PROLOGUE

"Tenten! Now!"

Konoha's weapons mistress felt her own heartbeat accelerate, the sense of urgency in her comrade's voice adding that additional thrill of this particular fight. Her face a picture of grim determination, the 17- year old kunoichi of Team Guy spun around in mid-air, performing one of her signature moves that was a blurry vision of graceful yet deadly beauty. The weapons shot out of the spiralling scrolls that surrounded her nimble body, following her exceptionally remarkable sense of accuracy that saw the approaching masses of the opponents' range of tools at their disposals being sliced through and taken out by the girl's amazing variety of projectile weapons.

Almost as soon as she landed, Tenten felt her own body moving on its own accord, possessed by a strange force that propelled her out of a sneaky trail of shadow that was threatening to curl around her ankle. For the next split second, she let her friend help her flip away from the danger, but immediately after that, once the hold on her mind and body was released and she was in control of her own movements again, Tenten, in the middle of a series of back-flips, summoned a wooden bo-staff. The next few moments saw her send a few hard swings of the sturdy weapon across the opponent's body, the last one sweeping him off his feet and causing him to attempt an awkward roll away while abandoning his shadow techniques.

Right behind her, she felt the tremors that now shook the ground and split it open, sending tons of rock debris whizzing through the air in all directions. She reacted at once by releasing a gigantic, metallic shield while sprinting away from the impact of her comrade's amazing strength, feeling the rock and soil break up against her shield. As the opponent's summoned beasts came rumbling towards her in one more valiant effort to take her down, a figure landed right in front of her, and Tenten immediately crouched down behind her comrade, safe for the moment in a bluish cocoon of chakra energy.

"Tenten! To your left!"

Nodding silently in the affirmative, Tenten felt her throat go dry as she realised who the next attacker was. The speed and force at which the wind techniques being used just a distance from her warned her about past battles that had had her sprawling across the ground in seconds, but the girl was not going let this happen again. Sending the gleaming shield spinning towards her current opponent, she knew that he would only be delayed for a moment.

Now, a moment was all she needed. Not two, not three, but just this one moment. The moment she knew he would have to take one step back as he prepared for his next move.

"Now!" she felt her own voice scream in her mind. Seemingly out of nowhere, a mass of chains flew at the youth, the sudden release of metal resounding loudly in the air. With barely a moment to catch his breath, Tenten's partner put up his famed barrier of defence calmly, the blue spiral of energy cruelly tearing up the surrounding soil. She managed almost a slight smirk as the chains she had summoned fell loosely to the ground, and did a mental count, knowing that he would de-activate the Kaiten in the next second.

True enough, the flawless face of Neji Hyuuga appeared as the blue chakra around him dissipated, wearing a cool grin as his eyes now met Tenten's own brown irises. His right leg stretched out, his left knee bent, Team Guy's prodigy genius had his arms still raised in a defensive stance, but it was quite evident to his comrade that he had his guard slightly down.

"Now," Tenten heard her own voice manage a soft whisper in her head, even as her own vocal chords now vibrated the single syllable "Ka!"

The chains lying lifeless around the white-clad boy were suddenly resuscitated, as the tags wrapped around strategic parts of the chains were activated by their owner's confident, loud command. As the ground surrounding Neji, genuinely caught unawares at this particular moment, blew up for a second time in the last minute, Tenten bolted towards him wielding a single kunai in her left hand.

"Got you."

Those were the words echoing in Tenten's mind, but it was actually Neji who had voiced them out in his own signature baritone. The girl felt an almost inaudible gasp expelled from her lips as she felt her kunai being knocked out of her hand by a single sliver of blue energy that had escaped from the Hyuuga boy's extended finger. Just as Neji was about to place his right palm on Tenten's right shoulder, the touch that would indicate his team winning this fight, he froze suddenly, his fingers outstretched in mid-air.

"As I was going to say what you'd just said," Tenten now whispered teasingly. "Got you."

As she gripped his strong shoulder, the surroundings erupted in a series of groans and higher-pitched cheers. Neji felt Ino's presence leave his body, and his right hand now held Tenten's shoulder. The two exchanged a yet another brief moment, their lips curled upwards, their gentle intakes of oxygen causing their chests to heave slightly. Tenten felt her cheeks flush out of both victory and embarrassment, knowing that the sudden silence around them would soon be filled with Ino and Sakura's giggles. Summoning the most arrogant look she could, she braced herself as her knees threatened to buckle under the immense tension in the air and yelled out loudly "We won!" before painfully detaching herself from Neji's touch and joining the other girls in their celebratory throes.

