Disclaimer: The Naruto characters are (c) Masashi Kishimoto.
Author's Note: I'm sorry, I'm just infatuated with KankuTen. And I'm really sorry the title sucks so bad. And I'm also really sorry if you think this one sucks, but I've been trying to write a good KankuTen story (since my other two sucked) and hopefully got closer to my goal this time. Please read and review, and I will love you forever. And I will give you a hug. Well, not really. But you get my point. Thanks for reading, and being patient with my KankuTen obsession!
Your eyes are open, your path is chosen.
A nineteen-year-old girl with her hair tied into two dark brunette buns held three kunai in each hand. She was crouched behind a bush, breathing heavily. Straining her leg muscles by thrusting herself in the air, she flicked both her hands forward. Six consecutive thumps could be heard, each a millisecond apart, as her kunai hit the tree. Flipping mid-air, she landed behind into another bush. She reached down to quickly drum her fingertips against the scroll that was tied to her belt, and six new kunai filled the gaps between her fingers.
She continued this drill several more times. After a few more leaps and flicks of her wrists, she landed in front of the tree. She counted the weapons embedded in the tree.
Twenty-four kunai, all about two centimeters deep in the wood, were horizontally lined up in the bark, perfectly straight. Except for the twenty-fourth, which was a few millimeters lower than the rest. I'm getting sloppy. She thought, frowning.
"Impressive." A low, accented voice startled her. Whirling around and tapping her scroll, the girl faced the intruder with a katana, tip pointed exactly a foot away from his heart.
The boy had entered the clearing without the girl realizing it. How long has he been standing there? She wondered, katana not wavering as she glared at him.
He was standing in the middle of the clearing, not at all phased by the fact that she had a long blade pointed at his heart, with his hands on his hips. He an all black baggy suit with a red and yellow sphere stitched onto the chest. He wore a smirk on his painted face, and he chuckled with amusement. His hat, which had the Suna symbol on it, was pulled down slightly over his face so his eyes were obscured. He had pulled his wrapped puppet off his back and set it on the ground, and was leaning one elbow on top of it.
Inching her weapon closer, she spoke. "Go away, or I will skewer you." And she meant it.
His smile grew. "I gave you a compliment, Tenny. The correct response is 'Thanks, Kankuro!'" He laughed, obviously not feeling at all threatened.
"Don't call me Tenny." She huffed, realizing that he probably wouldn't leave peacefully.
As she thought of ways to injure him enough to scare him off, he spoke. "Want me to help you train? I don't have to be back in Suna until tomorrow."
The girl glared at him suspiciously, but her katana disappeared into a puff of smoke. Her expression was guarded as he tugged on the white wrapping he had around his puppet. In a whirl of dust and wood shavings, Karasu was flung over his master's shoulders. "Come on, Tenten. You know you want to." His grin was now converted back into a smirk.
You can't back down now, you've come too far now.
After a second of deliberating in her head, Tenten finally agreed. Nodding, she pressed two fingers against her scroll. A long handled sythe and a dagger were quickly distributed into her hands as she leapt up on her sore leg muscles and into the tree her kunai were in.
Still standing in the middle of the clearing, Kankuro muttered his jutsu under his breath. Karasu came to life, a sickening cracking noise filling the air as the wooden figure stretched to life.
From her spot on the branch above him, Tenten put the sythe and dagger into her belt and went over a quick battle plan in her head. She couldn't aim for Karasu, or attempt to cut the chakra strings, so she decided on an attack from the air. Running to the end of the branch and tossing her scroll out so it unwraveled itself, she leapt out into the open air over Kankuro and threw weapons down at him as quickly as she could drum her fingers against the paper.
Karasu, who Kankuro manuvered to jump over his head between him and Tenten, blocked all the shots. Landing a mere two meters away from Kankuro, Tenten rushed at him from behind and thrust a dagger towards his back.
Thud. The metal hit Karasu's wooden back.
Kicking out with her leg and hitting the handle of the sythe that was still in her belt, the blade of her longer weapon swung up towards Kankuro and dug into the puppet-nin's leg. He howled, but Tenten had already leapt back into the tree.
The ugly face of Karasu came flying through the leaves, poison dripping off the needle in his mouth. She dodged it, threw a couple knives past it for good measure, and leapt up further into the tree.
Karasu followed, human-like hair fluttering and three wide eyes watching her. A knife portruding from the puppet's knee was thrust at her, and it hit her side. Hissing as the poison began to spread through her system, Tenten flew out into the air and into another tree.
