Host: Rock Lee
Age: 14
Rank: Experienced Genin
Skills:
Taijutsu A (15/1,000,000), Ninjutsu F (0.290/10), Genjutsu F (0.290/10), Shurikenjutsu C (4,300/10,000), Chakra Control B (22,800/100,000), Nunchaku Mastery B (12,800/100,000), Eight Gates B (0/100,000), Bojutsu C (5,723/10,000), Chain Mastery C (4,749/10,000), Muscle Mimicry C (7,054/10,000), Teaching C (387/10,000), Drunken Fist C (849/10,000), Inspire F (0/10)
Unique Skills: Body Supremacy Jutsu, Chakra Enhanced Strength, Strengthened Chakra Network, Regeneration Ability
Equipment: Customized Weights, Might Suit, Shinobi Tools
Lee woke to the sound of someone else breathing.
Lee turned his head on the pillow and found Neji in the next bed, four feet away, staring at the ceiling with both hands flat on top of the covers.
There was a bruise on the side of his jaw where Guy-sensei's fist had landed. His hair was loose, spread across the pillow in dark strands. The cursed seal on his forehead was uncovered. Without his hitae-ate hiding it, it sat there in the open. That pinwheel-shaped symbol being one that Lee very rarely if ever managed to see. Neji kept it covered up 99% of the time. In the time they knew each other, Lee could count on one hand how many times he saw it.
Neji's eyes were open. He had not turned his head.
"Good morning, Neji-kun!" Lee said.
Neji did not respond.
Lee smiled at the ceiling. The hospital room was the same one he always ended up in. Four paces from bed to wall. Six from door to window.
His body felt good.
It was weird. His muscles, which should have been screaming from the damage the gates had caused, were sore but functional. The bone-deep ache in his shins. When he flexed his fingers beneath the bandages, the tendons responded happily.
He should not feel this good. Not after opening seven gates. Not after the kind of fight he'd had yesterday.
Something had changed inside him. During the fight, or right after it, something in his body had shifted. The Body Supremacy Jutsu had been working on his cells for years, slowly and steadily pushing his physical limits. Maybe the gates had forced a breakthrough. Maybe pushing his body to absolute destruction had given the jutsu something to work with that normal training never could. Whatever it was, his cells were rebuilding themselves at a rate that made no sense.
By his estimate, he would be healed by the end of the day.
He kept that to himself.
Neji had tried to kill him yesterday.
Only you can determine your future, you foolish numbskull.
Lee looked at the ceiling and waited.
Neji looked at the ceiling and said nothing.
The door opened twenty minutes later and Tenten walked in carrying a paper bag that smelled like fresh bread and grilled fish. "I brought breakfast." She set the bag on the table between the beds. "I figured the hospital stuff was garbage and I figured neither of you would want to eat it."
"Tenten!" Lee sat up too fast and paid for it with a twinge in his ribs. "You are the greatest teammate a shinobi could ask for!" The hospital food wasn't the best… It was one of the things Lee could genuinely say he did not like about being in the hospital.
"Yeah, yeah." She pulled a chair between the two beds and sat. Her eyes went to Neji, who had not moved. Had not acknowledged her entrance. Was still looking at the ceiling blankly.
Tenten didn't push. She unpacked the food, placed portions on the bedside tables within reach of both of them, and ate her own share in the chair with her legs crossed. The sounds of three people eating, two of them silently, one of them with considerable enthusiasm, filled the room for several minutes.
Lee finished first.
"Neji-kun." He said it gently.
The muscles along the side of his face tightened and released. His fingers, still flat on the covers, pressed down until the knuckles went white.
"I owe you both an apology."
The words came out like they'd been dragged across gravel. Tenten stopped chewing. Lee's smile softened into something quieter.
"For yesterday." Neji's voice was low and rough. "And for... the years before it."
He still hadn't looked at either of them. His eyes stayed fixed on the ceiling.
"I told both of you that you were beneath me. That fate decided everything. That effort was worthless." A pause. His throat moved. "I was wrong."
Tenten set her food down.
