Started: May 10, 2008 12:40 PM

Of Guns and Roses

1. Prologue

A NejiTen fic

By Musei Kage

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto

The moment Tenten stepped into Konohan High, she knew she was in the wrong place. Konohan High was like no other high school in the district; reputed to be filled with gangs and violence. The students there were mostly delinquents or sent there by court and also rumoured to be descended from the yakuza. Tenten was new to the area, just arrived from the East in her senior year of high school. But it wasn't as if she had chosen to attend Konohan. With her marks, the bun-haired girl could have easily gotten into Suna Academy, but unfortunately, she hadn't passed the entrance exams due to a fever on the day the exam was being written. Thus, this is how poor innocent Tenten found herself attending a school, where life as she knew it, would be turned upside down.

"Hey cutie, I don't think I've seen you around before," Tenten heard someone whistle. 'Oh shit.'

"The name's Kiba Inuzuka," a brunette sporting odd red marks on his cheek approached her, "What's yours?"

Before Tenten could reply, from behind him, his pony-tailed friend sighed and warned, "Knock it off, Inuzuka, Ino will have your head if you don't stop flirting; especially with one of the scholarship students." He nodded his head towards Tenten to emphasize his point. It was then that Tenten noticed that no one was wearing the standard school uniform; in fact, she was the only one who was wearing it!

"My name's Tenten, thank you very much," said she.

The Chinese girl jumped when she felt a hand on her shoulder, "Hey now, don't pick on us scholarship students!" Tenten whirled around to see a pink haired girl with emerald eyes, beaming at her.

"I'm Sakura Haruno, don't mind these boys, they're just stupid," Sakura rolled her eyes, "Well Kiba is anyways, Shikamaru here has an IQ of 200." Tenten had to fight the urge to let her jaw drop at the number.

"Ouch Sakura, that hurt," Kiba pouted, giving a very convincing impression of a puppy dog look.

"Serves you right," someone said loudly, and out of nowhere, a left shoe smacked Kiba on the face.

"Ino-chaaaan," Kiba picked up the shoe and looked up at the pissed looking blonde warily.

"Sorry about my boyfriend, he acts like a stupid mutt sometimes," Ino glared at said boyfriend. "Anyways, nice to meet you, uh…"

"Tenten," The bun haired female introduced herself again, "My name's Tenten, I just moved here."

"A newbie to Konohan I see. Don't worry Tenten-chan, we'll take good care of you!" Ino immediately hugged her. Tenten thought to herself, 'Maybe I was wrong about this place…It's not so bad.'

But boy was Tenten wrong.

It didn't take long for Tenten to adjust to her new life in Konoha, if you could call it adjusting. She didn't think she could ever get used to this jungle of a school. Of course, Sakura and Ino had advised her not to wear her uniform to school anymore; it would just attract more attention to her. Every morning, she would walk to school with the two loud best friends and the sweet and timid Hinata Hyuuga. Hinata didn't seem to belong to this school anymore than she did, but weirdly enough, Hinata wasn't a scholarship student and neither was Ino. Sakura was like Tenten, at Konohan High on scholarship, but Tenten could tell that there was more to it than that.

So anyways, every morning, the three of them would pick up Tenten before school and walk together. They didn't even live on the same side of town as she did though, but they insisted on walking her. Her friends all lived on the east side of town, where the land and the houses were bigger, so were the prices. But Tenten Long came from a more humble home, which lands her on the west side of town. Her father, Shen Wu, fashioned weapons as a business, from katanas to handguns. As a result, Tenten knew how to use every single one with ease. Her mother, Qi Lin, was a stay at home mom most of the time, but she ran the business with her husband also.

At school, she found herself enjoying class actually; it was a huge difference from her old school. Here, the classes were more or less run by the students, unless they liked the teacher. Teachers tended not to meddle in the students' affairs, so if a fight broke out in the hallways, they would just walk on by. This obviously made Tenten feel totally safe…not.

"Tenten, would you like to go outside and join the boys' soccer team?" Kakashi asked amusedly, catching Tenten staring out the window. Tenten blushed and shook her head. Kakashi was one of the well-liked teachers in this school; he was incredibly laid back to the point of being late all the time for class and giving them lame excuses. His mask was a running joke between students, who liked to guess what his whole face looked like.

"Good, moving on-…"

BANG

The sound of a gunshot interrupted his sentence. 'Guns? This has never happened before!' Tenten felt her heart skip a beat. Some students screamed and hid under their desks.

