She grinned as she stopped in the middle of the familiar clearing. She closed her eyes, took out senbon, and casually flicked them into where she instinctively knew the old targets and dummies remained. She opened her eyes. As expected- a senbon dead center of every bull's-eye. She walked to the targets and began pulling senbon out of them, one by one. She had collected about half of them, when—
"You've gotten better."
She froze; her arm stopped mid-stretch from reaching to the next senbon. She knew that voice. Impossible. It was a little older, a little more tired, but it was definitely the same. That voice that she heard in her head. That voice she'd convinced herself she never wanted to hear again.
"Impossible," she whispered without moving. "You are not here."
She felt, rather than heard him land on the ground behind her.
"I'm not?" said Neji. She could almost hear the smirk in his tone of voice. And she snapped. All the fear and dread and every other feeling inside of her became a white-hot anger. She dropped all the senbon and whipped around.
"You—'' she seethed. He had an arrogant grin on his face; his hair was longer, he was taller, and he was formidable. He was beautiful, and she hated it. The air around them was pulsing with his chakra. She didn't even want to know what Orochimaru had done do get Neji to such high levels.
Neji was immediately aware of how angry Tenten was, and the uncharacteristic grin on his face actually widened a fraction. "What, you aren't happy to see me? It seemed like everyone missed me pretty badly last time I saw you. I've never seen Kiba more sentimental. And now, here I am. A million times better than before."
She said nothing. Tenten was literally shaking with fury. She couldn't raise her voice above a whisper. "I should kill you."
Neji laughed out loud.
Her eyes narrowed. "I should kill you here and now. You are a missing-nin. You are in alliance with Orochimaru." Her voice got louder.
"You left Konoha. You left your friends. You left, Hyuuga." Her voice rose until she was actually shouting.
"I should KILL you for deserting us!" Everything she had suppressed, everything under the surface, was erupting now.
"You threw everything away!" She was screaming, and she didn't care who heard.
"Leave! You are the worst kind of person. Your family has stopped hoping, you friends have given up on you, and your village hates you because you are a TRAITOR!!" The last word rang through the clearing. Neji didn't even flinch.
He said nothing for a while, just looked at her, contemplating her words. Then he smirked in that way that he used to, because he could see right through her. "So then, if all of that is true, why do you still love me, Tenten? Why are you still waiti-"
Neji's head whipped to the side due to the sheer force of Tenten's slap. The sound echoed throughout the forest.