"I have treated you, Lee, with contempt since the day we met. I called you a failure. A loser. I tried to kill you multiple times. Because you proved me wrong. Proved the way I saw the world wrong."
"And you." Neji's eyes shifted, barely, toward Tenten's side of the room without quite reaching her face. "I dismissed everything about you. Your skills. Your ambitions. Your presence on this team. I treated you as though women were indeed lesser shinobi than men."
Tenten's fingers curled around the edge of her chair.
Neji exhaled slowly. The sound shook at the edges.
"There is something I have never told anyone."
He was quiet for long enough that Lee thought he might have changed his mind. Then he spoke again, and what came out was not a story told in order. It came in fragments.
The seal came first. He was four years old. Hinata, the main house heiress, turned three, and on that day every branch member of Neji's generation was brought forward and branded. He remembered the pain. He remembered his father's face during it, the rage that Hizashi could not fully hide and the punishment that followed when the main house sensed it. The hand seal. The activation. His father on his knees, clutching his head, veins standing out across his temples while a main house elder watched like someone disciplining a dog.
"They can kill us with it," Neji said. "Any time they choose. It destroys the brain. The seal is designed to protect the Byakugan after death, so enemies cannot steal our eyes. But its real purpose, the reason it exists, is control. Obedience."
Tenten's face had gone pale. Lee listened carefully.
Then the Kumo incident. A visiting diplomat from Kumogakure, there to sign a peace treaty, who used the ceremony as cover to kidnap three-year-old Hinata. Hiashi killed the diplomat. Kumo denied everything and demanded Hiashi's body as compensation or there would be war. Hiashi was willing to give himself up, but that would hand Kumo the Byakugan. So Hizashi was chosen. Neji's father. Hiashi's twin brother. His cursed seal would destroy his Byakugan at the moment of death, making the deception possible.
"My father was forced to die for the Main House," Neji said. "He was a branch member. They wrapped it in duty and sacrifice and sent his body to Kumogakure so the main house could keep their clan head."
He stopped again. His breathing had gotten rougher.
"I took what happened to him and made it into proof." His voice shifted. Still rough, still dragged out reluctantly, but aimed at something different now. "Proof that nothing could be changed. That the world decides what you are before you're born and everything after that is just going through the motions. If fate was real, then what happened to my father wasn't anyone's fault. It was just how things worked. It was easier to believe that."
The room was very quiet.
"I watched you for seven years, Lee." He still didn't look at him. "Seven years of telling you it was pointless. Seven years of beating you down and watching you get back up and telling myself it didn't mean anything. That you were just too stupid to understand reality." His fingers pressed into the bedcovers. "I can't tell myself that anymore." he sighed. "I don't know if the system that killed my father can be changed but I am done believing that I have no say in what happens to me."
Lee felt something tighten in his chest. He saw, for the first time clearly, the shape of the cage that Neji had been living inside.
Tenten's eyes were wet. She wiped them with the back of her hand, quick and annoyed at herself for it. "Neji..."
"Don't." His voice was sharp enough to cut. Then it softened, barely. "Don't pity me. That is not why I'm telling you this."
"Why are you telling us?" Lee asked.
Neji was silent for a long time.
"Because you asked me to look at you as a person." His eyes closed. "And I cannot do that while continuing to refuse to accept reality."
The words settled into the room like stones dropping into still water.
Then Lee spoke.
"We're going to find a way to remove that seal."
Neji's eyes opened.
"Tenten is studying fuinjutsu." Lee looked at his teammate. "And I will do whatever it takes to help. If there is a way to break it, we will find it. That is a promise from me, and I do not break my promises."
Tenten straightened in her chair. Her jaw set. "He's right. I don't know enough yet. But seals are made by people, which means people can unmake them. I'll figure it out, Neji. However long it takes."
Neji stared at them. His expression cycled through something too fast and too layered to name. Disbelief. Irritation. Something that might have been hope if it hadn't been stomped down so quickly.
"Don't waste your time on something impossible."
"You know something..." Lee grinned. "I have been told that before."
Neji's mouth twitched.