"What's going on?" Tenten asked the girl next to her.

"The Akatsuki are here again, they're trying to take over Leaf territory," she explained quickly, as another shot was fired. 'Crap, what kind of school is this again?'

"Akatsuki? Leaf? What?"

"The Leaf are a local gang, most of them attend school here. Your friends are part of it, how can you not know?"

"You mean…Ino and Sakura are…"

"Yes, geez, how stupid can you be? I thought you were a scholarship student." The girl rolled her eyes and joined her friends huddling in the corner.

Tenten exhaled the breath she realized she had been holding. To this moment, she had somehow befriended a group of gang members. She realizes that not all of the school are from gangs, which can be easily concluded by the large number of panicked looking students around the room. So what now?

If Tenten ever looked back on this moment, she'd probably agree that she'd been possessed or something of the sort, because she dashed out of the room to find her friends, who had disappeared from the classroom at some point.

The halls were crowded; by those brave enough to succumb to their curiosity. From the third floor of the school building, Tenten looked over the wall to the pavement. Below her, were 10, maybe 20, motorcycles at the entrance. Between them and the school, she recognized a number of her new friends, plus people she had never met standing. The motorcyclists all sported a deep red and black bandana on their body somewhere. The other side had blue bandanas.

Tenten wasn't sure if she should feel relived or not that it seemed the motorcycle gang leader was the only one who possessed a gun. The rest all held metal pipes, baseball bats or blunt objects of some sort.

"Tenten, over here," Tenten turned her head and saw her timid friend waving to her, a couple meters away.

"Why aren't you down there with them?" Tenten asked when she reached Hinata.

"Nii-san would never forgive me if I joined them."

"Nii-san?"

"My cousin, Neji, he goes to Konohan High too, but he's usually dealing with other business along with Lee-san."

"You mean, these past two weeks that I've been here, I never met him because he hasn't been to school?" Tenten couldn't imagine skipping classes for any more than three days. Hinata nodded.

"I just called him two minutes ago. He's going to be really angry to see the Akatsuki back again." Tenten just nodded numbly, not entirely sure what was going on.

As if on cue, the sounds of additional motorcycles were heard, and 5 more sped into the schoolyard and stopped between the two opposing sides.

"Ah, there he is," Hinata pulled her confused friend away before Tenten could catch a glimpse of whom she was referring to.

Tenten almost tripped numerous times while racing down the stairs with Hinata. She honestly never expected the timid girl to be so nimble. When they finally reached the stairs, Hinata joined Ino and Sakura's side with Tenten right next to her.

"Here, for your own protection," the fox-looking boy, whom Tenten learned was named Naruto, handed her a metal baseball bat. Tenten's eyebrow drastically shot up at the notion of fighting with the Leaf. What would her mother say if she went home with a black eye, or worse, didn't go home at all!

But nonetheless, Tenten gripped the bat tightly, ready to hit whoever was in her way.

"Ah Neji-sama, how nice of you to drop by. I guess I heard wrong when someone told me that you were out of town for the week." The opposing leader smirked at the male in front of Tenten, who she guessed was Hinata's cousin. She noticed the black gun he had clipped to his jeans.

"What business do you have here, Daisuke?" Neji demanded, "Or do you just want a repeat of what happened last time." The one named Daisuke reddened fiercely at the mention of his last defeat.

"I'm done playing nice with you, Hyuuga," he pulled out a second gun and aimed it at them, ready to fire. Narrowing his eyes, he cocked his gun and turned it towards Neji's head. Before anyone could react, a shot was fired. But not from Daisuke's guns.

All eyes turned to the bun-haired girl, who was holding a handgun in her slim hands. Some were shocked and some were confused. Where did this girl come from and whose gun was she holding?

In actuality, once Tenten had seen Daisuke reach for his gun, Tenten lunged for the closest one she could find, which was Neji's. Everything seemed to go in slow motion as she aimed for the angry male's arm since she didn't want to be sentenced for murder, and with great speed, released the trigger like her dad had taught her.

A cry was heard from Daisuke, once the pain registered in his brain and the attention diverted away from her. But Neji still had his gaze fixed on her, with a hint of admiration showing. His opalescent eyes were the last things she saw before she completely passed out from the adrenaline rush. And this, my dear reader, is where the story really begins.

End Chapter 1

Finished: May 10, 2008 2:40 PM

Edited: May 31, 2011