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The Bird - Training Sometimes, just because he knew his cousins hated seeing it so much, Neji would train with the bird in the compound. The central courtyard where Hiashi drilled him was big enough to do some basic work with it, and he could feel the glaring eyes of the other Hyuuga on him. He had dared to find a way to escape the cage they all shared, and he would not let them beat him back down to their level. At least they'd learned not to try when he had the bird with him. It reacted to his emotions, and however well he managed to keep his face blank and hide them from other humans, the bird could still sense them. There'd been more than a few clawed faces before they'd all started avoiding him. Neji hadn't bothered apologizing. They knew he wouldn't have meant it. In so many ways, the bird was free to express the parts of Neji that had always been locked away. The freedom of flying in the sky; the release of showing emotion. And the best part was they'd proved themselves so effective in the field that if anyone had even thought about trying to force him to be rid of it, Tsunade-sama herself probably would have intervened. At the moment he was trying to train himself to see from the bird's point of view. It was something he'd done by accident a few times, but if he could do it deliberately it would extend even his range of sight by a factor of ten. Too bad he couldn't use the Byakkugan through the bird. It felt very odd to be standing in the courtyard with his eyes blindfolded. Hyuuga trained in blindfighting like every other shinobi, but they didn't spend much time on it. The Byakkugan was so central to their style that covering or otherwise hindering their eyes was anathema to them. Of course the blindfold was no more than a symbol to remind him to keep his own eyes closed, because the Byakkugan could see right through it. Taking deep, steady breaths, he forced himself to focus on the tenuous link he shared with the bird. It was over there, to the right, perched on the lowest branches of the tree near the house. He could feel it, sense it near him, as he had been able to for some time now, but he couldn't see through its eyes. From where it was sitting he should have been able to see himself in the centre of the yard... Something, some instinct or scent, drew the bird's attention. Danger! Predator. Stalking, intruding, bad bad bad... "If you don't want to be nursing Akamaru through losing half his face at the very least, I suggest you call him off," Neji said with a smirk on his face. He could see the dog through the bird's eyes; considerably larger than he had been a few years ago but still more than capable of eeling along silently under the walkway of the house, tracking the bird. For just a moment, he could feel the full glory of the bird's anger, and the way the wind blew against its feathers as it bated, threatening the dog to warn him off. "Huh?" Inuzuka Kiba's confused voice came through the open door to the main house. Neji heard padding footsteps, and a moment later he had a vague impression of a larger predator/not predator? standing in the doorway. "Where is... Akamaru!" From there Kiba shouldn't have been able to see his dog, but after having spent some time bonded to the bird Neji wasn't at all surprised that Kiba could sense his partner. "Knock it off, stupid. Didn't you learn your lesson last time?" Whining, Akamaru slunk out from under the walkway, tail between his legs. What was left of it, anyway; 'last time' had resulted in the wardog actually pouncing the bird before either Kiba or Neji realized what he intended, and he'd lost a good two inches of his tail for his trouble. Not to mention picking up a couple of impressive claw marks on his back. The bird had lost a couple of feathers from its tail, but had regrown them without any trouble. Akamaru hadn't been so lucky. Once the dog had backed off and stopped being threatening, the bird settled back down on its perch. The oddly distorted images Neji had been getting from it vanished. His smirk widened as he reached up to pull the blindfold off, turning to look at Kiba. So that was the trick; when the bird felt itself - or Neji - threatened, the adrenalin boost was what helped them to link more closely. That was something they could train to sustain, if he could keep the stupid bird's attention long enough. Chirping a loud protest as Akamaru edged out from behind Kiba and eyed it again, the bird launched off the branch. Kiba grabbed the dog tightly by the scruff of the neck to keep him from jumping after it. Neji held out his gloved hand automatically, and it backwinged into a neat landing. Walking its way up his arm to his shoulder, it started preening at his hair. Sighing, he let it