Chapter One
Neji Hyuga had woken up early, as he did every morning. He completed his usual morning duties quickly and bid farewell to his housemates before leaving his compound. Neji made it to the familiar, empty grounds of his team's training field. Neji scanned the place and decided that nothing was out of the ordinary.
Nothing except for the fact that his team's training grounds was empty.
Neji activated his Byakugan, assuming that his two less than mature teammates were playing hide-n-seek, or something to that idiotic effect.
He found nothing, no evidence of his teammate's existence. What he did find was a note stuck to a tree—his tree—pinned up by a kunai. He slowly made his way over and ripped the note down. He looked at it, his sensei's handwriting scribbled all over it.
MY YOUTHFUL STUDENT! LEE AND I HAVE AWOKEN EARLY TO COMPLETE 1000 LAPS AROUND THE VILLAGE. WE ARE LETTING OUR YOUTH BLOOM EVEN EXTRA TODAY! GIVE OUR YOUTHFUL FLOWER THE LARGEST, MOST YOUTHFUL EMBRACE SINCE WE CANNOT DO IT OURSELVES!
Neji crumpled the note and shoved it into his pocket—after all, a Hyuuga would never litter. At least one of his teammates had excuse for not being present. The Hyuga prodigy sat down beneath the tree that he earlier claimed as his own. He figured there was no sense in getting angry, so he closed his eyes and meditated. He remained in peace, but still aware of his surroundings, for about an hour until a voice that was obnoxious enough to rival that of even Naruto Uzumaki and Ino Yamanaka's combined interrupted his meditation. His eyes snapped open and he looked up to see two people standing before him. A short, white-haired kid who looked about thirteen and a, for lack of a better term, busty strawberry blonde that looked like she could be his mother were staring down at him. Though she looked a bit too young to have a teenaged son, Neji learned from Tsunade that looks were deceiving.
"I think this is him, taichou!" The busty woman turned to the white-haired guy, completely ignoring Neji's presence. Taichou? Neji raised an eyebrow and figured she was just using a strange nickname. The white-haired boy nodded, a stern expression on his face. "Ohayou, I'm Matsumoto Rangiku and this here's my taichou, Hitsugaya Toshirou!"
"Matsumoto, what are you doing?" Neji was a bit startled at the somewhat-deep voice that the boy had. Poor guy hit puberty, but he's still a midget. "You shouldn't be so open towards strangers!"
"But Tenten-taichou said he was nice!" The busty woman whined, causing both men to wince. "Besides, he's a cute stranger!"
"I hate to break up this wonderful conversation," Lies, "but who are you, why are you here, and how do you know Tenten?" Neji etched up an eyebrow. The straweberry blonde began to laugh nervously.
"We'd love to tell you, but it's hard to explain while still sounding believable." The one that was Hitsugaya informed him. "Just to let you know though, we aren't enemies."
"So you're shinobi of another village?" Neji stood up and almost laughed at how much he towered over the boy. Hitsugaya and Matsumoto exchanged glances.
"Huh?" The two asked in the same breath. Neji rolled his eyes and sighed.
"Come with me."
Tenten let out a soft groan, obviously agitated with her situation. "Damn that Matsumoto." She grumbled to herself as she did a one-handed cartwheel, swiftly avoiding the large fist that nearly crushed her. "Hey, ugly, come get me!" Tenten began sprinting towards the forst, silently thanking her taijutsu master of a sensei. The monster was close behind her, but she had to lead him away from the village. The impact of the Fourth Shinboi War was bad enough, Konoha didn't need a hollow destroying its buildings too. Tenten stopped running and jumped into the air as high as she could, which was pretty high. She almost readied herself to launch a barrage of weapons, but she realized that she wasn't in shinobi mode right now, she was in shinigami mode. Goddamn, don't I get a break? She thought to herself. Not only did she take a life-risk by being a shinobi, she took an AFTER life risk of being a shinigami. Curse that Ichigo Kurosaki. If it wasn't for him, no one would have ever known that some living people had shinigami abilities. But no, Rukia had to give the boy her powers. So now, here she was, fighting a damn monster.
What's next? Is Sailor Moon going to come from the clear blue sky and announce to her that she was the unawaken sailor scout? Would Goku come from the Heavens and proclaim her to be a super saiyan?
Tenten considered the possibilities of these situations as she flipped through the air, smashing her foot against the hollow's masked face. "Dynamic Entry!" She chuckled a bit as the hollow's mask broke in two and Tenten landed successfully on the ground. Now time for the hard part, the bun-haired girl thought to herself.
