"Hey, Tenten, what's this page say?"

Tenten glanced at the number and let the memories wash over her.

Then she stopped abruptly.

"You guys are only on page eight?" she exclaimed with horror. "It's been two weeks, you should at least be on thirty-eight!"

The brown-haired boy shrugged, readjusting his green goggles and fiddling with the end of his long blue scarf. "It's difficult and we've been busy."

"It's not difficult for me, and I've had absolutely nothing to do these past two weeks!" she cried. "Why didn't you ask for my help?"

"Quite simply," the boy sneered, "because you're not qualified. You're just the messenger."

Tenten stared in shock at the boy's malicious glare and curled upper lip. The proof that she was the best qualified for the job was that she was the messenger at all, and he—

"Then have fun solving it yourself, 'Mr. Qualified'," Tenten growled before turning sharply on her heel and leaving the way she came.

She passed through the Mess Hall and the Infirmary and stumbled upon Sayuri. Upon inquiring where the older woman's children were, she stopped by the Nursery to say hello. Tenten spent a few minutes playing with the kids before excusing herself. She wandered onto the Pitch and tossed around a few sloppily sharpened practice knives, then found herself back in her favorite spot.

Once she was situated in her usual place between a boulder and a grassy incline, she leaned back with her arms under her head and remembered.

Two hours later, she snapped to attention at the sound of familiar footsteps.

"What do you want?" she asked, not bother to roll over or even open her eyes.

"Well, umm…." the boy stalled. Tenten waited for a few tense minutes, still savoring the dregs of relaxation. When she realized no answer was forthcoming, she opened her eyes and leveled a cool glance on the boy from earlier.

"Get on with it," she snapped, finally sitting up. The boy scratched his head, fidgeting, and Tenten took the time to properly study the boy.

"…I need help," the boy finally admitted.

"Try Morse code at a steady beat."

"It's a song?"

"Yeah," Tenten verified with pride. "The numbers are the tempo, the letters are the rhythms. Just stop before the eighth line. It'll be apparent by then."

"The Convergence?" he guessed.

"Yeah, and if you go past the eighth line, you'll bring the buildings down around our ears. The pages afterwards hold the Parting Song, and the rest of the pages up until thirty-eight are other songs."

The boy nodded in understanding and Tenten felt a small swell of pride at the emotions apparent on his face.

"The runes, then?" he prompted.

"Notes, the pitches."

"So the numbers are tempos, the letters are rhythms in Morse code, the runes are notes, and the dashes are for bar lines?"

"Correct," Tenten confirmed. "And guess who devised the system."

"You?" he asked with an expression of awe.

"Now you're getting the respect right. But no, it was Hyūga Hinata."

"Lady Silvermist?" the boy clarified with envy at her familiarity with the figurehead of grace.

But Tenten had laid back down, now afloat on a roll of memories threaded together by a strand of song.


Shikamaru sighed, breathing in deeply and struggling to relax, even with the aid of his cigarette.

In, out, in, out, letting the toxic smoke fill his lungs and calm his muscles.

Then he'd think, and everything would seize up again, as tense as before.

Over and over until, finally, he divulged what was bothering him so to the only other occupant of the room.

"Chouji, when's dinner?"

"Six!" he spoke resignedly at the same time as his companion. "Sorry, it slipped my mind," he frowned. "I guess I—forgot." Shikamaru winced, opening his eyes to see the thirteen oval frames in front of him.

The only problem was that two were blank, three were black, and three were showing completely different environments. Even the point of view changed on each one, as though the frames' pictures were moving in position and swinging in different directions and angles as well.

Shikamaru blinked away the dizziness at seeing sky and ground switch places and then right themselves, as though the image had decided to flip itself over a few times.

The final four frames were filled with ambience-type moving pictures, one of fire, another of a wall, another of a flower, and the last of a dark night sky.

Shikamaru groaned, pulling himself out of the chair. He walked up to the first frame, muttered under his breath, closed his eyes, then pressed his fingertips to the suddenly reflective surface. A minute later, he withdrew and the frame returned to its former appearance. Then he walked to the next one, muttering and also pressing his fingers to the glass-like surface that had engulfed the moving pictures.