"That was rash, Tenten."

Shikamaru's words did nothing to jolt Tenten as she felt the tension built up from the last hour's exertions slowly ebb away from her body. The cool water they were now sitting on shimmered as it reflected the rays of the blazing afternoon sun, the gentle ripples and waves a testament of the eleven teenagers training their chakra levels even as the group's top strategist was giving them their debrief. Right now, he was commenting on Tenten's head-on attack at Neji and she was listening intently, nodding in agreement but slightly distracted by the minor bruising her wooden staff had given his chin minutes ago.

"I thought her attacking Neji with a single kunai was a way of keeping his guard down and distracting him so that Ino's Shintensen would catch him unawares," Kiba Inuzuka yawned as he stretched his arms upwards. "Which did work, by the way."

"Yes, it did this time," the Naru teen now rubbed his chin unconsciously. "But that's because we know one another's techniques so well. On the battlefield, we wouldn't know our enemy's techniques. And let's be honest, Tenten, a single kunai would do little to hurt whoever is in Kabuto and Madara's forces."

Sakura's pink hair floated in the breeze as she shook her head in disagreement.

"That's not true. A well-placed kunai can kill one in an instance. Tenten's pin-point accuracy has proven this on many missions and…"

"Exactly my point," Shikamaru shrugged, the slight furrow of his eyebrows doing nothing to cause Sakura any resentment at his interruption. The eleven of them had agreed that their last training session before being deployed a few days later into their various divisions, and each and every one of them was taking their peers' feedback very seriously. The morning had seen the various teams battle against one another, but the last hour had seen the four kunoichi – Hinata Hyuuga, Ino Yamanaka, Sakura Haruno and Tenten - take on Shino Aburame, Sai, Shikamaru and Neji, while Kiba, Rock Lee and Chouji Akimichi took a breather and observed within the training field.

"Tenten's expertise lies in her projectile weapons, and the fact she can fire them at the enemy from a distance gives her the advantage of not having to approach the enemy up close whenever possible. Heck, you girls are all split up into different divisions, mind you. Ino wouldn't be around to work in the way she did with Tenten on the battlefield, no matter how impressive it was just now. Tenten, you were placed in Division One for a reason, and that reason is to…"

The awkward silence that now filled the air caused Shikamaru to stop abruptly. For the past week, no one else had mentioned the way the eleven of them were split up in the Shinobi Alliance's six divisions until now. Tenten felt her cheeks burn as she caught Neji's eyes on her, and turned her head away. She could hear her own heartbeat in her head as she tried to gather her thoughts, taken aback by how quickly the debriefing session had taken such an awkward turn.

"D…don't worry, Tenten," Chouji now spoke after swallowing the chips in his mouth. "My father will keep a lookout for you. He's promised to take care of you."

"Tenten-chan," Hinata now whispered in her usual gentle tone. "My father…"

"Stop it, all of you."

Tenten raised her head when Neji's firm voice now commanded everyone's attention. His jet-black hair now swayed gently in the breeze as he stood up and walked away from the discussion, his back facing everyone's astonished faces. Just as Tenten took her next breath, he turned around and his voice boomed across the tranquil surface of the waters to the group.

"Tenten can take care of herself on the battlefield. We should all believe that. All of us should believe that we can all contribute to the upcoming battles in our own ways, and we'll all have to work and fight together with other shinobi from the other villages. But let's not deny that there may come a point where we will have to face the enemy one on one, and fight for our lives. We must all be prepared for that, and I … I just want to say… each and every one of us Konoha shinobi who are going out on the battlefield, is able to give the enemy something to worry about. Each and every one of us. And that includes you, Tenten. You'll do fine. I'll… We … We will meet all one another again… soon. "

Shikamaru cleared the lump in his throat awkwardly and dismissed the group, as the figure of Neji Hyuuga got increasingly smaller in the distance as he neared the fence surrounding the training field. It took Tenten a full half-hour more of sitting on the calm waters by herself, before she picked herself up and faced the gate, where Ino, Sakura and Hinata were still waiting for her. Taking a deep breath, Tenten lifted herself up and started towards them, her heart now almost bursting with pride and joy and no longer as burdened as it had been for the past week. Grinning from ear to ear, the kunoichi removed her scrolls in the belt holster she had left on the bank and waved her friends over energetically, more determined than ever to train for upcoming battles that she now knew that she would face with more faith in herself, the faith that one so important to her had finally verbalised after all these years.

"Come on girls! Let's show them what we've got!"