The Caged Bird and the Rising Dragon

by astroprojection

Nobody expected that she would ever fall... But she did, she fell for him.;; NEJITENTEN;;

Title: The Caged Bird and the Rising Dragon
Fandom: Naruto
Characters: Tenten, Neji (others mentioned)
Pairing: Neji/Tenten, Nejiten, NejixTenten (et. cetera). Mentions of Naruto/Hinata,
Rating: Spans from G to PG-13
Summary: "Nobody expected that she would ever fall... But she did, she fell for him."
Warnings: Hints of sex(never explicitly mentioned)
Notes: Based off of 1sentence IS MY UNNOFICIAL CLAIM!!!!!!

1- Air(set: beta). She flies, nobody could deny it. She flies and nobody expected that she would ever fall... But she did, she fell for him.

2- Waltz(set: delta). When they spar, it's like a waltz. A more violent version, true, but still when they spar: they waltz.

3- Soft(set: alpha). One day, he let her "mess up" his hair(his wording, she thought that it ended up being quite... lovely), she'll always the treasure the moment that his hair(so soft and silky) ran through her fingers.

4- Bugs(set: delta). She can't stand bugs, never has and never will. So whenever she sees the bug user(his name... Shino something-or-other) she cringes. She especially hates spiders, and it always ends up with him squishing or removing said insect.

5-Run(set: gamma). Every morning her team(Team Gai, the insane team as some call it) meet at their training grounds, where her proclaimed sensei(the one that can run a "failure" into a Taijutsu master) leads his youthful student off to do a couple hundred to a few thousand laps around Konoha. Which in turn, leads her to sparring(waltzing) with the Hyuuga prodigy.

6- Gentle(set: epsilon). Whenever the couple makes love, he always is gentle never fast, rough and hard like their spars. But gentle, oh so gentle so that he doesn't injure the lovely kunoichi who, even though she is as tough as the steel she works with, looks like a porcelain doll in his eyes.

7- Chocolate(set: alpha). He once said that he hated chocolate, this of course was long before he met Tenten. After he met her, he discovered that he really did love chocolate, especially when she was the one who gave it to him.

8- Thousand(set: epsilon). Whenever he(her friend, teammate, lover, her Neji) goes away on missions without her, she always worries because it seems like it's been a thousand(minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years) since he's left. And she's always afraid that one of his teammates will return with his bloodied forehead protector and tell her that he didn't make it, but her worrying is always for nothing. He always returns safe and sound.

9- Telephone(set: alpha). He considers their telephone a necessary evil, especially when it rings when he and Tenten are in a pleasing position, which in turn: causes him to through anything at arms length at the evil machine.

10- Weddings(set: beta). When his cousin married Uzumaki, she looked as if she was on cloud nine. Hinata had finally gotten Naruto to realize her affections for him. He threatened to murder the kyuubi boy if he ever hurt Hinata, just like how Tenten's brother threatened him when he married the weapons mistress a year prior.

11- Name(set: alpha). Atleast daily at least one person asks her: "why don't you have a last name?" She replies coolly a remark that she has come to memorize over the years ever since her mothers death years early. Tenten always seemed quite happy despite not having a last name. And when the time came that she married into the Hyuuga family and took their last name, she silently rejoiced inside.

12- Wait(set: epsilon). He was never late, and yet now he was running late and she was waiting. And wondering where he was, when suddenly he showed up and apologized for being late. He handed her a bouquet of flowers(she secretly loved flowers) as an apology gift.

13- Fall(set: delta). Fall was her favorite(and at the same time least favorite) time of year. The leaves shed their leaves and began preparation for the winter. It also reminded her of the oh-so-many times that she had fallen while attempting to fly. And the least painful was when she had fallen for him.

14- Music(set: gamma). Metal against metal was their music when they waltzed(sparred). And whenever they weren't sparring(which happened often enough) and found themselves dancing(not so often) they always danced the tango.

15- Breathing(set: beta). When Tenten had fought the girl from the sand, and LOST he was breathless and unable to move a muscle. And from that day on he trained with her even harder than he had before, to make sure that NOTHING like that ever happened again.

16- Flying(set: delta). She had always told him that she could fly, and he never believed her. When she did fly she swore that she would find some way to help him break away from his family and make it so that he was free and that he could fly with her.

17- Promise(set: gamma). When Tenten had gotten injured after her fight against Temari, he promised himself that he would always catch her when she would fall.

And when Neji lost against Naruto, she promised to follow Naruto's example and help Neji even more so that he could escape from the fate of the branch house.

18- Balloon(set: beta). Once, Tenten had read: "who knows if the moon's" by E.E. Cummings and she began thinking outside of the box and started letting go of balloons much more often. She often begged Neji to buy her red balloons, which she would then release into space, which to this day still puzzled him.

19- Wind(set: alpha). Some days, she and the kunoichi's of the rookie 9 would just lay on a hill while the wind was blowing and discussing their respective crushes, relationships, or current guys they thought where hot, the conversations always shifted to four main males: Neji, Naruto, Shikamaru, and Lee. Neji was always brought up by Tenten, Naruto by Hinata, Shikamaru by Ino, and suprisingly enough Lee by Sakura.

20- Freedom(set: alpha). The day that Neji was freed from the restraints of the Branch House(Hinata had just become Head of the Hyuuga family and changed everything around) he proposed to Tenten.

21- Quiet(set: beta). You couldn't ever hear a pin drop when Lee was in the room, but whenever he left there was always an uncomftorable silence, they would just sit there. And stare. Until one of them started their dance(spar).

