138 -=Neji suspicious?=-

Kaede looked at her 'healed' arm, which was not even hurt in the first place, but no one knows that

"There, there. All fixed up

next time walk with your friends if you're going to need rescue like a damsel in distress" Luna said with a smirk

"Ah? And how should I know that idiot would go crazy today? and friends? what friends? I'm an Uchiha, we don't have friends, look at Sasuke for example" Kaede pointed out, easily taking their focus off of her

"Oy, that's not true!" Sasuke, who brought Kaede here, immediately argued

"Ohh? You have friends?" Kaede asked in mock surprise

"Of course I do!" Sasuke exclaimed

"Like for example?" Kaede asked, trapping the idiot

"I... um... well, you see..." As Sasuke was having trouble answering that question, Luna was looking at their interaction unamused

'Her joke about the Uchihas was good, but then... IT BECAME TRASH... well, yeah... actually it did...'

As Luna was thinking that, she glanced at the window, thinking of many things

-=-

Hiruzen looked at the form of Naruto as he arrived, full of bumps on the head, and many small injuries all over his body, mostly visible on his head, that were healing at a visible pace

"How was it?" He asked, not really wanting to know

it was Naruto's own matters now, he just wanted to break the ice

"...horrible..." Naruto grunted out, making Hiruzen chuckle

"Well, to be stronger faster some hardships should be expected, no?" He asked in a joking manner

Naruto looked at him with a serious gaze and said

"I'll throw stones at you for hours to see if you improve as well grandpa" He said with as much sarcasm as he could muster, which wasn't much

Hearing that, Hiruzen had a good idea of what Naruto went through, probably some test of speed or reflexes, maybe both

"Don't be impatient Naruto, Konoha was not built in a day, you know?" Hiruzen said, sitting beside Naruto and using some basic healing jutsu on him to help with the pain

"I'm pretty sure that's not how the saying is, grandpa..." Naruto said, though not even he or Hiruzen knew the original saying

they both knew it as something Shizue once said, Hiruzen took a liking to it though

-=-

Later that day, Neji went to his team training ground to ask them to get a mission

"Neji? it's been a while since I last saw you here, did something happen?" Tenten asked as soon as she saw Neji

Neji used to train every day with Lee here, so his unusual absence made her think something may have happened

Though she thought it may have to do with Lee's mysterious disappearance... but what he said next surprised her

"No, nothing. Have you seen Lee or Guy-sensei? I wanted to ask them for us to go on a mission..." He said

Tenten looked at him weirdly, making him frown

"Something wrong?" He asked, making her think he didn't notice his slip

"Neji... Lee disappeared..." She said, but he probably was just too used to including Lee on the team to notice, right?

"Ah, right... have you seen Guy-sensei?" He nodded, and asked again, but inside he was thinking

'Lee is gone? I didn't even notice... I need to pay more attention to what's happening...' He thought, but at least this was recent, he just has been busy recently

Tenten nodded hearing his answer, it was hard to get used to not seeing Lee with them as well

"I think Guy-Sensei is eating with his friends, If I see him later I can ask about a mission for you" She said

Neji nodded, he thought about training here a but, but decided against it, he was just not in the mood to train right now

"I still can't believe Lee is gone" He said

'And that I didn't even notice it...' He added in his mind

"Yes... and to think it has been 3 weeks already is also..." Tenten said in a sad tone, but she quickly recomposed herself and went back to her training, which was some basic exercises and throwing some weapons at targets

"Indeed..." Neji said as he began to walk away

'3 weeks? how is that possible?' He questioned mentally

true, he has been very distracted lately because of various reasons, but 3 weeks? to not notice his teammate's absence for so long...

'There is something wrong with me...' He concluded what even a toddler would, but that still made him thoughtful

since when has he been like that? did he miss anything more that was obvious? what should he do about it?

He had many questions but decided to leave them to deal with after the mission they would be starting soon, probably the next day even

'I'll get some rest today, since tomorrow we'll go on a mission... can't let those problems affect me right now... sigh...'

