The Power to Heal and Destroy by Phoenixsun

Chapter 25: Over the Moon

"Neji!" Kiba shouted. "Get your ass out here right now or I swear I will leave without you!" The Inuzuka added with a growl while next to him Akamaru barked, giving his support to his partner's words.

The young brown haired boy went back to pace back and forth in front of the Hyuuga Compound and every so often he would send a glare at the door as Akamaru barked again. Soon enough, however, the genin lost his patience again. "Neji! Hurry up!" He shouted.

"Kiba-kun..." The Inuzuka suddenly heard a soft voice called out to him, causing him to immediately tense up and a blush to spread all over his face. "What's the matter? Why are you shouting?" Hinata asked as she poked her head out of the Compound's door. "Do we have a mission?" She asked confused.

"Uh... I... Uhm..." The hooded boy tripped over his own words, all reasoning having abandoned him. "I... I'm waiting for Neji, Hinata-chan." He finally said. "We're supposed to go on a mission right now." Kiba explained.

Akamaru barked, confirming the genin's words.

The blue haired girl eyed her teammate curiously. "Oh?" She completely stepped outside of the compound and stood before the Inuzuka. "How come you are going with Neji-niisan?" She asked.

Kiba visibly tensed up at the question. "Oh... Nothing really, it's just that we have to leave as soon as possible, but the mission is nothing more than a fetch quest..." As he said that, the young man's eyes looked at everything except his teammate.

The look the young Hyuuga gave to the Inuzuka made it clear that she did no buy his explanation for one second. "Tell me the truth, Kiba-kun, what are you going to do?" The kunoichi insisted. "Is it dangerous?" She added as her voiced changed to a worried tone.

Berating himself for worrying the girl in from of him, the brunette tried to find a way to appease her worries. "No, no, it's nothing dangerous." He assured her. "Like I said, we just have to go out, track this thing down, and bring it back to the village." Kiba explained, putting a cheerful smile on while Akamaru barked in agreement. "It's just that the more time we take to set out, the longer it will take us to find it. I bet Shikamaru and Naruto are already waiting for us at the gate and we just have to..." Immediately, the young man knew he had screwed up.

"Naruto-kun and Shikamaru-kun are going as well?" Hinata repeated in surprise. "The four of you? Kiba-kun this cannot possibly be as trivial as you are making it out to be." Her lavender eyes gave her teammate a determined look. "Tell me, what is going on?" She asked again.

The Inuzuka took a couple of steps back, completely at a loss of words for what to say to the young Hyuuga. Shikamaru had told him to keep the matter as discreet as possible and he knew that Naruto would not be to please if he started divulging things about his team. Looking for help, the hooded boy looked down at his partner, Akamaru gave him a helpless look that he was sure matched his own.

Hinata was about to take a step forwards and ask again, but was interrupted as a new, strong voice joined in. "Kiba." Neji said as he stepped out of the Hyuuga Compound, all of his gear packed and ready. "My apologies... I had to inform Hiashi-sama that I will be leaving for a mission." The older genin explained.

Both Kiba and Akamaru let out a sigh of relief at the sight of their new, temporary, teammate as Hinata's attention was drawn away from them and toward the long haired boy. "Neji-niisan, what is going on? What are you doing with Naruto-kun and Shikamaru-kun?" She asked.

Unlike the Inuzuka, the older genin remained unfazed by the girl's questions. "I sorry, Hinata-sama, but that is something we are not to talk about at the moment." Neji calmly explained, his eyes moving from his cousin to the hooded boy. "In fact, Kiba was not even supposed to mention anything." He said as his lavender eyes narrowed slightly into a glare.