So, this is a little bit of an experiment. Shall be updated on an, "at the author's leisure," basis.
Never fear. I'm on a little bit of a trip right now.
Yes, this is DeidaraxTenten. Like I said, experimental. There's a little bit of backstory to this – all shall be explained, I promise. However, if there are any questions, feel free to ask. I'll get back to ya.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
x.x
He woke up slowly, hazily coming back to the realm of the living. He wanted nothing more than to curl up and fall back asleep for a week – his muscles were sore and the covers were warm. But something nagging at the back of his mind screamed that no, he had to get up now. Much as Deidara tried to ignore it, it wouldn't go away. So he cracked his eyes open and sleepily sat up.
He went from half-comatose to alert in less than a second as he took in his surroundings and the memories of the past day came rushing back. His mind was a blur of a slightly cluttered room, a soft sofa, a bloody knife and an alleyway, a deal gone wrong and the faint smell of peppermint.
And a voice on the phone.
"Yea," it was definitely a girl, Deidara decided. Probably young-ish, teenager age, maybe older. "No, I don't think anything serious. Uh-huh. Outside the apartment. Mhm. No, didn't look that bad. Right. Well – "
He drowned it out and did some quick thinking. The grunts from Entropy Corporations must've been more than unhappy with his answer, then, to do him in that badly. And this girl, whoever she was, must've found him and – from the looks of it – taken him into her apartment.
Pretty stupid, if I was a rapist or murderer or something. His perceptions were misconceived, however, because he heard her say, "No, uh-huh, nah, he's pretty small – " at this twitched. He was slender and five-eleven, thankyouverymuch. "Probably my age. Not gonna wake up for a while – "
Again, he drowned her out as he thought. He needed to get out, fast. If he was seen – God and Hell both help him if he was seen. But he couldn't just disappear – he was Bound by a blood-pact, and dammit, he was indebted to her.
Mentally swearing to himself as he caught the tattoos on his hands grinning at him, he silently grabbed a pen and paper off the nearby, very cluttered table, and wrote a quick note, leaving a number, a thank you, and a name.
With that he redid his rather messed up hair into a ponytail, lifted up the window, and was off, down the fire escape and a block away within five minutes.
It would be a year later until he heard from her again.
Xxxxxxxxx
Tenten bared her teeth in frustration and slammed the clutter on her kitchen table onto the floor in one savage motion. The flare of satisfaction at seeing everything crash and knowing that she was the one that did it, the feeling of being destructive solely for the sake of being destructive, marked the height of her anger.
She stared at the mess on her floor, panting, and then sat down at the now bare table and buried her face in her hands.
She was so screwed.
And the worst part was that this was her entire fucking fault.
She knew it, and that was what made her angry. She could bitch and whine all she wanted, but her accusations were sophomoric. Sure, she might've been young and hopeless and left out to dry, but that's how she lived. The entire situation was her fault, and that was the left and right of it.
Fuck fuck fuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK!
It'd be suicide, if she was lucky. If she wasn't lucky (and let's face it, when you're talking about luck you might as well just pick one of Murphy's more cynical laws and apply it) then she'd be captured, tortured, and given something probably reserved for the lower two circles of hell.
And the most infuriating thing about it?
If the conversation less than twenty-four hours ago hadn't taken place, the entire situation could have been avoided.
She had stood in front of the captain's desk, lax because that's how he wanted his soldiers to feel. 'We're not the goddamn military and we're not run like one.'
Tenten used to admire him for it. Now she was cursing him. It was her fault for feeling comfortable and letting her temper take reign.
The one day that my teammates decide to be out…ugh…
She sighed again. Neji and Lee were out, on some other mission that, according to the Captain, It's seedier than I like, Tenten. Too seedy for a girl.
God and hell both damn it, she could handle whatever they decided to throw at her!
But no, of course Neji with his goddamn sense of chivalry and Lee, who went beyond chivalrous in how he treated females, were all for her staying behind.
She had wanted to punch something, but instead opted to hit the bull's eye that was behind the Captain's desk with deadly speed and accuracy.
She hadn't proved her point. In fact, that gave Neji a fine opportunity to prove his.
In her anger, in the Captain's office with her two most trusted friends by her side – probably the only possible place her guard was ever down.
So of course, Neji being the sneaky bastard he was, monopolized on it.
He had grabbed her wrist and shoulder and effectively pinned her to him – once she had realized what was going on, he let go, saying, "No matter what you say, Tenten, the fact remains that you are a girl."
That, and some other bullshit, but she hadn't listened. She was livid.
She was quiet for the first two days or so that Lee and Neji had been gone, but then she had begun to grow restless. She expected her missions to come, one or two a month, just as most girls expected their period. It was a natural thing, and when she wasn't assigned anything, she felt off.
Usually, on the off chance that that did happen, Lee and Neji were with her, at least, and it was because it was a slow month. Not because she happened to have two X chromosomes.