Roughly thirty kunai came flying out of the tree, half at Karasu and half at Kankuro. Karasu ended up being pinned to the tree, and Kankuro had severed his chakra strings. Without Karasu to defend him, Kankuro was hit with every single blade. He fell to the ground with a thud, and was still. He groaned.
Leaping to the ground, Tenten walked over to the puppet master. He looked up at her with wide eyes. "Match...over." He could barely grunt, as he flinched at the pain caused by at least fifty kunai that had dug into his skin.
Kneeling down beside him, she began to extract the small weapons. "You okay?" She asked, a bit worried as the crimson blood began to pool.
"I will be..." He hissed as she pulled one out of his upper leg. "Careful!"
Blushing furiously, she pulled out another kunai that had most likely chipped his pelvic bone. He looked up at her, dark brown eyes hazy. "You're cute when you blush." He laughed, practically dilerious from the pain.
Now this made Tenten blush even worse. She didn't blush often, but in the presence of the sand ninja, she couldn't help it. "Sorry." Was all she could mutter as she continued to pull kunai out of his gut and stomach. Most of them had only penetrated only a centimeter deep, so they weren't fatal shots. Unless he bled out, but Tenten wouldn't let that happen.
"I have bandages in my bag." He told her, wincing as she pulled a particularly deep one out of his arm. Lifting the arm, he pointed with his large fingers towards a black sack several meters away.
And now it's time to stand up and take your best shot.
Extracting the last of the kunai out of his chest and scuttling to the pack quickly, she rummaged through it. There was a bag of tea leaves, a bottle of medicine, and bandages.
When she returned to his side, he had wriggled out of the upper part of his large suit. It hung from his hips, much like a sweater would when tied around someone's waist. His chest had several long scars on it, obviously not from the kunai and long ago healed.
As he sat up slowly so she could wrap his torso, she asked him about it. "Why do you have those scars?" Her fingers fluttered delicately over his skin, making his cheeks tint a slight pink underneath his purple face paint.
He answered with a whimper. "Lets just say my father was a disagreeable man. And I offered to take most of Temari and Gaara's beatings as well." His dark eyes were glazed over as memories flashed through his mind.
Apologizing, Tenten abruptly changed the subject. "So, what got you into puppeting?"
Smiling slightly despite his pain, he answered this question with a chirp. "My mother. She always loved to watch me play with the small figures with the real strings." He smiled up at her. "After father left when I was ten, I found freedom in controling the lifeless wooden characters. And I guess the adoration for doing so spilled over into my ninjustu."
Her final question regarded the contents of his backpack. "Why do you have tea leaves in your bag?"
Grinning sheepishly up at Tenten, Kankuro's blush became even more noticable. "What, a guy can't have a calming cup of tea from time to time?" They laughed together.
Speaking again, Kankuro's eyes shone as an epiphany revealed itself in his mind. "Want me to make you some? The leaves in my bag are from Temari's garden, and they're delicious..." He stopped mid-sentence as he saw her eyes staring widely at him.
"S-sorry, I was being rude, inviting myself over...it was out of place..." He stuttered apologetically, but Tenten interrupted him.
"That would be nice."
You made it, just take it.
One hour later, the two were sitting cross-legged on the floor of Tenten's apartment, their laughter roichetting off the walls. His low chuckle perfectly balanced her melodious giggle.
As she watched him, she saw how transformed he looked without his hat and facial decorations. She had washed off his makeup for him with a wet washcloth, and he had prepared the tea. Tenten had started a flame in the fireplace, and it cast eerie shadows in the otherwise dark area.
Tenten raised the cup to her lips and delicately sipped her tea, she thought about how human he was. His pain, both current and long-lost, was real. He suffered like everyone else, he had emotions too. As Tenten watched, she noticed more details about her new companion.
For instance, his pinky twitched when he brought his own teacup up to his lips. Seeing such a large hand on a cup of tea was strange to Tenten; she only had tea regularly with Lee, and his fingers were quite feminine.
And the way Kankuro's upper lip arched when he laughed, and his lower lip quivered when he assumed a hurt expression. These specific details had her leaning in closer to him on occasion, only for her to pull herself back while mentally scolding herself.
Kankuro had picked up these movements, but said nothing. Finally, as she jerked herself backward for a third time, he grinned slyly at her. "I'm getting the impression that you're attempting to flirt with me."
Speechless, Tenten's mouth gaped open in an unattractive matter. "A-am not..." She mumbled, trying to convince herself as well as Kankuro.