He turned his head away from both of them. His voice, when it came, was barely above a murmur.
"...Do what you want. Fools."
Tenten looked at Lee. Lee looked at Tenten.
Neither of them said anything more about it. They didn't need to. The permission had been given, wrapped in refusal, disguised as indifference, delivered while facing the wall. But it was there.
Lee and Tenten would've done it even if he fought them on it. Because that's what friends do. Even if that friend was Neji Hyuga.
There has to be hundreds of thousands of jutsus out there. One of them had to be able to free Neji from that cursed seal. And if there wasn't. Then he'd find someone who could.
…
A knock at the door.
Tenten looked up from the magazine she'd been reading. Lee sat up straighter. Neji did not move, knowing he didn't have a guest.
The door opened, and Sakura Haruno stepped in carrying a small bouquet of daffodils wrapped in pale pink paper. Behind her, already talking before she'd fully entered the room, was Ino Yamanaka.
"I'm telling you, the rose would have been better. Daffodils for a boy? That's so lame, Sakura."
"Shut up, Ino. They're get-well flowers, not some sort of popularity contest."
"Everything is a popularity contest if you have the status." She performed a pose.
Sakura ignored her and turned her attention to Lee. Her green eyes swept across the bandages, the hospital bed, the smile that was already at full brightness despite everything his body had been through. She softened.
"Lee-kun." She stepped forward and placed the flowers on his bedside table. "I wanted to come say thank you. For everything you did during the second exam. You saved my life, and Sasuke-kun's, and Naruto's." She bowed her head slightly. "And congratulations on your match yesterday. That was... unbelievable."
"Unbelievable?!" Ino pushed past Sakura and leaned on the foot of Lee's bed with both hands, her blue eyes wide. "That was the most insane thing I've ever seen in my life! You punched a giant sand monster so hard the ceiling broke! Lee, you're freaking amazing!"
Lee laughed. "Thank you, Ino-san! That is the power of youth at its apex!"
"I was on my way to visit Choji," Ino continued, gesturing vaguely down the hall, "but I figured I'd stop by and see the guy who single-handedly beat a giant freaking monster. Do you even know how crazy that sounds?"
"Ino, stop being so loud. This is a hospital," Sakura muttered.
"Shut up, Sakura. I'm not even being that loud."
Tenten was surprised to see that Lee had fans now. Then again, not many people their age could accomplish what he did. As far as she knows, Lee is the only genin who ever did something like this. Not to mention, she didn't even really know what a jinchuriki was until the preliminary exams. He actually deserves to have fans now, she guessed. If not him, then who?
"Sakura-chan." Lee's voice was warm and direct. He looked her in the eyes without wavering. "I am glad you came. I want to ask you something."
Sakura blinked. "What is it?"
"Would you go on a date with me?"
The room went still.
Tenten's palm connected with her own forehead with a soft smack. In the next bed, Neji had turned his head just enough to see what was happening.
This fool. This absolute fool. He was mummified in bandages. He had been carried out of an arena on a stretcher less than twenty-four hours ago. He had opened seven of the eight gates and fought a tailed beast and its container. And his first priority with a clear head and a pretty girl in his hospital room was to ask her out.
Ino's mouth had fallen open. Then it closed. Then a grin spread across her face so wide it threatened to split her head in two. Her eyes darted to Sakura with the naked glee of someone who had just been handed an opportunity on a silver platter.
"Sakura-chan," she said, her voice dripping with sweetness. "He asked you a question."
"I heard him!" Sakura's cheeks had gone pink. Not the deep crimson of embarrassment, just a flush. She was just caught off guard. She looked at Lee, and Lee looked back at her, and his gaze didn't drop or stutter or hedge. He'd said what he said and he meant it.
Her mind moved fast. Lee had saved her life in the Forest of Death. He'd saved Sasuke-kun's life. Naruto's life. He'd fought three Sound genin alone and won without breaking a sweat, and then he'd defeated a monster that had terrified every person in the arena. He was kind. He was sincere. He had never once been anything other than respectful to her.
