earlier wasn't just a dream. It was reality. She knew this because 1. she was sitting in the poppy field, not under the rock ledge, and 2. She had Neji's beige jacket wrapped around her like a makeshift cloak. She fumbled around in the darkness for her special kunai. She found it in a hollow amongst the poppies. Then out of the shadows, Tenten heard a voice. It said, "Finally awake, I see."
Tenten peered cautiously into the evening gloom. "Who's there?" she asked.
"It's me, Neji." Then Tenten saw Neji's figure coming into view, his white eyes staring through the darkness at her. "Let's get some light here, shall we?" he asked. Tenten nodded, especially since she was cold. Neji ignited a pile of firewood Tenten hadn't noticed before with his signature Fireball Technique. Tenten scooted closer to the flickering flames, feeling the full effect of the warmth. When it became too warm, she took off Neji's jacket, then quickly put it back around her because she realized that she was only in bra and underwear. She blushed furiously. Neji only smiled at her. He had seen, she thought. And he wasn't embarrassed. But she sure was. She scooted away from the flames a bit, so she wouldn't feel the full effect and she wouldn't have to show her undergarments again. At that moment her stomach growled. "Hungry?" he asked in a casual tone. Tenten slowly nodded her head. It wasn't like her to admit defeat, Neji knew, and she was ashamed because she had. Then she doubled over in pain. It
wasn't a stomach ache, he knew. It wasn't hunger either. She cried out in pain, crystal clear tears running down her cheeks. He knew that she had caught cold because of the rain, but he didn't know what sickness she had. She started coughing, but it wasn't regular coughing. She was coughing up blood. Neji quickly ran over to her, and realized that there was a spot on his jacket that was bleeding through. He quickly took off the jacket and spotted the wound immediately.

He had sparred with her the day just before she ran away, and he had wounded her in the stomach. By accident of course. He had thrown a kunai, knowing Tenten would dodge it, but he was wrong that time. She didn't dodge it, but she quickly got up claiming it was ok. He had still made her go to the hospital to get stitches. But, he now realized, the stitches must have broken when she was running. It was closed when I saw her in the rock ledge. But maybe me carrying her upset the wound and caused it to break through the stitches. He felt really guilty because he had given Tenten that wound, and now it was happening all over again. And since he wasn't that great a healer, he didn't know what to do. But he did know that he should clean the wound because it might've been infected and that he should try to stop the blood flow. He carried the still sobbing Tenten over to a nearby river, whose water was clean. He knew the water was clean because he had thoroughly scanned it with his Byakugan. There were no traces of
pollution. He used a cloth he had packed with him when he left the Hyuuga Manor. The wound was very deep, he knew. He dipped the white cloth into the cold river water, squeezed the excess out, and lay it on Tenten's exposed stomach. He knew the water would sting, but he had to clean the wound. When the cloth touched Tenten's wound with purified water, it really stung. She just cried even more. At this point she was crying buckets. Her sobbing filled Neji with extreme pain. He knew it hurt, but there was nothing he could do about the pain. As he took the cloth to dip it in the water again, he noted it was stained all over with Tenten's blood. This had been Hanabi's. Neji really hoped his cousin would forgive him. But this was urgent, and Hanabi would understand, he knew. As he laid the cloth back across Tenten's stomach, he could literally feel the pain he was inflicting. He felt like crying too. Pretty soon one tear then another was dripping onto the ground. As he leaned over Tenten's wound with the wet rag
to place it there again, one of his tears dripped off his cheek and landed in Tenten's wound. "Oh cr*p!" he said, knowing that salt water would just make the wound sting even more than the regular water. It did. Tenten gasped suddenly at the salty teardrop, then screamed out in pain. Neji hoped no one had heard her. The outskirts of Konoha weren't exactly the safest place at night. But maybe, just maybe, he thought, Tenten had screamed loud enough to bring help from Konoha village. But somehow, he knew, it wouldn't help. Tenten was the "murderer", and everyone recognized her voice. They wouldn't come running, maybe not at all. The blood was still escaping from Tenten's wound. She literally lay in a pool of her own blood. There was nothing else for it. Neji ripped his one and only jacket into a bandage, and tied it securely around Tenten's stomach, where the injury was. It was still bleeding, but he knew he had to bandage it. She was still sobbing in pain, but not as much as before. Tears squeezed out from
under the thick, beautiful, eyelashes that had once held chocolate eyes that shone with excitement and happiness. They now held open chocolate eyes that had pain and pleading, and he couldn't do anything about it. Tenten had been judged falsely, he knew that, but he still couldn't do anything to help support his teammate. Then Neji had a brilliant idea, as only Hyuuga geniuses do. Tenten had been with him that night when the murder had occured. It was private, so no one apart from him and Tenten knew the truth. He would carry Tenten back to the village, and stick up for her. They both knew that Tenten hadn't done it, but none of the villagers would hear a word of it. But since Neji was not exactly a cruel person, he wouldn't go telling Shino off. He would just ask what evidence the court had, and then that would be the end of that. He didn't feel like he should move Tenten anymore, because the bleeding would just be more than it was now. Her breathing had gotten much slower and even, but there was still
traces of a sob or two under that beautiful soft voice. Neji lay down beside her, in a dry patch of grass, and gazed up at the stars. They would start in the morning.

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