have its way, having learned after several nipped fingers and viciously tugged locks of hair that it was better to just let it alone when it started this. Much to Neji's annoyance, Kiba took one look at this and started laughing. He wound up dropping down to sit on the steps because he was laughing too hard to stand. Behind him Shino and Hinata were peering curiously into the courtyard from inside the house. "What exactly is so funny?" Neji asked, his voice cool. The stupid bird screeched right into his ear and flapped its wings once, nearly braining him, before going back to preening the hair it had just messed up. Kiba laughed even harder. "You," the dogboy finally wheezed out. "It... that stupid thing thinks you're one of its chicks or its mate or something!" Neji growled in irritation, and was echoed by the bird's hiss. "This from the boy who finds nothing wrong with the idea of helping to train a dog to 'creatively' mark his territory. I don't think you have any room to point fingers." "Hey, that's totally different!" Kiba didn't seem to find that nearly as funny, his cheeks flushing almost enough to hide the red fangs marked on them. "At least Akamaru doesn't think I'm one of his littermates, or nestmates or however the hell a bird would think of it..." "Kiba-kun! Don't let go of Akamaru!" Hinata's wide-eyed warning came a moment too late; the Inuzuka had released his hold on the dog to gesture expansively. Neji and the bird realized the dog was free at almost the same moment. Akamaru barked and lunged into the courtyard, clearly intent on teaching the bird a lesson. At the same time the bird launched itself off Neji's shoulder with a shriek, making him very glad for the leather shoulder pad he now always wore beneath his clothes. "No!" he and Kiba cried in unison, leaping after their respective partners. They collided in a tangle of fur and feathers and limbs, hardly able to sort out one body from another. Neji activated his Byakkugan and managed to strike at the few major chakra points he'd found so far on the bird; it slowed it and kept it from gathering enough chakra on its feathers to slice Kiba and Akamaru to ribbons. In passing he also managed to 'accidentally' strike a major nerve in Akamaru's back and another on Kiba's thigh. Their yelps of pain were amusingly similar. By the time they finally sorted themselves out they were all sporting scratches and bites and other general injuries. Neji held the bird tight to his chest, pinning its wings and murmuring calming things to it. Kiba likewise had Akamaru trapped beneath him, but he was scolding his partner roundly. "He's stupider than you are," Neji observed acidly. "Why does he keep doing that?" "Hey!" Kiba objected to the insult, baring fangs at him. The show of aggression made the bird scream and struggle again, though, so he hastily looked away. Akamaru made a noise somewhere between a bark and a whine, and Kiba looked down at him incredulously. "What do you mean, 'because it's fun'?" "Fun?" Neji echoed, disbelieving. "He thinks it's fun to get shredded?" "No." Kiba thumped the oversized dog between the ears. "He thinks it's fun to watch you get pissy because he's stalking the bird. Stupid dog. What, are you a cat now? You're not a bird dog!" Akamaru made a noise that sounded like it was trying to be a whine but came out suspiciously like a dog's version of a laugh. In his arms the bird clacked its beak a few times and settled down. Neji could see a couple of white furs stuck in the blood traces on its beak, and sighed. He was getting a suspicious sense of contentment from the bird, and he didn't think it was just because it had wounded Akamaru. "Stupid bird," he muttered to it, abruptly aware of how much he sounded like Kiba talking to Akamaru. "You think it's fun too, don't you?" Golden eyes just stared back at him, and Neji scrambled back to his feet while still holding it carefully to his chest. "If you're going to bring Akamaru when you visit Hinata-sama, keep him out of my way," he advised Kiba. "Next time I'm not going to stop it." "Hear that, furbrain?" Kiba rolled his eyes at his partner. "Next time you'll lose the rest of your tail. Or worse. Stop attacking the damn bird already!" Akamaru barked once, and the bird gave a huffy chirp. Neji wasn't sure if they were doing the animal equivalent of trading insults, or laughing behind their humans' backs. He knew the damn bird wasn't smart enough for real thought the way the Inuzuka dogs were, but sometimes he wondered. As Kiba stood to shoo the dog back into the house, he flashed a fanged grin and winked at Neji. The Hyuuga turned away, unable to hide a slight smirk in response. Maybe the animals weren't the only ones having some fun. | |
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