It was just a date. Not a marriage proposal. Not a life-long relationship. Just two people going somewhere together. A hangout. That was all. A hangout at best.
"Fine." The word came out before she could overthink it any further. "One date. Sure."
"OH MY GOD!" Ino grabbed Sakura's arm. "We need to go shopping! Do you even have anything to wear? Not your lame ninja clothes, obviously, I mean real clothes. What about that blue top you bought last month? No, wait, that washes you out. We need something that brings out your eyes, and your hair, we should definitely do something with your hair, maybe if we-"
"INO." Sakura grabbed the blonde by the shoulders and shoved her, hard enough that Ino stumbled two steps back and almost knocked over the chair Tenten was sitting in. "Stop. Making. A big. Deal. Out of this. It's just a date!"
"Just a date!" Ino recovered instantly, grinning like a cat who'd swallowed an entire birdcage. "Sure, Sakura. Just a date. Whatever you say."
"I swear to God, Ino..."
"We're leaving! We're leaving!" Ino grabbed Sakura by the wrist and pulled her toward the door, already chattering about color coordination and hairstyles and where the best shops were. Sakura protested loudly and continuously and did not, Lee noticed, actually resist being pulled.
"I will see you soon, Sakura-san!" Lee called after them.
"Yeah, see you soon!" Sakura shot back over her shoulder, half-annoyed and half-something else, before Ino dragged her around the corner and their voices faded down the hallway in a mess of bickering and laughter.
The door swung shut.
Lee's fist rose from the bed.
Slowly. Trembling. Every ounce of triumph he possessed channeled into the motion.
"YESSSSS!"
Tenten stared at him. "You are so embarrassing..."
"She said yes, Tenten! She said YES!"
"You fought a monster yesterday. You ruined your body. You were carried out on a stretcher. And your first thought this morning is romance."
"My first thought this morning was gratitude for being alive! My second thought was romance!"
Tenten looked at Neji for support. The Hyuga prodigy was lying in his bed with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling, wearing an expression that suggested he was seriously reconsidering whether the apology he'd given thirty minutes ago had been a mistake.
His mouth moved, barely. "Ridiculous."
Lee's grin could have lit the room without electricity.
…
The next visitors arrived an hour later, announced by the sound of Naruto Uzumaki's voice carrying down the hallway at a volume that suggested he had never been inside a hospital before, or if he had, never been told to keep his voice down.
"I'm telling you, Shikamaru, I could've beaten that sand guy too! I just didn't get the chance!"
"Sure you could have." Shikamaru scoffed. "Whatever helps you sleep at night."
The door opened and Naruto entered with his hands behind his head and his chin tilted up, the picture of unearned confidence. Shikamaru followed like he had been dragged here against his will.
"BUSHY-BROWS!" Naruto's face lit up. He crossed the room in three bounds and planted himself at the side of Lee's bed. "That fight was the craziest thing I've ever seen! You were, like, BAM!" He threw a punch at the air. "And then WHAM!" A kick. "And then the ceiling exploded! And the sand was everywhere! And you were red! How were you red and made that badass dragon?! I thought you couldn't do ninjutsu!"
"The power of youth, Naruto-kun!" Lee matched his energy without hesitation. "Oh, and that dragon wasn't ninjutsu. It was all compressed wind."
"I don't even know what that means but you kicked his butt! You gotta teach me your moves sometime. That way I can kick Sasuke's butt like you did."
"You'll need your own Might Suit." Lee pointed out mischievously.
"Uh…" Naruto's enthusiasm wavered greatly. "Is the embarrassing outfit really necessary just to learn…?"
"Absolutely." Lee lied with a grin on his face.
"Maybe we can just train from time to time instead." Naruto offered. That outfit was just way too embarrassing!
Lee laughed as he agreed, more than willing to help Naruto touch up his taijutsu. He had a lot to work on from what he could remember during his battle with Kiba-kun. Shikamaru had drifted to a spot near the window and leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets. His dark eyes moved from Lee to the bandages to the state of the room.
