Hi guys! For those of you that have read my other stories, I apologize for starting a new one when I haven't finished any of them, but my inner muse just wasn't interested. I wanted to write something dark, and who better to base it around than my favourite female character!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. If I did, Naruto wouldn't be such an idiot, Sasuke wouldn't be such an ungrateful ass and Sasori wouldn't be dead, among other things. I cried so hard when Sasori died…
Anyway, let's begin!
Chapter 1- The secret
The night was dark, the crescent moon in the sky barely illuminating the trees. All was peaceful. The leaves on the trees rustled slightly as a light breeze passed through them. A mouse gave a final pitiful squeak as an owl swept down, claiming its life. And if you listened very, very carefully, there was the faint breathing of a human, hidden in the dark. She blends in so well it is as if she is made from the shadows themselves, a true creature of the night slipping soundlessly in between reality and the imaginary.
She is waiting for something. What it is would be unknown, but for the glint of her kunai, out and waiting for use, and the great care she's taken in concealing herself. Tonight, someone is going to die, and it won't be her. The perfect assassin, she sits and waits patiently, allowing the surroundings to wrap around her until she no longer exists.
She breathes in sharply, breaking the perfect tranquility of the scene briefly. One of her tripwires has been set off. She can't see or hear the target yet, but she knows it's coming closer. Soon, her waiting will pay off.
A slight smile creeps onto her face, hidden behind a plain black mask. He's here.
A flash of a kunai, a muffled cry, and a thud as the body hits the floor, and then the stillness of the night returns. She waits for a few moments to ensure he wasn't being followed, then relaxes and leaves her hiding place, unsheathing a katana as she does so.
Reaching the body, she kneels down and quickly and efficiently removes the head, storing it in a sealing scroll. She does this in a matter of seconds and without spilling so much as a drop of blood on her. It is very important to her that the scent of blood does not follow her. If there is evidence of her kills on her, her secret could remain so no longer.
She straightens. A good hunter nin would now incinerate the body, but she's no hunter nin; and she doesn't know any fire jutsu anyway. She despises such things for their flashiness, their unnecessary loudness. She is quiet, discreet and efficient in everything she does.
Instead of incinerating it, she leaves the body where it lies for the animals to eat after briefly checking the body for valuables. Eventually, it will be absorbed back into the earth, feeding all the trees in this area. She likes Nature. The circle of life does all the cleaning up after her. Even if the body is found before it has properly decomposed, it doesn't matter. There is nothing to trace it back to her and even if there was, it was unlikely they'd try. In this world, deaths happen all the time and, although in life the man had been the fire lord's eldest son and very influential, he would be hard to identify without his head. They would assume he was yet another ninja who lost a battle.
A second later and she is gone, just a black blur jumping through the treetops, her black coat flying out behind her. She leaves behind only a headless body, rapidly cooling, and a puddle of blood, sinking into the soil. The wolves are already moving in, and soon these last remnants will be gone too.
As she approaches her home village, after making a quick stop to collect her bounty from the fire lord's second son, she thanks Kami for Konoha's abysmal security. She easily slips past the guards and as soon as she is within the walls of Konoha she takes off her mask and coat, sealing them into another sealing scroll. As she seals the money away, she wonders what to buy with it. As always, half will go into her bank account- under a different name to avoid any difficult questions- but that still leaves her with a lot of yen. Perhaps now she can afford that obsidian kusari-gama that she'd been eyeing for so long…
Pinning up her hair into her signature buns, she smiles mirthlessly. It was time to return to her alter-ego, harmless, innocent forgotten little Tenten, Konoha Chuunin.
Ok, that was pretty different to my usual style, although perhaps similar in some ways to Shadow Vixen.
Please review and tell me your thoughts: was it good? Should I continue with it? Do you want any pairings, and if so, which? Also, please read my other stories if you haven't already! I practically live off reviews… I'm not joking, they make me sickeningly happy.
