Disclaimer: i don't own naruto in any way shape or form. This story is simply something i came up with during work.
Higurashi Tenten sat atop a roof overlooking the academy and reflected on the recent past of the village. She tapped her cheek thoughtfully while her memory painted a vivid picture of her recollections.
---flashback---
Konoha, with their allies, the suna, had launched a massive attack against otogakure. It had not been without losses, but they had managed to destroy the village that had reeked of evil. Her own sensei, gai, had died after killing the village's leader, orochimaru's replacement. He had needed to use the full eight gates to destroy the missing nin formerly from kumogakure. Her team-mates, lee and neji had been severely wounded protecting the jounin's fallen body. Lee's body was wrecked up worse than when he had fought gaara and neji had lost sight in one eye, as well as near fatal blood loss. Tenten had suffered numerous lacerations and a couple of bone fractures, faring better because she had been fighting as long range support for one of the other assault teams. She had only learnt of gai's death after they had regrouped and the two rivals had been found collapsed atop his body.
---flashback end---
She sighed and wiped a tear that threatened to fall. She should go visit them soon. They had both retired from active ninja life, neji to teach younglings from the hyuuga how to use jyuuken and their byakugan, lee to take over gai's hobby, a taijutsu dojo for young children.
She hopped lightly down from the roof and sighed again. She couldn't retire, she didn't think she could handle civilian life, but it was going to be hard. Luckily, her old academy sensei, iruka, had come by to talk to her during her stint in the hospital.
---flashback---
Iruka limped into the room on crutches, and sat down by the bed. He briefly read the report on the bedside table and sighed in relief.
"It looks like you'll made a full and speedy recovery, tenten. I'm very happy that you'll be fine. How do you feel?"
She had looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes, and then he leaned down and put his arms around her. She clung to him, weeping uncontrollably. Iruka had become a father figure to many of those who attended the academy, more so for those without parents and tenten had lost hers during the kyuubi assault. She had been lucky enough to be taken in by her father's brother, who owned higurashi weapons, a respected shop.
Iruka simply held her, patting her back and whispering soothing words to her. After the crying had stopped, he laid her back down carefully, not wanting to exaggerate her wounds. He had smiled again, a little sadly.
"We were team-mates, you know. Back in our genin days. He was always over the top, but he could usually back up his words. His skill with taijutsu was crazy, even back then."
Iruka had rambled for a little while, imparting some of his experiences with the slightly crazy taijutsu master of konoha. Tenten had smiled, even laughed from time to time during his recollection. The kind man who made teaching his lifestyle had helped ease her burden with his calming presence and way of talking.
When he had finally finished recounting the last dinner they had spent together before the team separated, tenten had finally noticed and inquired about his wounds, but he had simply grinned and said that another old friend had helped him out of a tricky situation. He offered to introduce her if she stopped by the academy.
---flashback end---
So she walked in the front door of the academy a few days later, bandages still in place along with a heavy coat against the chill wind. She pushed open the door and asked the secretary whether iruka was in his usual class. Hearing he was out to lunch with his friend, she smiled and thanked the young lady, leaving the academy. She started walking to ichiraku's and thought about naruto with a small sad smile. That goofy kid had really grown on her until she had harboured a small crush on him after defeating neji. His recent actions had made her worry about him a lot.
---flashback---
Naruto had come back with the konoha force sullen and depressed. He hadn't let anyone touch him, even though when he had been found, he had been covered in wounds. His battle gear had been ripped, torn and covered in blood. He had simply walked along silently, snapping at anyone who tried to touch him. Even when sakura had tried to talk him into letting her clean him up, he had yelled at her, telling her to leave him alone and when she had tried to force him he had shoved her to the ground roughly, screaming to be left alone. It had taken the rest of the rookie nine to hold him back, several of them coming off the worse for wear.