"You're a real freak of nature, Lee." Shikamaru complimented. "I am not looking forward to seeing you in the finals, man…" He rubbed the back of his head.
"Thank you, Shikamaru-kun! I appreciate that very much!" Lee gave him a thumbs up.
"I was visiting Choji and figured I'd stop by." Shikamaru shrugged. "Seemed like the thing to do after watching someone punch a hole through a giant sand spirit."
"How is Choji-kun recovering?"
"He's fine. Eating. Which means he's fine."
Naruto had already moved on from pleasantries. His fists were clenched at his sides, his blue eyes burning with fire.
"Lee. I'm gonna train my butt off this whole month. I'm gonna get so strong that whoever wins between you and Sasuke, I'll be ready. Believe it!" His finger pointed at Lee with absolute conviction. "So you better bring everything you've got because I'm coming for both of you!"
From the next bed, a quiet sound. The smallest exhalation. Almost a scoff.
Naruto's head turned.
Neji was watching him.
"You should worry about your own first match," Neji said. "Before making promises about later ones."
"I still haven't forgotten what you did to Hinata." Naruto pointed at him. "You can bet your butt, I'm gonna make you pay for what you did to her."
The temperature in Neji's corner of the room dropped several degrees. His fingers, resting on the bedcovers, pressed down until the tendons stood up across the backs of his hands.
Naruto had just told Neji, without saying a single word about it, that he did not matter. That Lee and Sasuke were the real opponents. That Neji was just the obstacle standing between Naruto and the people he actually cared about beating.
"Train your hardest, Naruto-kun." Lee's voice brought the room back to warmth. "I will be ready for anything. And I know you will be too."
Naruto's grin came back full force. "You bet! I'll see you in the finals, Bushy-Brows! Get healed up fast!" He turned toward the door, already bouncing with energy. "Come on, Shikamaru. I gotta go find Pervy Sage."
"Pervy who?" Shikamaru pushed off the wall.
"Pervy Sage! He helped me sign a contract with toads!"
"Toads? A contract? What the hell are you talking about?"
Their voices faded down the hallway, Naruto's volume never decreasing, Shikamaru's resigned commentary trailing after it. The door clicked shut.
"Looks like you'll be facing frogs during your fight, Neji-kun." Lee snickered.
"Utterly ridiculous." Neji scoffed.
"I'm starting to regret not signing Guy-sensei's tortoise contract. Who knows if that was my only chance of finding an animal contract? I should ask him if ninjas get second chances with summoning contracts." Tenten sighed.
"It sounds cool." Lee couldn't do ninjutsu, so he had no hope with the summoning jutsu. Even if he found animals to contract with him, he wouldn't be able to summon them regardless. "I don't see Guy-sensei using Ningame-san very often though or to help him in a fight. But still, it's nice to have something extra up your sleeve."
"If anyone knows something about keeping something extra up your sleeve, its me!" Tenten proudly claimed. As a girl who is on her way to mastering over a thousand weapons, she always has something up her sleeve.
"Hmph, what do you have up your sleeve against wind jutsus?" Neji pointed out.
Tenten nearly choked. "I'm working on that, thank you very much! I would've had her if I could've landed a vital blow before she flew away from me! You two aren't going to be the only ones training crazy hard this month. Do you know how embarrassing it is to be the only member of the team who didn't make it to the finals? Unacceptable! This will never happen again, I tell you!" Tenten ranted.
"Good." Was all Neji had to say to that outburst.
"I believe in you, Tenten!" Lee gave her his full support, as always.
"Who needs your belief!? This is what I decided on and will do no matter what."
…
The afternoon light was turning golden when the last visitor of the day arrived.
The knock was too loud. It was always too loud. The door opened and Might Guy filled the frame.
"Good evening, my cute little students!" His voice was dialed down to what he considered an indoor level. The nurse passing behind him in the hallway flinched.
"Guy-sensei!" Lee's face lit up.
Tenten looked up from the book she'd been reading.
"How is everyone doing?" Guy stepped into the room and looked at each of them in turn.
"I feel incredible, sensei! I will be ready to train in no time!"