He repeated the process on the remaining eleven oval frames, and turned to Chouji once he was finished.

"Kiba is blacked out. Not in REM stage, just unconscious. Shino was speaking of some type of substance from the bees, so I suspect it is a chemically induced sleep. Neji is out in the fields, gathering some herbs. Tenten is still at Base, but she's getting antsy. Sakura escaped, but she refuses to sleep. Lee is close to encountering her, so as long as he gets there on time, she should be fine. The other four you can see for yourself, and the last three haven't changed since four weeks ago."

Chouji nodded. "Anything you need me to do?"

"What time is din—six. Right. No, there's nothing, unless you want to take your chances with Mitarashi-san."

Chouji grimaced and Shikamaru snorted.

"Yeah, that's what I thought. I'll be fine, I just want to run a few tests on Sakura and Kiba," Shikamaru said.

"See you at dinner," Chouji called, already halfway out the door.

"Six," Shikamaru called back, still chuckling wryly.

As soon as he heard the door close, he settled back in his chair, taking another deep drag from the cigarette still dangling from his fingertips.

Then he closed his eyes and dreamt.


It was one o'clock in the afternoon, and Tenten was tired.

It might have been the hot midday sun, or possibly that she'd been awake all night, anticipating news from Shikamaru.

It could have been an effect of worry, or it could have been maladjustment from three weeks on the run.

Whatever the cause, Tenten wanted—no, needed—to get up and go.

Somewhere.

Anywhere.

"Tenten!" a high voice shouted, and Tenten immediately recognized it as belonging to Moegi, a young girl whose father was at the head of the Information Technology team.

Tenten squinted to see the girl, yelled over a greeting in answer, then scowled at the sight of the brown-haired boy who had earlier dared to insult her intelligence.

When Moegi and the boy came to stand directly in the path of the sunlight on her face, Tenten sighed gratefully and sat up.

"So, what's up?" she inquired, cataloguing the boy's immediate reaction as an addition to his profile.

"Someone new arrived a few minutes ago!" Moegi exclaimed.

"Really?"

Tenten could honestly say she was interested.

"Yeah, some tall guy with gray hair," Moegi said. While Moegi continued to describe the new arrival, Tenten found her gaze wandering over to the brown-haired boy, studying his mannerisms and habits.

She watched him closely, looking for any clues that might hint towards the animosity the boy obviously harbored towards her, noting that he seemed to be good friends with Moegi.

Then she paused, fully comprehending who the boy reminded her of and who Moegi was excitedly describing to her.

"Kakashi," she realized, slowly grinning.

"Who?" the boy cut in, but Tenten leapt up and started to jog towards the Main Hall.

"C'mon Moegi, you too, Naruto Jr., I've got a friend to meet!" she called over her shoulder.

Thank god the reprieve had come to an end.


Shikamaru had to suppress an amused smirk as he pulled back from the first frame.

"I'll never understand how Tenten finds relaxation tiring," he mused, moving on to the next frame. A second later, he pulled back and went on to the next. A few minutes later, he stepped back, lifting his fingers off of the surface and returning it from mirror-like glass to a moving picture.

"Hey, Chou!" he called out. Chouji peeked his head through the doorway.

"Yeah, what's up?"

"Lee and Sakura made it to Base and Tenten's still antsy."

Chouji opened his mouth to answer, but instead let out an undignified squawk as he was yanked away from the door and Anko replaced him with a snarky grin.

"Problem already solved. Her mentor is already there, nearly. He'll train her up a bit and probably send her back out as reinforcement."

"And then when Neji arrives—"

"Exactly!" Anko grinned and Shikamaru immediately felt a chill run down his spine. "We'll send Gai over, and it'll be the Might Squad all over again!" she crowed.

Shikamaru groaned, falling back into his chair. He slouched for a few seconds before he sat straight up.

"Wait, her mentor? You don't mean—"


"Hatake?" Tenten breathed in disbelief. "What the hell is he doing here in the Main Hall?"