"Are too." He corrected her, leaning closer and closer to her and causing her to quickly suck in her breath. "And you're failing miserably. I'll show you how you really do it." He said lightheartedly, only stopping his forward motion when he was a mere few inches away from her face. "You look beautiful in this light, Tenten." His words were accompanied by the soft breaths that he expelled on her face.
This might be your once in a lifetime, take your best shot.
With suddenly dry lips, Tenten ran her tongue along them and gulped. She had no idea what to say. The puppet-nin was so close to her face, she probably wouldn't had noticed somebody crashing through the window behind her with Kankuro in such a close radius of her mouth.
Smirking at her loss for words, Kankuro pulled himself back. "Now you try, Tenny." He teased her.
Shaking her head and blinking her honey-brown eyes, Tenten snapped her jaw shut.
"So you wanna play that way, huh?" He asked, laughing. "It's fine, we can just talk." But he winked a dark eye at her and eased himself onto his back. "So, what can you tell me about yourself?"
Not wasting an oppurtunity to be steered away from the subject of flirting with the sand nin, Tenten spoke with a slightly confused voice. "Uh...I don't know my parents. And I have no sibblings, that I know of. I guess you could say I'm an orphan." She offered.
Kankuro's eyes shimmered with curiosity. "How did you get to good at handling weapons, with nobody to teach you?"
"I guess I figured it out." She shrugged, a bit less tense. "Gai-sensei took me under his wing when I was eight years old, because he saw me in the back yard at the orphanage throwing stones at a tree. I hit the same spot every time. Gai-sensei was impressed with my aim, for such a young child, and trained me in the art of more advanced weaponry."
"Could you kill me with pretty much anything in this room?" Kankuro inquired.
Tenten smiled, almost wolfishly. "Sure. If you really want me to..."
Laughing, Kankuro spoke again. "No thanks, I think you've injured me enough for one day."
After a few moments of confortable silence, Kankuro muttered. "That was a pretty smart technique, though. Caught me way off-guard." He smiled softly.
Tenten stared at him, and then leaned in closer to Kankuro's face. "Are you flirting with me? Because you're doing a pathetic job." She said, feeling accomplished when a deep blush colored his cheeks.
"So what if I am?" Kankuro said defensively. "And that's not even my best, Tenny. I'm sure I would win you over with my wit, good looks, and amazing sense of humor." His chest swelled up as he held himself with mock pride.
"Well, 'that' was a good joke." Tenten snorted at him pulling herself back. "Maybe you do have a sense of humor, but your smarts and appearance could be worked on." She stuck out her lower lip, imitating someone lovestruck. "Oh, Kanky-kun, you're simply so handsome and the most brilliant ninja. I'm struck by your eyes, so deep and full of passion..." She emphasized several words, with her own dark brown eyes glowing.
Don't waste it, or you'll be there faceless.
It was Kankuro's turn to lean in close to her, making her flow of words stop. "Would you like to see my best flirting then, Tenten?" He was closer than before, only an inch away from her mouth. His hot breath fanned against her face, making her eyes flutter closed.
A softly muttered "Sure." had barely passed her lips when she felt his mouth crash down over hers. She was suprised by how softly he kissed her, and how his tongue gently found its way though her lips and ran over her own teasingly. Her stomach was twirling, making her feel nauseated, and her head was spinning wildly.
Kankuro was kissing her, and she was 'liking' it.
She felt his gloved hands softly caress her face, only to migrate to the back of her head and untie the strings that held her hair in its shape. Her long locks fell down her back, and he tangled his fingers in it, pulling her closer but still kissing her gently.
With a surge of confidence, she leaned into him so their chests touched. She tried not to disturb the bandages that he had wrapped around his torso. He made an animalistic whine as she pulled back so she could gasp for air.
"Y-you kissed me back..." He was shocked. He had expected her to push him away, to shriek in disgust.
"You kissed me in the first place. So I guess we're both guilty." She reminded him, unsure if he had actually meant to kiss her like that. She averted her eyes.
Nodding numbly, Kankuro still gazed at her face. "I meant the kiss, you know. It wasn't just to upset you. I actually did want to." He assured her, voice shot with confusion. "But if you don't want..." He never finished his sentence.
Tenten had knocked him over and was on top of him, hands on his face and pulling him closer to her mouth. She kissed him again, with the intention of never stopping. She had drawn her knees up, so she was straddling his hips and pressing her stomach against his. Her mouth covered his, kissing him more roughly than before. Wrapping his arms around her, he kissed her back welcomingly.
And for once, both Tenten and Kankuro felt at home.
Cause it's once in a lifetime, so take your best shot.