Story: Naruto Massage Invasion

 

Hanabi was feeling good. Not just “woke up on the right side of the futon” good, but ridiculously good. Limbs light, chakra flow smooth, the kind of post-massage bliss where even your internal organs seem to hum along. She floated down the hall like a leaf on a breeze, eyes half-lidded. Nothing could rattle her right now. Nothing.

And then Neji showed up.

He didn’t so much appear as materialize at the end of the corridor, all straight posture, immaculate robes and that patented Hyūga elder-scion aura that made every conversation feel like an evaluation.

“Hanabi,” he said, tone neutral but eyebrows already arching in disapproval. “You’re late for sparring.”

The bubble of serenity popped like a soap film. Hanabi blinked once, twice, her shoulders instinctively tightening. “Oh. Right. Sparring.”

Neji tilted his head, pale eyes narrowing fractionally. “Are you unwell?”

“No,” she said quickly, plastering on a small smile. “I’m… great. Actually. Better than great.”

He stepped closer, Byakugan eyes flicking over her as if he could read the state of her muscles and chakra coils like a scroll. “You seem… different,” he murmured. “Relaxed.”

“That’s not a crime, is it?” she shot back, a hint of edge sneaking into her voice despite the lingering calm.

For a moment they just stared at each other -  her, buoyant and annoyed in equal measure; him, the human embodiment of a rigid training schedule. Hanabi could almost hear the massage melting away under his gaze.

Neji finally straightened, expression unreadable. “Then show me. In the sparring hall. Now.”

Hanabi sighed. “So much for feeling untouchable…” she muttered under her breath, rolling her shoulders and following him.

The massage had left her muscles loose. Now she’d find out if it had also left her reflexes sharp enough to handle Neji at full speed. Though to be quite frank, she wasn't willing to bet on it. That boy! He was so... uptight! Just like the rest of her family.

<i>You know, he could probably do with a massage himself, right?</i>

Hrm, that's true enough. Neji was always so rigid. It has done well by him, but... The way he was, surely he'd be even better if he learned about the potency of full body rubdowns?

Oh, but he would never go for it. That boy was far too paranoid. At best, he might investigate the location. At worst...

She had an idea. It was a pretty clever idea, actually. Hrm. But how best to phrase it~

=====

Neji Hyuuga is an unfortunate soul by every measure. Not in the way most people mean when they say “unfortunate,” because he is neither weak nor unlucky in the usual sense. He’s a prodigy, a genius of the Gentle Fist, a shinobi whose name carries weight. But the Hyūga clan doesn’t just breed talent; it forges it, and Neji’s forge was a cage.

He was born into the branch family. The one that bows, not the one that sits. The one branded with a seal before it can even crawl. From the moment the mark was burned into his forehead, his life stopped being his. Every ounce of genius, every inch of progress belonged to someone else. He learned early that duty wasn’t a virtue; it was a sentence. And like all sentences, it came with walls.

So Neji built himself into the perfect weapon. He trained until the Byakugan’s veins were as familiar as the back of his hand, until his chakra control was a razor’s edge. He became faster, sharper, harder than the expectations pressing down on him. He told himself that mastery was freedom, even if the cage stayed locked.

But freedom, for Neji, has always been theoretical. He’s never had the luxury of hobbies or indulgence. He doesn’t understand what it’s like to take a day off, or to let a stranger’s hands undo the knots in his back. Relaxation isn’t just foreign to him; it’s dangerous. Because if he lets himself relax, even for a second, the mask might slip and he’d have to admit how much it hurts to be brilliant and bound at the same time.

And that, more than his skill or his pride, is why he’s such an unfortunate soul.

Looking across the hallway, he saw Hanabi standing there, smiling vaguely, seeming rather more relaxed than normal. She was often in a playful mood, but when it came to training she was usually very tense. He understood why. He knew he could drive her hard. On the other hand, it was no harder than he insisted of himself. She was, in the end, a Hyuuga, and she should strive to be the very best at this.

So, on the one hand, seeing her relaxed could be seen as a good sign. On the other, it could be seen as a bad one. In his experience a sudden change with no ready explanation was usually more bad than good.

"Begin!" he announced. She slipped into her battle posture easily enough, so there wasn't anything wrong with her movements. He decided to check out her chakra points, and - 

How strange. They were more... more efficient than usual. Her emotional state? Intimidated by him, but she was still eager to show off. She'd also thought of something clever, most likely, based on the tiny upturning of the corners of her mouth that she was trying to control, but wasn't quite able to as well as she thought she had.