"That's the spirit, Lee!" Guy knew that it would obviously take far longer than Lee thought. Opening the seven gates, it's going to be a while till he recovered. He wasn't even sure if he would recover in time before the finals, but he might. His body was always strangely resilient.
Guy's eyes moved to Tenten.
"I'm good, sensei." She smiled. "Long day, but a good one."
Guy's eyes moved to Neji.
The Hyuga prodigy was lying on his back. His face was turned slightly toward Guy, not away.
"I am..." Neji paused. His jaw worked. The words came out reluctantly "...fine."
That was it. One word. Spoken to the ceiling, barely above a murmur.
It was enough.
Guy's lower lip trembled.
His eyes went bright. The sheen of tears appeared. His smile stretched wide, wobbled, and stretched wider.
"You..." His voice cracked. "You three..."
"Oh no," Tenten said.
"THE POWER OF YOUTH HAS TRIUMPHED ONCE AGAIN!"
Tears cascaded down Guy's face with a volume and commitment that rivaled small waterfalls. His arms opened wide. Every muscle in his body visibly tensed with the need to embrace something.
"GROUP HUG!"
He surged forward.
There were two injured boys. There was one uninjured girl. Sadly for her, that only left one outcome. She saw it coming. She had time to stand, to dodge, to maybe weave through some hand signs. She had time to do any number of things.
She didn't move.
Guy's arms closed around her. The hug lifted her off the chair entirely. Her feet left the ground. Tears soaked into the shoulder of her shirt as Guy's face pressed against the top of her head, sobbing openly, his body shaking with joy so large it needed a physical outlet to survive.
"MY BEAUTIFUL STUDENTS! MY PRECIOUS TEAM! THE BONDS OF YOUTH CANNOT BE BROKEN!"
"Sensei, you're crushing me."
"I'M SO PROUD OF ALL YOU FOR OVERCOMING THIS DIFFICULT TIME!"
"I believe you. Please put me down."
He did not put her down. He held on, and she let him, and after a moment her arms came up and wrapped around his back. Not with the same force. But with something that mattered more than force.
In the bed by the wall, Neji's shoulders had tensed when the hug started. They relaxed a fraction when it became clear it was not coming for him. But his head was tilted, just slightly, so that one pale eye could see the scene reflected in the window glass.
He watched.
Lee watched too, from his bed, with a smile so warm it hurt.
Guy couldn't be happier. His team. His ridiculous, stubborn, brilliant team. They had been through a rivalry that lasted seven years, a forest full of predators, a tailed beast wrapped in sand, and an evening that nearly shattered everything. And here they were. Still in the same room. Still breathing. Still together.
Guy set Tenten down eventually. She straightened her shirt and wiped the tears off her shoulder with a sigh. Guy blew his nose on a handkerchief the size of a washcloth, tucked it back into his vest, and pulled a chair up beside Lee's bed.
He sat.
Something in the way he sat was different.
Tenten noticed it first. The chair was positioned so that Guy could see both beds. His hands were on his knees. His smile had not left his face, but the shape of it had changed. It was the smile of someone who was holding something behind it.
"Guy-sensei?" Tenten asked.
"There's something I need to tell you all." Guy's voice had become serious. "About what happens next."
Lee sat up straighter.
Neji did not move.
"I spoke with the Hokage's advisors this afternoon. And with the hospital administration." Guy's eyes moved to Neji. They stayed there. "Multiple staff members witnessed what happened yesterday. Nurses, medics, and a patient in the next ward who saw through the open door. They filed reports."
The room went very quiet.
"The advisors have reviewed what happened. Neji." Guy said his name the way a father says his son's name when the news is bad. "What you did yesterday was not a sparring match. It was not a disagreement between comrades. You attacked a hospitalized teammate with the intent to kill. You attacked me when I intervened. You attacked Tenten when she tried to stop you."
Neji's eyes were open. Fixed on the ceiling. His jaw was locked.
"Lee has forgiven you. I know that. Tenten has forgiven you. I know that too." Guy's voice did not waver. "And I have forgiven you. Because I believe in you. I believe you are better than the worst thing you've done."
