I am the one you hate?

Well I'd think to thank all you reviewers and I'm glad people are reading this!

This chapter was done by LathianZeal

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I think I have lost my language.
Whatever I’ve said, I deny.
I think I have lost my way.
Whatever was missing is gone.
I let my Focus Shift.

---

He stood in the doorway of the room, hands clamped tightly onto the frame to keep himself from becoming unbalanced and falling forward. His eyes stared past the nurse, locked onto the form on the bed, as if urging it to rise, throw off the monitoring equipment and the sheets and proclaim it all a joke. But Naruto knew better. No, he would have never voluntarily shaved his head for anything. Naruto turned a questioning look to the nurse in the room, and it nearly broke her heart.

“I’m sorry. The truth is, we just don’t know.” The nurse said without prompting or preamble.

“We’ve done all that can be done to deal with the damage, but his intracranial pressure is still dangerously high. If it doesn’t come down soon, it could cause permanent damage. That’s our primary concern, but a myriad of other problems could develop.” She continued, casting the blonde boy a delicate look. The entire hospital staff had sworn to do no harm, and anyone could see how the boy was hurting over the fate of his friend.

A shuddering sigh, one that spoke of inconsolable misery and resignation followed. “I understand. Please contact me if anything changes.”

“Of course.” The nurse agreed readily. “You’re welcome to stay here if you like.”

Naruto squared his stance away and released the doorframe, then turned. The last the nurse saw of him that night were his blond locks dancing back and forth under the fluorescent hallway lighting as he shook his head, before he turned and walked away.

The nurse looked at the form lying insensate on the bed. She made the appropriate notations on the chart, replacing it on the holder at the foot of the bed when she was through. She left the room and dimmed the lights, closing the door behind her as she went.

Her walk to the locker room was quick, and her visit there was equally brief. She hadn’t been home for twenty-eight hours now, and all she could look forward to was sleep. On her way out, she informed the night attendant that the patient’s condition in room 417 was unchanged. The attendant jotted it down, then bid the nurse farewell as she exited through the sliding doors. The attendant had taken hasty notes for other doctors before especially when said patients were in the ICU. That all changed when he looked down and saw the name of the patient on the list of people the director wanted immediate notification about if they were ever admitted. He scrambled for the phone and punched the automatic dial for the director’s home phone. It rang for a heart-stopping minute before a sleepy voice picked up and grumbled a greeting.

The night attendant said only one thing. “Ma’am. Hyuuga Neji was admitted tonight.”

---

He could feel the nervous energy pulling at him, nipping at him just underneath his skin. Everything around him was unnaturally bright, especially sharp and clear, and he knew without checking that his eyes had changed. His jaw shifted to accommodate his lengthened canines. He felt them settle against his gums like they’d always belonged there, and his heart thrummed in his chest. His throat worked and the metallic taste of adrenaline washed over his mind, his sense of taste heightened considerably.

Normally Naruto would be afraid of himself. This was a part of him that he kept under lock and key. He wasn’t sure if it was a direct result of the Kyuubi, or if he’d always had a darker side, and it merely took advantage of the kitsune sealed within him to manifest itself physically.

His head cocked back and he examined the sky. The moon hung low in the sky, fat, brilliantly opalescent and ringed with translucent clouds of vapor. His nostrils flared, and just like that, he was gone into the oppressive gloom of Konohagakure.

Normally Naruto would be afraid of himself. But tonight he and his inner monster were in full agreement. His monster wanted blood, and he himself was all too happy to oblige.

And his personal demon gave him the power to get it.

---

“He’s going into V-Tach!” One of the nurses announced.

“Not responding to de-fib.”

The door opened and Tsunade entered. “Push lidocane hydrochloride and epinephrine, then shock him again.”

A nurse scrambled to get the medication administered and dropped the syringe in her haste. Tsunade calmly scooped it up and pressed it home into the injection port in Neji’s I.V. before discarding it into a convenient sharps bin. All of the nurses could recognize the look on their boss’s face. Anyone who didn’t do their job as competently as possible would be relieved of their post immediately. And they knew Tsunade would make certain they’d never work in medicine in this or any other country, ever again.

Tsunade stepped in over the nurse manning the defibrillator and pressed it down. It squelched in the gel, and Tsunade called for everyone to step away. The resulting shock resounded with a thud in the chest cavity of her patient, and her ears were filled with the steady beeping of the heart monitors.

“Sinus rhythm re-established.” One of the nurses said. Tsunade nodded and left the room.

Honestly, she expected to find Naruto here, watching over Neji. She’d known about them as an item for a while. The blonde couldn’t hide anything from her that she didn’t want to know.

And right now she wanted to know where that damned boy had gotten to!

---

Said blonde in question watched a gang of toughs malinger about in an alleyway, passing something back and forth. Something that smelled repulsive to him, but at the same time, drew him here. As he watched, the gang laughed as one and one of its members toppled backwards, shoved down by the rest. Naruto got a clear look at the object they were passing around, and in the next second he dropped into their midst and scattered them like a bomb.

It had been Neji’s hitai-ate. In that instant, Naruto threw his dream of being Rokudaime out the proverbial window. And in the next, he threw one of the straggling gangers through a physical window with an elbow to the solar plexus. The glass tinkled pleasantly, and Naruto growled in harmony with the Kyuubi as he scooped Neji’s hitai-ate up and bounded off into the night to chase the fleeing men through the streets of the labyrinthine city.