When they had returned, he had stood in front of the council with a fully charged rasenshuriken and threatened to destroy them all if they didn't make jiraiya co-hokage along with tsunade. The council had been cowed by the jinchuuriki's fearsome presence and had assented. When jiraiya and tsunade had come to him, screaming bloody murder, the blonde weapon had turned to face them and charged up a rasenshuriken in either hand before speaking just above the wind they created.
"it's the best thing to do for konoha right now. You two will do it, and then you will make the village stay away from me. If you do not, i will leave konoha and never come back."
The two had been afraid for the blonde teen who had become like a grandson to them. They had found that his idea had been incredibly smart in practice. Jiraiya brought in heaps of information, his spy network even more effective after finding their head now had the political power to bring his threats to fruition, not just threaten with his own power. Tsunade helped him use that information to better konoha while she had spent the rest of her time informing the village about naruto's wish to be alone. Any groceries he asked for were put directly on her tab, and he was not to be spoken to unless necessary or he spoke first.
No-one had seen him in a month except for a small grocery shop on the edge of town, that he had stopped in once for five minutes.
---flashback end---
She sighed again and flushed slightly when she recalled catching a few glimpses of his torso through his ruined clothes. She shook her head to clear the images and saw ichiraku's around a corner. There were three men sitting down, on was iruka, his crutches next to him. The others was a slim man with a pony-tail to the middle of his back and a massive man with blue tinted skin with a wrapped zanbatou next to him.
She recognised the two as itachi and kisame, legendary missing nin who were powerful enough to fight against bijuu by themselves. But iruka was laughing and joking with the two of them while ayame was flirting a little with an oblivious itachi. She was also helping him eat for some reason.
Tenten slipped a few kunai into her sleeve for easy access in case things went sour. Then, taking a deep breath, she sat down beside iruka and tapped him on the shoulder.
All three men turned to look at her, kisame grinning an easy grin and iruka smiling his usual smile. Itachi smiled a forced little smile, but he obviously couldn't see her, his eyes were bound with a thick bandage. Now she understood ayame's assistance with his meal. She had always been very friendly and he had been a local heart-throb before he had left the village so famously.
"Hey tenten. Allow me to introduce you to a couple of my friends. They won't hurt you, i promise. Kisame, you may have heard of, and, of course, you would know about itachi. i promise they won't hurt you, in fact, these two were the one who helped me out the other day."
Kisame offered his hand in a friendly gesture and she took it, marvelling at his strength, shaking her hand gingerly afterwards while he chuckled and mumbled an apology. Itachi bowed his head slightly lower than a standard welcome bow.
"Tenten, i must apologise. my partner and i once fought against your master, gai-sama. He was a great adversary and he prowess was enough to force us to retreat, no mean feat. My deepest sympathies for his passing."
His tone was very quiet and respectful and he kept his head bowed the whole time and he sounded genuinely sorry for her loss. Kisame, now recognising her from his fight against her team through a jutsu, bowed his head and offered his condolences and respect for the man as well. She wiped her eyes and smiled at them sadly.
"Yeah, gai-sensei was a great man. i appreciate your kind words, but i must ask how you came to be within konoha's walls and not being hunted by ANBU. Would you mind telling me?"
Iruka smiled and chuckled, but surprisingly, itachi spoke up over kisame's usually boisterous nature. His tone was easy and comfortable and he smiled as he spoke.
"Myself and kisame had become much greater friends than our 'masters' in akatsuki had wanted. After our recent involvement in the battle at otogakure, we spoke with uzumaki naruto in regards to the kyuubi. He swayed us to assist him in the fight and fought against my younger brother, sasuke. During the battle, naruto was forced to kill sasuke.
When he left after the battle, we remembered our conversations with him and decided that we were tired of fighting, tired of constant battle and being forced into war against for evil men. So, we assisted some refugees, recommending they come with us to konoha. We brought three families who joined us, some of them going on to sunagakure instead.
When we arrived, we bypassed the gate guards, wishing to avoid causing alarm and heard a commotion. The academy was being attacked by the remnants of otogakure, iruka fighting along with two other senseis. We jumped down to assist just as one of the senseis fell. Making short work of them, we rushed iruka and the other sensei to the hospital where we spoke to tsunade. We asked her to take us in."