A pause.
"But forgiveness and consequences are not the same thing."
The sound of footsteps in the hallway. Multiple sets. Moving in formation. The rhythm was wrong for hospital staff. Too even. Too heavy.
Lee's head turned toward the door.
The door opened.
Four figures entered the room. They wore the standard ANBU uniform: grey armor, black cloaks, porcelain masks. Their movements were coordinated in the way that said they had done this before. One took a position by the window. One by the door. Two approached Neji's bed.
"Neji Hyuga." The lead ANBU's voice came from behind a cat mask. Flat. Professional. "By order of the village council, you are being taken into custody for the attempted murder of a fellow Konoha shinobi. Stand up."
Neji's hands, flat on the bedcovers, did not move.
"Stand up," the ANBU repeated.
Neji stood.
He moved slowly. From the weight of understanding what was happening. He swung his legs off the bed. His bare feet touched the cold floor. He stood in his hospital clothes with his curse seal visible on his forehead and his hair loose around his shoulders and he looked, for the first time since Lee had known him, small.
The second ANBU produced restraints. He placed a Chakra Draining Seal on Neji before a third ANBU member restrained his arms with ropes.
"Wait." Lee's voice cracked across the room. "Wait, please. You don't need to do this. I forgive him. He apologized. He's not going to-"
"Lee." Guy's hand was on his chest. Firm. Holding him to the bed. "Don't."
"Guy-sensei, he doesn't deserve this! He was in pain! He wasn't thinking clearly! You can't let them-"
"Lee." Guy's voice was the most serious Lee had ever heard it. "Listen to me. I did everything I could. I spoke on his behalf. I vouched for him. But what Neji did cannot be simply waved away."
Lee's eyes were burning. His fists were clenched on the bedsheets.
"He didn't just attack you, Lee. He attacked me. He attacked Tenten. He tried to kill a fellow Leaf shinobi who was lying injured in a hospital bed. A shinobi who had just risked his life for this village." Guy's hand stayed on Lee's chest. His eyes were wet but his voice did not break. "Forgiveness is one thing. Taking responsibility for your actions is another. They are not the same. And Neji has to face what he's done."
Lee's body was shaking. He looked past Guy at Neji.
Neji was not looking back. His eyes were forward. His wrists were cuffed behind him. The two ANBU flanked him. He was walking toward the door with his back straight.
"Neji!" Lee's voice broke.
Neji stopped.
He did not turn around.
"I meant what I said." Lee's words came out raw. "About the seal. About everything. I will find a way. No matter what happens. I promise."
Neji stood in the doorway with four ANBU around him and his teammate's promise hanging in the air behind him.
His head turned. Just enough for Lee to see the edge of his face. The curse seal on his forehead. The line of his jaw.
"Don't waste your time, Fool."
He walked out.
The door closed.
The room was silent.
Tenten was standing with her hand over her mouth. Her eyes were wide and wet and she was not blinking.
Guy sat in the chair beside Lee's bed with his hands on his knees and his head bowed. He was not crying. For perhaps the first time in Lee's memory, in a moment that warranted tears more than any other, Guy was not crying.
Lee stared at the closed door.
He stared at it for a long time.
"Guy-sensei."
"Yes, Lee."
"Where are they taking him?"
"Konoha's intelligence division. He'll be processed and held until they can determine his sentencing."
Lee's fists unclenched. His hands went flat on the bed. His breathing steadied.
"I'm going to get him back."
"Lee-"
"I don't know how. I don't know when. But I'm going to get him back."
Guy looked at his student. The boy who had been the target of an assassination attempt less than twenty-four hours ago and whose first response to his attacker being arrested was to promise to save him.
Guy put his hand on Lee's head.
"I know you will."
Tenten sat down in her chair. Her legs had given out. She wiped her face with both hands.
Nobody spoke for a long time.
Outside the window, the sun finished setting over Konoha. The village was still standing. The exams were still happening. The world was still turning.
But one bed in the room was empty now.
And the room felt wrong without him.