This is another item in the "old but gold" collection I found on an old USB. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

"It'll be uncomfortable."

"I don't see any better options."

"Okay. Just make sure you stay two feet from the heart of each explosion. Then it shouldn't burn you."

"Just make sure you don't hit me."

Tenten smirked. They both knew there was no danger of her missing her aim, but they also both knew that she wouldn't be able to see Neji through the smokescreen. If she hit him, she wouldn't know about it until it was too late.

Neji quickly removed the black garment he was wearing over his pants and pulled off his shirt. He tossed both to Tenten, who neatly rolled them up and tucked the roll into her pack. After all, there was no sense in wearing loose flowing clothes in close proximity to hundreds of small explosions. She frowned and motioned for him to come closer and turn his back to her, and when he obeyed she quickly untied his hair and set to braiding it.

They were on a partnered mission, just the two of them. Lee was out on a three-day training trip with Naruto, and Gai was out on an S-rank mission. That left the two of them to deal with this B-rank mission, and the enemy spy they were chasing was not going down easy.

They'd been fighting for a while now, but this guy seemed to have some sort of crazy reaction time, and he'd been able to block everything they'd thrown at him so far. He was currently trapped in a ring of fire and metal courtesy of Tenten's weapons scrolls, but sooner or later he'd figure out how to get out of it. Neji and Tenten were up on a cliff overlooking the battlefield.

She glanced down at her scroll, lying on the ground beside her and opened to the Dango. That wasn't the technical name for them, but she liked to call them that because they were about that size, and each small bomb was more for fun than function in the sense that the resulting explosion released more colored smoke than fire.

That was their plan. Tenten would lay down dense cover with her Dango, and Neji and his Byakugan would be right in the middle of everything in close combat with the target. Even with the target's uncanny reaction time, the man couldn't block what he couldn't see.

Tenten tied off the single braid that now flowed down Neji's back, satisfied that his hair would be less likely to catch fire this way. She readied the first handful of Dango, and the two nodded to each other. In the next instant he was down in the middle of the fiery ring they'd trapped the target in.

Tenten waited a split second before launching her mini-bombs. If the target anticipated the bombs before they got close enough to serve their purpose, he would eliminate them with kunai or shiruken. Neji engaged him, and once he was distracted enough and facing the other direction, she hurled the handful down toward her partner and the target.

The balls landed around the fighters' feet and exploded with several popping noises. Neji dodged left as the blue-ish smoke quickly swallowed the pair, and Tenten waited three seconds and launched another handful, then five more seconds and another.

Inside the smokescreen, Neji focused on his breathing. It was difficult, because the air tasted like iron and sulfur, but Tenten had said there was no poison in the bombs. Unfortunately that didn't make it any more pleasant to breathe, and the close proximity of so many explosions along with his lighting-fast fighting movements were making him hot and sweaty. On top of everything, he could feel the chemicals in the smoke sticking to his sweaty skin and burning his eyes. He needed to finish this fight, and fast.

The target was launching blow after blow at him. Neji could scarcely maneuver because of how rapidly his opponent moved, and every time he tried to sneak to the left or right, the target's relentless strikes informed him and he moved along with Neji.

He was going to have to make a lightning-fast movement, and possibly use one or more of Tenten's Dangos to help him. He shifted his feet to stay outside the two-foot radius of one of the tiny bombs, but his opponent couldn't see them coming and Neji saw one hit his arm. His sleeve burst into flame at the contact, but the target ignored it. Neji twisted his body gracefully to dodge two more of the tiny bombs and what would have been a painful punch in the ribs.

After the fourth salvo of Dango, he saw his chance through watering eyes. The pain of having one sleeve and one pant leg on fire seemed to be getting to the spy, and he had left his chest open for an attack. With a speed that even surprised himself, he planted the heel of his hand in the lower center of his opponent's chest and blood spurted from his mouth. He struck again, this time in his stomach, and a third time to his throat as the seventh round of Dango rained down around him.