So she had stormed into the Captain's office. The high-backed chair was turned, the back facing her, so she couldn't see the Captain. But she knew he was there.
So, naturally, she gave him a piece of her mind.
What proceeded was a strongly-worded rant, demanding a mission, complete with foul language, hand gestures (which were probably lost, seeing that the Captain wasn't facing her) and some creative swears picked up from some of the more grizzled men on the job that she specifically kept in reserve for situations like this.
But of course, she picked the one day that the Captain was out and the deputy had taken over.
Danzo. The Deputy, and a by-the-book man if there ever was one. When she saw it was he, and not the captain she had just ranted to, Tenten didn't even bother apologizing.
With a sadistic smirk, the Deputy gave her a mission – and Tenten didn't even have to get a debriefing to know that she had just signed her death warrant.
Sure, she had been out of line, but that didn't justify Danzo assigning her on a solo mission to take out three different people of Entropy Corporations? And retrieve the vials of Elysium (what the hell was that, anyway?) while the security system wasn't disabled? Alone?
She could handle a lot, but still…
If she was caught, it wasn't as simple as disabling her opponent and running away.
Entropy employed freakin' hounds as their grunt muscle.
And they weren't just dogs. Their proper name was 'hellhound' and hounds from hell they were. As big as a bear, lean and mean, with fire in their mane and death in their eyes – they were the single biggest threat to Shinobi. One hound could take out an entire city block of civilians; two hounds could do the same to a group of high-ranking Shinobi.
And she had to face maybe twenty of them alone.
And she was here, at her kitchen table, in her apartment and there was nothing she could do about it.
She groaned. Why couldn't she go to summer camp or something, like normal girls? No, instead she had a legacy, set by a father she never met.
She didn't even know his last name.
But none of that mattered now – what's done is done, as they say- and she was in deeper than ever.
But that might not matter now, because the best case scenario would be her death.
You can always back out, the idealistic part of her mind whispered.
But she couldn't be an idealist – not when her life was on the line.
Yea, but what then? This is how I make my living. Where would I go?
She had been raised by Shinobi – the organization that was, for lack of better words, a classier version of a mafia. You came to the Captain wanting a job done, settle a payment, and then the Shinobi would take care of it. Fail-safe, really. No records accessible to the public, no legal boundaries, just an exchange of cash.
She groaned.
Maybe she could get one of her friends to help her out – call in a favor from Temari or Naruto. Danzo was a prick; she'd have support.
But Temari's too far away and Naruto's in the hospital.
And, as she found out, everyone else was on a mission or on leave.
Ugh. This was what sucked about being Bound – you couldn't defy orders, not matter how goddamn much you wanted to. Bend rules, yes, twist truths, sometimes, but directly defy orders?
She had seen firsthand what happened when you tried. The symptoms began with sweating, and in the beginning were similar to an asthma attack. Then it got worse – you were weakened, began coughing up blood. Exhaustion was a tame way to put it – the life was sucked out of you. It was a gruesome way to die, and happened in all of two minutes if you didn't submit.
She groaned again and began picking up the wreckage that used to be on her table.
God, Tenten. When was the last time you cleaned up around here?
She wasn't dirty, but she wasn't organized. She didn't mind clutter – she wasn't Lee with his meticulously organized flat, or Neji, who lived the life of a minimalist. After a hard week of training, school, and missions, she really just barely had the will to do laundry, let alone clean up simple clutter.
So the notepad with the number on it caught her eye as she scooped everything up onto the tabletop.
Huh. It didn't look familiar. What the hell was it doing here?
She scanned the note, and then remembered. Last year – that blond guy. He had passed out in the alleyway next to her apartment complex. He had the looks of Shinobi about him, if not something awful close. It might not have been the smartest idea, but Tenten had slung him over her shoulders and brought him inside. He was injured, obviously not a civilian – a fallen comrade in arms, in her opinion. She couldn't not help him.
She had called HQ and asked if there was anything amiss – but by the time she was off the phone he was gone. All that was left was a note, a number, a name, and a promise.
Hey, girl –
Thanks for saving my ass back there. Don't know what you heard, but it's probably best that you forget it. Don't go sticking your nose where it doesn't belong.
As it goes, I don't like owing debts. So, if you ever need help getting outta something sticky, call the number.
Any time, any place.
No questions asked.
-Deidara I.
And I'll bet that he's Bound.
Tenten frowned, thinking back to the specifications of the mission. She bit her lip, mulling everything over. It's been over a year. He probably doesn't remember…but then again, he's Bound by his word, too…and he looked strong. Eh, I think. Wasn't he kinda scrawny?
The details were kinda fuzzy, but she was almost positive that he had had the lean build of a fighter.
It's not like you've got anything left to lose. This mission doesn't get completed tonight, and you'll die regardless.