"Thank you so much!" Tenten turned to the soul of a young, brunette girl who was grinning at her. Tenten cringed at the blue eyes that beamed at her. This looks like me and Naruto's love child.
"Ah-ha, no problem." Tenten flashed her a grin. Before she knew it, the little girl was hugging her. Tenten sighed and unsheathed her sword. While the girl was distracted, Tenten lightly tapped the child with her zanpuktou. "I'll see you again soon." She whispered to the disappearing girl. When the girl disappeared completely, Tenten wiped her face with her white sleeve. Even after four years and one promotion to captain of doing this, Tenten still couldn't help getting sad when she had to send souls away. She jumped from tree to tree until she made it back to her small house. She returned to er body, just in time to hear a bang on the door. Tenten sprinted down the stairs and opened the door.
"Tsunade-sama wants to see you." Tenten giggled at the last Uchiha's straightforwardness. She saluted him and grinned, poofing away and leaving leaves in her place.
Tenten knocked on the Hokage's door. "Come in!" Tsunade's booming voice yelled from the other side of the door. Tenten smirked to herself. She sounds happy. As soon as she opened the door, she was tackled by a blur of orange and pink. She recognized the cushions that were currently suffocating her as Tsunade's sister's…breasts.
"Matsumoto, you're killing her." Tenten heard the familiar voice of Hitsugaya Toshirou. As usual, Matsumoto ignored her captain's please and continued to strangle…err, embrace Tenten.
"Tsunade-sama said you could explain to me who these people are and why you failed to attend training." She knew that voice all too well.
"Sorry, Neji," Tenten struggled to breath, "something came up. And whoa, wait, you can SEE them!"
"'Giku, you're suffocating one of my best kunoichi." Matsumoto released her upon hearing her sister's voice. "And yes, Tenten, he can see them. Don't you think it's time to reveal one of your biggest secrets to your closest companion?" Tsunade glanced in Neji's direction.
"Huh? Temari's not here," Tenten grinned sheepishly, but she could see that no one else in the room was up for jokes (except maybe Matsumoto). "Honestly, Tsunade-sama, it shouldn't be my place to explain because I am not at fault for my condition." Tsunade gave her a disapproving frown, sending shivers down the sixteen-year old kunoichi's spine.
"Tenten…blaming someone else for your problem's is not the shinobi way." Tenten bit her lip.
"And it's not the shinigami way, either." Histugaya added. "They drilled that into our heads back in the academy."
"Hai, I remember." Tenten laughed. "You didn't like me because I was taking your place as the youngest shinigami."
"Shinigami?" Neji raised an eyebrow, obviously confused.
"Ah," Tenten sat down next to him. "I'm an orphan, you know that. My paremts became shinigami, I'll explain what that is later, when they were in the soul society, which is basically where dead people go…unless you're a Kuchiki, then you're born there."
"Mhm, so once, I was on Earth and needed help fighting a bunch of hollows—which are these huge monster things that came from corrupted human souls that weren't transferred to the Soul Society. They eat the spirits of living and dead souls, and they're bad, bad, bad. Anyway, I needed some help. Tenten was able to see me, and the hollows, so I knew that she had really high spiritual energy, so I awakened her powers. I felt bad because she was really young," Matsumoto continued.
"Tenten was supposed to graduate from the Academy a year earlier than she originally did, but she left the world of the living to train in the Soul Society. She became a shinigami, then she came back to Konoha and had to go through another year at the Academy. Then, she left for a little bit again and became the captain of the Hidden Division," Tsunade explained.
"Now she keeps this world safe by fighting Hollows," Hitsugaya finished.
"Hn." The Hyuga crossed his arms, processing this information.
"I love a visit from my dead sister and her little buddy every once in a while, but you don't usually visit unless something bad happens." Tsunade placed her hand under her chin. "So please, cut to the chase, if you will." Hitsugaya took a deep breath.
"Aizen has taken his battle against us to the World of the Living." He shot Tenten a quick glance. "This is beginning to get out of our hands. We need your division."
"My division that only consists of me and about, three other people? With all due respect, captain, if you guys couldn't do it with full squads, how could I?" Tenten raised an eyebrow.
"I was getting to that. You see, there's a lot of people here like you and him," Hitsugaya nodded in Neji's direction, "with high spirit energy. Maybe you can round up some of your comrades to help you out. We need the 14th division."
"I understand, captain," Tenten said after a while. "But, it's not up to me. It's really up to Tsunade-sama." Tenten looked at the Godaime Hokage.
"Well…if they pose a threat to my village, then I guess it must be done."