---

The reports were still piling up. Tsunade refused to even look at them. Shizune brought them in, stacked them neatly with the rest on her desk, then left.

‘Really, the only reason I haven’t burned the damned things is that they’re not all here yet.’ Tsunade thought. She’d waited for Naruto all night outside Neji’s room, certain that he’d come back at some point.

So, knowing Naruto as well as she did, it really should have been no surprise that she’d found the blonde covered in blood and draped over a chair in Neji’s room, sleeping the sleep of the dead. With nothing to do about it, she’d ordered Naruto cleaned and put into a bed, then retired to her office to get roaring drunk and sleep for a few hours.

Apparently Tsunade had not known how tired she was, because it seemed like she’d barely sat down before sleep had claimed her. Shizune had found her in the morning, facedown in a spreading puddle of drool on her desk that had ruined her ink blotter.

With her, Shizune had brought several reports from ninja who’d discovered body parts scattered across town, and as the morning expired into the afternoon, more reports began to surface. Naturally, Naruto was responsible.

’Just what am I going to do with him?’ Tsunade lamented. She understood why he’d done it. These people had potentially taken his most precious person from him. That was something he could not abide, something that his nindo would not let go without repaying it in kind. And he had.

“You know, I wonder if he even realizes he’s just given up his life-long dream for him.” Shizune pondered as she dumped another armful of scrolls onto the desk.

Tsunade just shook her head and examined her hands like they could tell her the answers if she looked hard enough.

---

It was three weeks before Neji awoke. Naruto had been awake for two and a half. During that time, the blonde had resolved himself to his new life. There had been no way of knowing how badly Neji was damaged, if he was even Neji anymore, let alone if he’d ever awaken.

Naruto hadn’t been there when his lover had come around. He’d been in the cafeteria shoveling down a tasteless plate of hospital cuisine because Tsunade said if he didn’t eat, she’d made sure he received his nutrition in the form of suppositories. And while Naruto might’ve been happy to drop trou for Neji, there was no way he was doing it for Tsunade-obaachan. With that in mind he’d trudged out of the room he’d held vigil in just often enough to eat twice a day, and use the restroom.

---

Neji’s eyes opened onto a white-washed ceiling, and he groaned in pain as the light shot into his eyes and tried to hollow out his skull in tune with the beating of his heart. His eyes screwed shut, and he could feel the tears leaking from under his lids in response to the pain. Slowly, the burning subsided, and he was able to open his eyes. The ceiling was still there.

Neji took a moment to organize his thoughts, using his considerable training to ignore the substantial pain he was in. The last thing he remembered was heading towards Naruto’s place with a couple rental films. He’d touched down from a rooftop in an alley behind the run-down apartment complex, and started for the stairs. Then, nothing.

It was about then that the door opened, and Neji’s head felt like it wanted to tear itself asunder to escape the sudden aural assault it fell prey to.

“OBAACHAN! OBAACHAN!” Naruto shouted, standing rooted to the spot in the doorway, yelling his head off. “HE’S AWAKE!”

---

It was a somber three days later that Tsunade delivered her final diagnosis, as well as her pronouncement for Naruto’s actions.

“The muscle atrophy from the time you spent in bed, as well as the courses of treatment that were necessary to save your life all compounded the damage that had already been done to your legs. I’m sorry Hyuuga, but you’ll never be a ninja after all this. If you’re lucky, you’ll eventually walk again, but your career as shinobi ends here.”

Neji absorbed the news quietly. Something in his gut already told him that his entire life had been turned upside down. It was just a matter of waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Tsunade turned to Naruto, her face grim. “Naruto, your privileges and status as a ninja are officially revoked. You are to surrender all equipment with an inventory list within a week’s time to my office, and then submit to an inspection of your home and person. Furthermore, you are banned from the usage of any and all ninja techniques. Any violation of this rule will be punishable at the sole discretion of the Council.”

The Hokage’s façade cracked, and her frown deepened. “I’m sorry Naruto, but you’ll never be Rokudaime now. The Council has my back against the wall. I can’t protect you anymore.”

Naruto nodded, his face solemn, but otherwise unreadable. He looked to Tsunade after a long minute.

“When can you release Neji?” was all he asked.

“Now. All the papers have been signed. He’s due back here once a week on Fridays for physical therapy with me.” Tsunade answered. “Neji, can I assume you’ve already spoken to your family?” Tsunade asked quietly.

Neji nodded. “They don’t want me anymore, Hokage-sama. They consider it a blight on the Hyuuga name that I was defeated in such a way. It is a dishonor to the clan.”

Naruto huffed. “Fuck them. So I won’t be able to change the Hyuuga clan. So you won’t be able to help me. There’s only one Hyuuga I’m interested in now, and I’ve got him all to myself.” Naruto proclaimed. “So, how about it? Move in with me?”

Neji beamed. “I’d like that.”

Tsunade smiled as a tear trickled down her cheek. Naruto always had the ability to find the good in any situation. All it ever took was a shift in focus.

-I am one of the lucky ones, I guess. I survived the attack that left me in a coma for three weeks, and in another year I will probably be able to walk again.-