So Tenten picked up a phone and carefully dialed the number written on the pad. It dialed, and she waited, steeling herself for whatever came.
It was picked up on the seventh ring. "Hello?"
"Remember when you said no questions asked?"
Xxxxxxxxxxx
Deidara had been icing his jaw when he got the phone call.
One of the many joys of being Bound, eh?
The bruise was the result of 'impudence,' or so his superiors would say. Deidara mentally kicked himself, but the look on the man's face, right before the back of aforementioned man's hand collided with his jaw – was priceless.
You're on thin ice, Iwa.
Yea, right. He was one of the few in the Explosion Corps who didn't get blown up along with the target. As a soldier, he was practically irreplaceable. Killing him would result in many unfavorable outcomes for his murderer – and lucky for him, Kabuto knew this.
However, that didn't prevent him from asserting his authority like a freakin' queen bitch of the pack.
Whines like a bitch and hits like one, too.
So when the call came, Deidara was almost fully expecting an exasperated Sasori, or perhaps a crass Hidan.
Not some little girl.
"Is this Deidara?" she asked. Her voice sounded timid, almost. As if she weren't completely sure about what she was doing.
What?
"Yea," he responded easily, mind whirring as to why a girl would be calling him –not that he was complaining, but he had more important things to worry about. Such was the life of a Bound.
"Remember when you said no questions asked?"
It took him a second, and at first he was wondering when he had recently been drunk – but then he remembered.
Damn, that was a long time ago. He remembered hastily scrawling a note and then leaving through the window near the fire escape. And yes, he remembered –I'll help you, no questions asked.
Stupid, he knew, but what choice did he have? He was Bound to finish the job and not be found; but, in all probability, that girl had saved his life, so he was Bound to repay her, too.
"Yea," he said, a lilting tone to his words. "I remember."
"Do you know where Seventh and Spring Garden is?"
A smirk played on his lips. Oh, he knew that area very well. "As a matter of fact, yea, hm."
"Meet me there. Midnight. Bring a weapon and wear black. I'll stick around for five minutes, and if you're not there, I'll assume you didn't show."
"Right," he said, but he was already listening to the dial tone.
Seventh and Spring Garden…damn…what does she want, a body guard to a concert or something? Midnight? Black- weapon? Oh, shit.
It was highly unlikely, but if she had to do what he thought she had to do…
Tonight, it seemed, was going to be a rather interesting one.
Xxxxxxxxxxx
Tenten had six hours.
She hung around, locked up the apartment, ate dinner and watched some mindless T.V. By nine she had eaten a Snickers bar – the instant energy was good for missions like these – and was gearing up.
Her basic ensemble consisted of black cargo pants and a specially-designed, not-even-available-yet Kevlar shirt. It was thin and appeared to be made of cotton to the eye, but on the contrary – it was as strong as spider's silk and guaranteed to protect her from ninety percent of would-be fatal wounds to her torso.
She tugged on her boots and gloves, put her hair up, and then chose her weapons.
Tenten was a weapon's mistress. She liked pointy things. She was knew how fragile the human body was. She was fascinated by how quickly the fragile human body could die when impaled with pointy things.
She had a beautiful relationship with her blades.
You could tell how difficult a mission would be by the weapons Tenten selected. Mass of shuriken and maybe a kunai or two? She'd be doing a hit-and-run. Crossbow? She'd be playing sniper. Hordes of throwing knives? You'd better believe she was expecting some close-combat fighting.
Tonight she would take her standard shuriken and kunai, along with her standard Swiss Army knife and skeleton key.
But tonight's real difficulty could be seen in that she took her sword – a slick, sleek katana that had been given to her before she even knew what 'katana' meant.
She kept it at her side as she tried to sit still, watching T.V., but it was no use. She was jittery.
She was almost grateful when eleven thirty rolled around and she had to strap her sword onto her back and ride her motorcycle down to the rendezvous.
Motorcycles were the only form of transportation that Shinobi were allowed to take with them onto missions, unless it was a team job and a chauffeur was provided. The Captain said something about 'ambiguity, speed, easier camouflage and gas efficiency.' Tenten just thought that it made them look badass – but she wasn't complaining.
She was nervous – and it wasn't just pre-mission jitters. This guy – Deidara – what would he be like? He was Bound, sure, but still. He wasn't Neji or Lee, wasn't even Naruto. She had no idea as to how he operated.
But she needed to get in her zone. It was a huge part of missions – getting into your zone, with just the mission, only the mission. False confidence it may be, but the single moment of indecision made all the difference.
But that doesn't matter now. He said he'd help, and if he doesn't show up, so what. You're gonna do this, Tenten. No one can stop you. Indestructible.
Invincible.
Assassin.
Warrior.
Those hounds had better run when they see me, tail between their legs.
Like I said, it was experimental and subject to tweaking.
As always, let me know your thoughts.