Her first strike came in. Neji easily blocked it and countered with his own. Hrm? Strange, her chakra wasn't quite reacting the way it should. For a moment he was caught off guard, and Hanabi tried to bring her knee up into his gut, which would have caught almost anyone else.

However, Neji was not anyone else. He was a prodigy. He brought his elbow down to block that knee and adjusted for another strike, intrigued by the alteration to her chakra networks. He couldn't quite see anything on a surface level, but -

There. In the middle of her back. There was a tiny alteration. So small, he could barely make it out. The effect was like - 

Let's go to a real world perspective here for a moment. You've most likely seen Jurassic Park. Do you remember the moment where chaos theory is explained? Two drops on the same point of the back of a hand, which go in different directions, owing to very tiny, imperceptible differences in the moment? A pulse, a slight muscle twitch, all it took was a difference in timing and a hundred thousand million different variables come into play - and give that result.

That's what Neji was seeing right now. It was fascinating. Bizarre. But - It was also not an impediment to him ending the fight without having to mess with her chakra network so much.

The Gentle Fist was his preferred way to fight, but if needed Neji knew how to apply a full nelson in a pinch. He got her in one easily enough, and she immediately gave up once he had it locked in.

"That's right," Neji said. "You lost your opportunity to escape once I had your chin tucked. The only way out is to put your hands to your own forehead and push back."

"Hrmph!" Hanabi grumbled as he let her go. "How did I do that time?"

"You did alright," Neji said. "Although... Your chakra network is off. Care to explain?"

"We~ell," Hanabi rolled on her heels, playing cute. As if such things ever worked on him. "To be honest, I've been experimenting a bit, and I may have found something kinda cool."

Something cool, she said. He dearly wished she would use more precision terminology. Still, he would play along for the time being.

"You found something cool?" he asked. "Really now? You wouldn't mind sharing, would you? Or is it, perhaps, a trade secret you cannot share even with family?"

Knowing her she was bursting at the seams to share it with him. Fine, he'd play along with that as well. This was an extension of the idea behind the Gentle Fist - One does not need to force the issue, when a gentler way to push towards your goal is possible.

"Oh no, I am all too eager to share~" she chirped happily. Alright then. Neji said nothing further. Not yet, at any rate. "Um, can I show you?"

"Can you undo it?" Neji asked.

"Sure, sure!" Hanabi said. "Not that I can see why you'd need to, you've seen how it makes my movements more efficient, right?"

Indeed, but he knew full well there had to be a downside to it. Otherwise such a mystery technique would have been discovered by their ancestors, many of whom Neji truly believed were far more competent and far more skilled and knowledgeable in the Gentle Fist and chakra networks than the two of them put together.

"It'll be easier if I show you - " Hanabi began, but Neji was already pulling out a training dummy for her to demonstrate it. She pouted, indignant, clearly intending for Neji himself to be the test subject. Not a chance. Not until he had a better understanding. She had the dummy set in front of her - and then she began to give it a massage.

In all honesty, he wasn't quite sure of what he was seeing here. The dummy's response was made to react like a normal person's, but... All that seemed to be happening here was simply relaxation. Was that it? Her technique was a simple shoulder rub...?

In all honesty, Neji wasn’t quite sure what he was seeing. The dummy twitched under Hanabi’s hands like it was alive, but not in the usual Gentle Fist way. There were no precise chakra strikes, no targeted openings being exploited, no carefully mapped pressure points assaulted with surgical intent. It was… relaxation. Pure, unadulterated relaxation.

Hanabi’s hands moved over the dummy’s shoulders, sliding down the arms, over the back, just a touch, just enough, and… the dummy breathed. Not mechanically, not magically, not like a ninja weapon pretending to be human - but properly, deeply, evenly. Its chakra flows, preconfigured to respond like a real person’s, seemed to straighten themselves out, coil by coil. Neji blinked. That should not have been possible.

“Uh,” he said. “Hanabi?”

She looked up, grinning, cheeks pink. “Yes~?”

“This - this isn’t combat,” he said carefully, because even his detached Byakugan eyes couldn’t ignore the results. “It’s… it’s some sort of - efficiency adjustment?”

Hanabi puffed her cheeks and shrugged, still moving with that fluidity the massage had given her. “I call it a little experiment. I figured if my muscles are looser, my reflexes faster, maybe my chakra flows better. So why not try it out like this first?”