The smoke was so thick now that it was almost impossible for Neji to breathe, but at least the target was down. He pulled two kunai from his pouch and sent them hurdling out of the smoke, one to the right and one to the left. That was the signal he and Tenten had agreed on to indicate that the battle was over, and she would launch no more bombs. He headed toward the edge of the smoke, and when he got there, he collapsed coughing to one knee.

A second later Tenten was by his side, and she bent and pulled one of his arms over her shoulder before helping him farther from the circle of fire.

He was still a little stunned when they landed back up on top of the cliff, and he was still coughing. Tenten set him on his knees, and as soon as she let go of him he leaned forward and braced his hands on the ground until he could breathe again.

Tenten watched her teammate carefully as she waited for his body to rid itself of all the smoke. Dango smoke was no more dangerous than smoking several cigarettes in a row, but she knew that Dango smoke was a lot more unpleasant –especially for someone like Neji who had never even smoked a cigarette.

He had only been down in the smoke for a minute or two, but he looked like he'd been in a huge fire. His whole body was covered in sweat and navy soot and a few minor scorch marks. At least there were no severe burns.

Neji sat back on his heels. He was still coughing a little, but his eyes seemed to be giving him more trouble now. He had them clenched shut and deactivated, and there were streaks in the soot on his cheeks where they had watered in vain.

"You gonna be okay?"

"I think so." He clenched his eyes tighter shut and a drop of water squeezed from the corner of one.

She reached into her hip pouch and pulled out a small bottle of eyedrops. She stood up walked around behind him, making sure to step as loudly as the grass allowed so he could track her easily.

"Here. Tilt your head back." She placed her hand under his chin and pulled it upward so that the top of his head was resting against her stomach. He didn't resist. "These will help."

He seemed to be having trouble opening his eyes, presumably because of the burning, so she used her fingers to open his left eye. She quickly squeezed a few drops from the bottle, then let go so he could blink. Then she switched hands to do his other eye, and once she was done, he lifted his head back up and she walked back around to sit in front of him.

He stayed still for a few minutes just blinking, gaze unfocused. When most of the burning seemed to subside, he looked at her with curiosity.

"Since when do you carry eyedrops?"

She shrugged. "Since one of my teammates has important eyes. I also carry a couple of bonbons for Lee."

Neji's expression changed to skeptical.

"You mean you've always carried those, ever since we were first assigned on the same team?"

She shrugged, blushing a little. "Luck favors the prepared. You'd be pretty screwed if something ever happened to your eyes, and I've always known that. So yes, I carry eyedrops when I'm on missions with you."

"Hn."

He blinked a little more as they sat there in silence for a couple of minutes, then Tenten spoke.

"Wasn't there a river back that way?" She gestured off to the wooded area behind them, opposite the cliff's edge.

"I think so. Why?"

She stifled a giggle. "Because you stink."

He frowned. "What did you expect?"

She couldn't hold her laughter back any more, so she didn't answer. Instead, she indulged herself for a few seconds at his expense before she spoke again with a smile –much to his chagrin. "You should go wash up. I'll go confirm the kill, then we need to see how bad those burns are."

He nodded and watched as she jumped over the cliff down to where the smoke was mostly cleared below.

Neji waded into the water up to his hips. He was still wearing his pants, since they needed a good rinse as much as his body did, and besides that, Tenten would catch up any minute. He submerged himself in the cold swirling water to rinse the excess soot off of his upper body, then stood up and started rubbing it off of his forearms.

Tenten emerged from the trees just in time to see Neji rise from the water with his back toward her, and her eyes widened at the sight. She'd always known he was attractive, but somehow seeing the rivulets of water running from his hair and down his skin in the afternoon sunlight made her heart skip a beat.

She knew that he had already sensed her presence, so she chalked it up to teenage hormones and took a deep breath and a seat beside a tree. She closed her eyes, sneaking peeks only occasionally as she waited for him to finish getting the soot off so she could see if he had been burned too badly in the fight.

Cheers!