"More like begged." Chuckled kisame "still, it worked."
"indeed, there are some restrictions on either side, but i offered two sets of sharingan eyes for the village, sasuke's and my own. She wanted me to keep my own eyes, but i didn't want those cursed things in my head and longer." Then he smiled slightly again. "it's more than one such as i deserve, but she's going to implant some ordinary eyes in for me. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't listen."
Ayame slapped the back of his hand sharply and then touched his cheek gently. "you shouldn't say that sort of thing about yourself. You're a good man, itachi." As an after-thought, she turned to kisame and smirked. "You're not a complete bastard either."
He chuckled and finished off his bowl of ramen while ayame began to feed itachi his. "Anyways, the long and short of it, we both agreed to join konoha as non-active ninja but swore fealty to the will of fire. Itachi wishes to become a sensei in the academy, while i wanna help the ANBU and anyone else who's willing to improve their swordsmanship. A few sensible restrictions, a daily mind-scan by a yamanaka to be sure of our allegiance, and jiraiya has a couple toads following us for a few weeks."
He squinted at tenten then, "if i recall, you're a weapons master, the weapons mistress of konoha, in fact. I'd be happy to help you with your swordsmanship once i get a dojo set up. First few lessons are free for you."
On the inside, she was giddy with excitement. She was in awe of the man's skill with his zanbatou and the rumours said he was just as strong with normal size blades. She bowed her head and enthusiastically thanked him, insisting on paying for his ramen this time in thanks.
Iruka and ayame shared a chuckle at their antics and even itachi smiled. Then iruka took a deep breath, turning to tenten and broached a topic she hadn't even thought of yet.
"What do you intend to do with yourself now? I'm sorry, but your team has officially been disbanded. You could continue on, joining other teams as necessary, but that kinda sucks for a young jounin."
"I hadn't really thought of it, but I suppose you're right. What do you think, iruka-sensei? What should i do with myself?" she sighed palmed her face. It was a big decision for her and it reminded her about the tragedy in her team right now.
Iruka put his hand on her shoulder and smiled.
"Luckily, i have an option available for you. Three of the refugees these two guided here were genin in the academy of otogakure. They're to be put together in a team when they graduate in a few weeks and i think you'd be a great sensei for that team. Would you consider it?"
She thought about it and it actually sounded nice. She'd be good at training people, what with the two training nuts running their butts off every day, working themselves into the ground. She wasn't sure she'd be great at it, but she figured she'd give it a go. So she smiled and hugged iruka.
"it sounds great. I'm not released to active duty for a while yet. I wanted to try to find naruto and cheer him up in the meantime. Any ideas where he is?"
The rest of the afternoon passed in easy conversation and to her surprise, she got along great with itachi and kisame. Kisame had a great sense of humour and itachi had a surprising wide streak of manners and kindness. The four had eaten lunch, stayed for a few drinks and a long, long conversation, then stayed for dinner afterwards.
The morning after, she had woken up in her uncle's forge. She liked to sleep directly above the hot forge. She always thought the heat helped her muscles relax and unknot. She ate a quick breakfast, showered gingerly, the water splashing over her cuts still stinging like crazy. Then she went out to search for one specific person to help her find naruto.
A/N: i don't know why i wanted tenten to be the sensei of this team, it's a team of oc's that i thought up at work. You'll meet them either the next chapter or the chapter after that. I'm not sure how long this story will be, but i do intend to write up a more detailed side story of itachi and kisame's journey and plea to join konoha to tsunade.
Fyi, jiraiya survived his battle with pein, but was in a coma for months afterwards at the toad mountain. I may change cannon several times over the story, but i'll write up anything you need to know in an author's note.
This is my first story i've posted, so please be gentle in your reviews. I'm not sure i'll be able to keep to any sort of schedule for posting but i hope you enjoy my story