Neji’s lips twitched. That was the closest to a smile he’d come all week. “You’re… massaging a dummy for combat efficiency?”

“Exactly!” she chirped. “See, the shoulders relax, the spine’s straight, even the arms are looser. All it takes is a little flow adjustment and - bam! More precise, more efficient. Not that you need me to explain all the details. I just need to test it.”

He studied her carefully. Her stance, her movements didn't quite add up here. Alright then. As much as he didn't want to do this...

"Fine, you can do that for me," Neji grumbled. It was the only way he'd properly understand what he was looking at. So he sat down with his back to her, and let her do her work - while making sure the Byakugan was active so he had a full and total view of what she was doing. It would give him key, perfect awareness of exactly what she was doing back there, and -

And the instant her fingers fell upon his shoulders, he felt like he'd lost half his body weight.

"Oh wow, you had a lot of tension back here," she said. "Loads of it."

He wobbled right where he was sitting, finding it hard to stay upright. Ooooh, that actually felt kinda nice.

"You know, I've often wondered," Hanabi said. "Who do you have a crush on?"

A crush...? Neji wobbled. He didn't have time for such things. He had to - Hrnk! What was this? What was this all of a sudden?

"I think you should go out there and get yourself a cute girlfriend~" Hanabi whispered in his ear. 

His Byakugan didn’t flinch, didn’t dart; it widened ever so slightly, the tiniest fraction, as he tried to process what had just happened. Half his body felt like it had melted into the floor, and the other half… well, that part was still trying to maintain rigid composure.

“Hanabi,” he said, voice low, careful, almost a growl of controlled disbelief, “what exactly are you doing to me?”

She hummed happily, kneading the knots out of his shoulders with all the innocent cheer of someone polishing a new set of armor. “Oh, nothing much~ Just making sure your muscles aren’t plotting against you. You’d be surprised how tense you get for someone who’s always so stiff.”

Neji blinked. Stiff. That was the understatement of the century. The tension didn’t just vanish, it all but evaporated into the air, leaving him off-balance in ways he wasn’t trained to compensate for. His spine felt lighter, his shoulders like clouds, and worst of all, the steady hum of relaxed chakra seemed to make his Byakugan… unfocused. Not broken, no, but distracted in a way that sent all his instincts on high alert for no reason at all.

“You… you can’t just - ” he started, then flinched as her fingers slid down to press lightly along the nape of his neck. “Stop that - don’t - Hrnk! That’s - ”

“Ahhh, there it is!” Hanabi chirped. “So tight! Who even told you it’s okay to walk around like a frozen statue all the time?”

Neji’s composure cracked another fraction. He straightened instinctively, only for her thumbs to press a tiny pulse into his shoulder blades, and the effort to resist… failed. “Hnnngh - ” he muttered, jaw tightening, teeth clenched, yet somehow a muscle in his back shifted and sighed involuntarily.

“See?” Hanabi said with a satisfied tilt of her head. “I’m helping. You’ll thank me later when you can actually move without all that useless stiffness holding you back.”

He wanted to object, to insist that this was improper, a waste of chakra, an abomination against Hyūga protocol, but… it was undeniable. His arms moved freer, his torso responded quicker, even his legs felt lighter. The Byakugan could see the changes immediately: every chakra path slightly more aligned, every pressure point less screaming, every coil of tension softened.

“Do you… do you understand what you’re doing?” he asked cautiously, his voice strained.

Hanabi giggled, pressing just a little harder along the trapezius. “I do~. I’m making your body work smarter, not harder. It’s… kind of like yoga meets Gentle Fist, only a bit more fun.”

Neji exhaled, slow and controlled, trying desperately to regain the part of himself that hadn’t melted into Hanabi’s hands. “Fun… is not… the goal,” he said, though his words wobbled like a man balancing on a tightrope while someone tickled him.

“Oh, but it can be~” she whispered, leaning closer, tilting her head, pressing a gentle wave of pressure into his spine. “And maybe… it helps if you stop worrying about everything all the time. Like, maybe go out and… you know, have a cute girlfriend~?”

Neji’s eyes widened. His Byakugan shifted focus, tracing the faint tremors in her chakra, the misalignments she had just corrected. But his mind? His mind was entirely trapped in the moment. The impossible relaxation, the whisper of suggestion, the warmth of her hands - it was like a perfect storm of distraction that no prodigy could fully resist.

"I should... I should get myself... a cute girlfriend..." Neji muttered in a strangely sleepy tone.