22- Journey(set: gamma). Their journey from beginning to end, was not a short and easy one. There where always obstacles, but they had finally made it. They finally had gotten married(after everybody else, but they had done it).

23- Question(set: beta). "Where do babies come from?" their three year old daughter had once asked him. And that then proceeded to have him stuttering and trying to give a good answer that wouldn't ruin her ideas.

24- Hope(set: delta). Once Naruto had beaten the idea of his life not being controlled by fate, he had started to hope. He hoped that they would always return safely from missions, that he could break his restraints, and he hoped... That one day he could have her.

25- Light(set: delta). They stood, light streaming in from the window, over their new-born child's crib in silence... Until, "Oh god, we created a human." slipped out of her mouth.

26- Lost(set: data). "HOW THE HELL DID YOU GET US LOST????"

27- Metal(set: delta). The sound of metal against metal, she never tired of it. Just as he never tired of her reaction whenever he got her a new weapon.

28- Forgotten(set: gamma). The weapons lied forgotten on the ground, as the couple kissed after only a half hour of sparring(waltzing).

29- Jewel(set: beta). He had discovered a hidden gem. And kept it for himself, and never allowed anybody to have it. He always had been greedy and could easily become jealous(nobody ever knew that though, because he never showed it). She was always going to be his.

30- Peace(set: delta). They had been at each other's throats a week before. But now, they had made up and they made peace. Which everybody in Konoha thanked the gods for.

31- Book(set: epsilon). Nothing could tear her away from a good book. Especially a weapons book. He knew, he had tried everything... Until he decided to get her attention away from the book by distracting her.

32- Eye(set: epsion). His daughter had her eyes and yet... she could still use the byakugan. Nobody knew why this had happened, it never had before. He smirked when the council tried to figure out what had happened, what had gone wrong as they said. When she spoke up "Maybe that just means she'll be like no Hyuuga before her." before spinning on her heels and dragging him and their daughter out.

33- Stupidity(set: beta). She had always liked him, he was just too dense(too stupid) to notice. She had used tons of obvious clues, he just didn't. get. it. This fact aggravated the weapons mistress, and one day she just kissed him. Then, he got it.

34- Sing(set: epsilon). A little known fact about Tenten was that she had a lovely singing voice. She sang only in private, sometimes while doing chores around the house(when she was alone, of course) but the time that he had found out that she had such a lovely singing voice was when he walked in on her singing a lullaby to their daughter.

35- Roses(set: delta). She wasn't all too fond of roses, she would much prefer something softer(like lilies or lilacs or something like that). But despite her dislike of them, she always loved it whenever he gave her a bouquet of them.

36- Laugh(set: gamma). Their laughs where completely different: hers was melodic, and his was low and had a feeling of roughness, but one thing remained the same: they didn't laugh often. You would usually hear her laugh ringing through the camps instead of his.

37- Snakes(set: delta). A simple garden snake got crushed under the weight of her weapon, which she was currently using to fighting in the war against Akatsuki that Konoha was currently fighting. She was fighting side-by-side with Neji, and protecting his blind spot.

38- Snow(set: delta). He watched his recently-turned-five daughter running around in the snow while building snowmen and making snow angels. She was helping their daughter with her snowman and he couldn't help but notice the striking resemblance between them.

39- Torn(set: epsilon). Tearing up another piece of paper and throwing it in the trash, "GOD DAMMIT! THATS THE THIRD REPORT I'VE MESSED UP TODAY!"

40- Innocence(set: alpha). Ninjas didn't have their innocence long, especially kunoichi. Her innocence was torn away from her when she had killed for the first time(at age 13). Then her other innocence wasn't torn away on a Kunoichi mission like it was for most girls, Neji had taken her innocence from her.

41- Completion(set: alpha). Everyone thought that it was he who was the only reason to the successful completion of their mission, but in truth it was really partially her doing. If she hadn't gotten injured so horribly, he wouldn't have freaked out and started taking out all of their remaining opponents in one move a piece.

42- Clouds(set: alpha). She occasionally laid on the grass and watched the clouds with Shikamaru. Which lead to Neji threatening to Kaiten Shikamaru, and an equally deadly threat from Ino to Tenten.

43- Search(set: gamma). "We have to keep searching. I can't believe that I can't find my own wedding ring!"

44- Heaven(set: alpha). Neji and Tenten where screwing with heaven. Whenever it seemed like they where dead, the always got back up.

45- Natural(set: beta). She preferred the natural look, while other girls applied boat-loads of make up to their faces, she just pulled her hair up into her customary buns(sometimes they where in a different style) and a fancier garb than what she usually wore(you honestly can't attend a wedding in your training clothes. god) and he always thought that she looked absolutely amazing.

46- Gravity(set: gamma). She hated gravity, and the law of "what goes up, must come down". She absolutely hated. it. Because it meant that whenever she finally got up in the air, that she would come crashing down. But it's not as bad now...

Because he's there to catch her.

47- Moon(set: alpha). "Your eyes remind me of a full moon. You know that? And that's one of the reasons I love them."

48- Unknown(set: gamma). They never knew what the next day would bring. Their lives as ninjas assured them of that. It was unknown if they would be alive tomorrow, or dead. So they always lived in the moments and made the best of what they had.

49- Winter(set: delta). His heart had always been locked in a winter, leaving his emotions bottled up and frozen. Until she came along. Her being like summer freed his heart and melted his bottled up emotions.

50- Believe(set: epsilon). No matter what they went through they always believed that they would make it out alive, and be able to continue living their (sortof) fairy tale.