And as nice as it was to finally see a familiar face, she just knew that something was wrong.

"Tenten!" he smiled. "Just the girl I wanted to see!"

Kakashi had called her a girl only twice in the past, and it made something stir deep within the confines of her chest.

"Hey, this is Moegi and this is Naruto Jr." Kakashi nodded, offering his hand for a shake, but Tenten batted it away. "Don't be silly, Moegi and Naruto Jr. have to go now, I hear Moegi's dad calling." She shooed them off in the direction of the girl's father, then turned to Kakashi.

He looked her over. "You've grown."

Tenten turned around uncomfortably and jerked her head. "C'mon, let's head to the practice pitch," she suggested, and Kakashi followed closely behind.

They reached the walled-in empty field and Kakashi's eyes flashed. He drew his tanto with the ringing sound of metal sliding on metal and raced towards Tenten, who flipped backwards to escape the wide arc of his attack.

"Weaponless? What happened to the Tenten I know?" he inquired as attacking his student was a common occurrence.

Really, it was, so Tenten grinned wolfishly and laughed aloud at the sound of clashing metal when she pulled out her own thigh-length blade from its concealment in her pant leg and she swung.

They fought over the center of the pitch, first Kakashi gaining ground, then Tenten beating him back blow for blow.

"How's Neji?"

"Still an insufferable bastard, I imagine."

"Naruto?"

"Probably hyper as hell."

"Any new piercings?"

"Wouldn't you like to know… Any new tattoos?"

"Nope."

And then Tenten struck in earnest, occupying his tanto with the blade and pushing him back, inch by inch, while the other hand reached for the dagger in her boot. She reacted automatically to a flash of metal in the corner of her eye, turning so that Kakashi would receive the blow instead while driving the knife up under his ribcage.

Then she blinked at the sight of a white blade protruding from Kakashi's shoulder.

Kakashi coughed, hacking out viscous blood before he collapsed.

"Hello, Hatake-sensei," Tenten greeted.

The owner of the white blade walked up, pulling back his hood to reveal a shock of gray hair, a half-covered face, and a black bandana pulled down over one eye.

"He tries to take the place of the Copycat Rogue, yet never notices that the Copycat Rogue has taken the place of his assistant, his own son," Kakashi scoffed, yanking his tanto out of the dead man's body.

"I see you're doing just fine, little lady," Kakashi bowed, and Tenten scowled at the nickname.

"Come along, we've got to find the Mess Hall," Kakashi crowed with glee at exploring a new place, ignoring that Tenten probably already knew where to go.

Tenten rolled her eyes as he walked off in exactly the correct direction, somehow already knowing his way around Base. She retrieved her own weapons and put them away, then hefted the dead man over her shoulder and took off after her mentor.

"Hello, Lee-kun!" Kakashi sang, and Lee ran over to bump fists with Tenten and take the corpse from her.

"Been a while," Tenten smiled, and Lee grinned back morbidly, shifting the dead weight for a more comfortable grip.

"Sakura's here too."

Tenten flinched. "Is she all right?" and she winced again at the stupid question.

Understanding, Lee smiled. "No, but she will be."

"By the way," Kakashi called over his shoulder, already at the directionally correct exit from the courtyard-like practice field. "Anko sends a message."

"Mitarashi-sensei?" Tenten exclaimed, pushing her worries for Sakura into the back of her mind for dealing with later.

"Yeah, she says to anticipate Medea," Kakashi called half-heartedly, far more interesting in skipping through the door, singing about the wonders of Mess Hall shrimp.

At his words, Tenten stopped dead in her tracks. Lee skidded to a stop as well, and turned to look at her, readjusting the man slung over his shoulder.

"Everything all right, Tenten?" he asked.

Then a frightening smile grew on Tenten's face, baring her teeth and hardening her eyes.

"Hell yeah," she breathed, walking on, smirk never leaving her lips.


Shikamaru groaned in apprehension as he stepped back from the frame.

"Aw god, I'm fucked."


-End Chapter 1-