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Hours Passed
By the time he arrived, the sun had reached its apex. The stone walls of the canyon loomed above him like gray teeth. The air was dry and still, devoid of birdsong. His legs nearly gave out, but he forced himself to climb the narrow path that snaked into the stone.
And there it was. A wooden door, warped by time, carved into the side of the canyon. Neji pushed it open with his shoulder and collapsed inside.
The Safehouse
Dust filled his lungs. The scent of old incense still lingered. The shack was barely a room... just four walls, a cot, and a small mirror. A seal opened beneath the floor. A small cache.
Inside: medical supplies. Preserved food. Emergency scrolls. Blank tags. a regular Summoning scroll.
He grinned, nearly laughing from exhaustion.
"I'm not dead yet…"
He lit a lantern and got to work.
--
The next few hours were hell.
Neji began by washing the wound on his left hand, then applying a salve that hissed and steamed on contact. He used chakra threads from his mouth, threading burns closed because his hands were useless. He screamed into cloth as he realigned his right shoulder and splinted the arm with a shattered broom handle.
He cracked a soldier pill between his teeth, then lay on the cot as cold sweat soaked into the sheets.
Sleep claimed him like a storm tide.
He dreamed of the fight again... in emotion. The fear. The hunger. The silence of a buried uchiha.
When he awoke, it was already night again.
Neji sat against the wall of the shack, wrapped in gauze and pain. The worst of the bleeding had stopped. The salves had stabilized the burns. His chakra still moved like mud, but it moved.
He stared at his right hand. A weapon broken by its own force.
Asshuku-ten had worked. Too well. If he wanted to use it again... if he had to... he needed to evolve it.
Instead of a straight thrust, what if he anchored the chakra in the target first, then detonated it remotely from another point? Like setting a mine. That would reduce recoil. Preserve his fingers.
Or perhaps… split the chakra load across multiple fingers, reducing the strain?
The idea made his temples throb. But he'd write it down when he could move better. He had become something else now. Not a prodigy. Not a noble heir.
A killer.
He didn't know if he liked that. But it was necessary. And in this world, necessity mattered more than purity.
--
The lantern burned low, casting amber shadows against the cracked walls of the safehouse. Neji's bandaged body sat motionless on the wooden floor, his legs crossed, a scroll half-open before him. His Byakugan flickered off as he sighed and leaned back against the wall. His energy was returning, but slowly... like fire rekindled from dying embers.
He reached into the supply cache and retrieved a small summoning scroll.
A single pulse of chakra.
A poof of smoke.
A bird emerged... a simple speckled hawk, unremarkable in appearance but trained well. It blinked twice and tilted its head, already sensing the seriousness of its message.
Neji didn't rush. He knelt and placed a small ceramic dish on the floor, carefully filling it with birdseed from a pouch he'd stored for emergencies. The bird hopped over and began to eat, warbling softly.
While bird was eating, Neji started writing:
"Look for the woman with blonde hair and a diamond-shaped mark upon her forehead. With her travels a young woman with black hair and a small pink pig. Find their location. Possible sightings; near gambling house in land of fire. She is said to have huge debts. Do not approach. Do not engage. Highly dangerous individual.
-Y.S."
He didn't tie it to the hawk's feet. He added the small sheet of paper, which has the message, in the food the bird was eating.
The hawk finished eating and blinked.
Neji leaned forward, pressed his fingers softly to its beak, and whispered, "Fly toward the Fire Country. To Aya and Riku."
It cawed once, then launched from the safehouse window in a blur of wings. Neji watched it disappear into the blue-black sky.
Leaving the shack was both necessary and dangerous.
--
Konoha was two days away by foot if he cut through the ravine and crossed the bamboo plains.
He could rest at Fire Country's eastern merchant path and pose as a guard for Yugo and come back to konoha as shin, as he registered his name as shin while leaving konoha.
The canyon walls offered natural cover. Neji traveled at dusk, his burnt hand splinted and slung beneath his cloak. The soldier pill kept him going, though his stomach growled and his sweat smelled sour from chakra overuse.
His movements were measured. Every step meant energy loss, but still, he walked with the precision of someone hunting shadows.
Night fell hard. He camped beneath the overhang of a redstone ridge. The wind howled above, and dust choked the air. He chewed on dried rations and kept his Byakugan half-active, switching eyes to preserve stamina.
He slept in fifteen-minute intervals, rotating his position, always alert.
--
A/N: will the search for tsunade be successful?