The Secret to Emotion
A Naruto Fanfiction
By: GoldenDragonClouds
"Good morning, Tenten-san." Tenten turned around, a pleasant smile on her face.
"Good morning…"
"Sai," her watcher said simply, answering her unsaid question. A false smile played at his lips. "I have been given the name Sai."
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
Chapter 1
It was a pleasant morning on this rare day off for the Weapons Mistress of Konoha, and Tenten whistled a merry tune while gathering her sheets and clothes for an impromptu laundry day. A sudden knock at the door made her frown, and she huffed when setting her laundry basket down to make her way over to the door, fully intending to beat the person on the other side senseless if it was one of her teammates knocking. They knew better than to interrupt her on a laundry day, impromptu or not. And she had even specifically told them so at the end of last night's training session!
Another knock at the door and Tenten rolled her eyes, calling out "Coming!" and shaking her head at her teammate's impatience. She plastered an exasperated grin on her face before opening the door, remarking, "If you were so impatient you could have entered through the window like…"
Her visitor wasn't Neji, or Lee, or Gai-sensei.
But she recognized this mask.
Tenten's smile fell, replaced by an emotionless expression, and she snapped arms to her sides to give a quick bow before stepping back to admit her visitor into her home. She waited until he closed the door behind him and cast a genjutsu to ensure they were not overheard before speaking.
"Senpai." she greeted, careful not to allow her surprise and slight nervousness seep into her voice. "What brings you here?"
A moment of silence later the masked man handed her a sealed scroll. "This is directly from Danzo-sama. You are to be given another task atop of your regular mission; the details are included in that scroll."
Wordlessly, Tenten unsealed the scroll and unrolled it to find another seal. She looked up at her superior blankly.
"Your task is to help a fellow ROOT member assimilate into your society. He is of your age group and has been assigned to a team near you as a replacement for a missing team-member. As he has never interacted with those outside of ROOT he will be lacking in social education. You are to correct this in him. Do you understand?"
"Yes, senpai." Tenten stated, silently going over her instructions in her mind.
"Details are included in the files sealed inside the scroll. Take care that the information is not compromised. Do you have any questions."
It wasn't a question.
"Not at the moment, senpai." The masked man nodded, giving her house a cursory glance-over before heading over to the door again. "If any questions arise during your task, you will relay them to your assignment and he will inform us of your queries. We cannot risk further communication as-"
"I am to be deeply undercover and any connection between me and a ROOT member whom I have not met through missions will be suspicious and may compromise my situation and cause me to fail my mission." Tenten recited, the words she had repeated for years coming to her naturally as if she was reciting the list of weapons in her arsenal.
Her masked senpai gave her a curt nod before undoing the genjutsu around the apartment and disappearing through a suddenly open window. Tenten silently walked over to the window, carefully sensing for foreign sources of chakra before closing it and letting out a small sigh.
So much for laundry day.
She eyed the half-opened scroll in her hands with trepidation before squeezing her eyes shut and unfurling the scroll before she opened them. A series of seals glared up at her, all of them in black ink and bearing the symbol for 'file'. Tenten let out a small snort. Well, this was creative. She rolled her eyes before unsealing the files, giving herself a pat on the back for remembering, as usual, to hide any and all emotions from her superior.
This was ROOT, after all.
Author's Note:
Yay! Another chapter, finally! This will be one of those fics where the chapters start out very short, but will flesh out in time. It's just an idea I'm playing with at the moment, but it has the potential to be a full blown out epic. I still have my hopes.
Reviews are love!
Ja Ne,
~Golden