It's a troublesome thing, he just started to notice his weird acting and had no time to deal with it right now

I wonder why he didn't just ask Tenten to let this mission stuff be... amnesia? no, that joke has been used too much recently...

Plot? no, or else he would have only noticed DURING the mission

convenience? ... that sounds about right...

Later that day, team 9 got a mission from Tsunade

Next day

At the village entrance, Neji stood there looking at the approaching people with an annoyed expression

'Why did it need to be them?' He asked himself, questioning his luck

The thing here is, together with Guy and Tenten was coming team 7

why, you ask? well, plot asides, Tsunade was not stupid, she knew that Lee's disappearance had a big impact on team 9, Guy has been searching for him everywhere he could, Tenten was... forgotten as aways, and Neji seemed to have become more aggressive recently, even having an incident with the Uchihas

which she attributed to being his pent up rage for being incapable of helping his missing friend

And before you think that's out of nowhere, Neji trained daily with Lee for a year, they seemed pretty close to anyone

"Neji, Hey! how's it going?" Naruto greeted

Neji just avoided having any more eye contact with team 7, which... was impossible

'Damn 360° vision!' He cursed

Naruto looked at Neji confused, since they last met they didn't have many interactions, but he knew that he did nothing to make Neji so... angry? annoyed? he didn't even know what emotion it was that Neji was feeling

"Don't mind him... he's been like this since Lee disappeared..." Tenten said as low as she could, last thing she wanted was to touch this topic with Guy here...

Naruto nodded towards her, and Sasuke kept staring at Neji while pretending to be just bored while waiting for their mission to start

Team 7's mission was NOT just to help team 9, or else that mission could be given to team 7 by themselves

the problem here is, that Lee disappeared and Neji started to act weird, put this together with Kaede's memories that they read, and you have a prime suspect

so, Tsunade used the reason that their team was unstable emotionally to have team 7 go with team 9, as far as team 9 was concerned they would just help them, but team 7 had another mission to keep their eyes on them

this situation just became 10 times more complicated!

Inside the Hokage tower, Hiruzen sighed deeply as he looked at the two teams with his crystal ball

"I understand your worries, but don't you think this is too extreme Tsunade? we could send an Anbu to follow them silently" Hiruzen said, looking at Tsunade and her pile of paperwork

Tsunade looked up from the dreadful papers towards her sensei

"I gave this as a mission for team 7 for a reason sensei..." Tsunade said as she scratched her head

"I don't have acted as an impartial leader, especially with the Uchihas, you may have noticed..." She said, to which Hiruzen just decided to stay quiet

yes, he saw it before, but he couldn't blame her, Tobirama was very anti-Uchiha, and since Mito and Hashirama passed away Tsunade spent a lot of time with him

"So... I wanted to make up for that, as that is not how a leader should act..." Tsunade said, she seemed tired, mentally

"And what is your plan l, then?" Hiruzen asked, worried and proud at the same time

worried about Tsunade's well being, he knows how tiring this job is, and he can't NOT get worried

and proud of his disciple, because she saw her shortcomings and decided to work on that, all by herself

"I plan on fiding a lot of this kind of missions and assigning them to team 7, to have them accumulate merit so they can be promoted to tokubetsu Jonin as soon as possible

With you training Naruto, I training Yue, and Kakashi training Sasuke, I believe they will be able to soon, but merit is going to be their shortcoming here

And I'm thinking of promoting Sasuke, straight to Jonin instead, of course when they are ready, but because of his position..." As Tsunade explained her plans to Hiruzen, the old man could only smile proudly

he is fixing his mistake with Naruto, and the only thing that he will have as a regret when he dies is Orochimaru's situation now...

Before, when Danzo died, he thought that he would have a hard time coping with that, but... since that day, he felt like a weight has been lifted from his mind, be it for good or bad

(Aka, Kotoamatsukami)

But now... if it wasn't for his old age catching up to him, he could say he is at his best in life right now