Yay! Lots of Neji and Tenten, so… enjoy!
Disclaimed: I don't own Naruto, b/c if I did, Sasuke would be MINE!!
Chapter 3
The room buzzed with anticipation as Neji and Tenten stepped down from the balcony and onto the fighting area. They exchanged looks and mentally prepared one last time for the upcoming fight. On the other side, a rock-nin and a mist-nin stepped down from their respective positions and gave each other a quick nod.
"It seems like we have the advantage", Tenten observed, "It's harder for them to work together when they don't even know each other".
"No. They do; they both use long range attacks", Neji corrected. Tenten gave him a confused look, but didn't have a chance to ask anything because just then, the examiner called, "begin!" and the two opponents immediately began their attacks.
A shower of rocks erupted and flew towards Neji, who quickly activated his byakugan and hit each rock with perfect aim. But, as the rocks shattered in the air, hidden needles were exposed from the rocks and several of them embedded themselves into Neji's skin.
The injuries, although very minor, drew blood and caused Tenten to freeze as images of Neji in the hospital crossed her mind. She quickly shook her head to clear herself of the images, but they seemed to taunt her even more.
"Tenten! Move!" Neji hissed as a second shower of rocks rained down upon them. Once again, more needles emerged. This time, however, both teammates were hit.
"Tenten!" the urgency in Neji's voice caused Tenten to snap back to the present. She winced slightly as she pulled out several needles from her arm, then quickly took out a scroll and summoned her weapons.
There's no time to be stuck in the past, she thought silently. Forcing herself to focus on the current battle, Tenten aimed several shuriken at her opponent, followed by a couple of kunais with exploding tags attached. As always, her aim was perfect. Despite the pair of moving targets, every shuriken found its way to either the rock-nin or mist-nin, and every kunai exploded in the right place
"What did you mean by, 'they use long range attacks'!?" Tenten yelled across the open space. How was that an advantage anyways?
On the other side of the room, Neji couldn't reply, as he was too occupied with reflecting a dozen or so kunais and a few rocks as well. When he finally managed to clear the air around him, Neji retreated to the area beside Tenten, but kept his gaze on their opponents.
"Both of them use long range attacks, which means only you can be on the offensive. For this type of combat, I can't do much except defend, so that's what we'll do".
"What?" Tenten was beyond confused; had she been in this fight alone, she felt she could have done better, since she wouldn't have to worry about following Neji's orders, or making sure he didn't almost die again, or being careful about not messing things up for him. If she was alone, she could just charge in and use all the weapons she wanted.
Well, remember the last Chunnin exam against that Temari girl? Look what happened when you acted without thinking. The same voice in her head began teasing Tenten again and she madly shook her head to rid herself of it.
"Tenten!" Neji's eyes narrowed and there was definite impatience in his voice.
"I- I'm sorry. What do you want me to do?" Tenten finally managed to choke out. Once again, Neji had no chance to reply as another attack was launched at them. Tenten quickly jumped out of the way and looked towards Neji for instructions, but he had disappeared.
There was no time to think or to even call out his name. Her trained kunoichi mind went on auto-pilot and Tenten felt her hand moving on its own, drawing out several weapons and aiming them at her opponents. Without looking to see if she had hit her targets, Tenten began scanning the room for Neji; it's not like he could just vanish.
Well, if Neji couldn't just vanish, he sure could just "un-vanish". Tenten let out a soft gasp of surprise as she saw Neji appear in the corner of the stadium, the expression on his face telling her that he had meant to do that all along.
She quickly countered a few kunais thrown at her, then hurried to Neji's side, silently demanding an explanation.
"You wouldn't fight when I was around", Neji stated simply. She could tell he knew she was worried, and that he thought it was pathtic of her to do so. Tenten wrinkled her eyebrows in thought, but couldn't find anything to reply with. Once again, Neji had proven something to her, and once again, she looked like a fool. But, she still had a legitimate reason for freaking out, didn't she? It wasn't common to be able to see an image of your half-dead teammate in your head, but it was for Tenten.
"So, now, you're going to do more than just stand around, alright?"
Tenten felt as if Neji was treating her like a child, but realized he had reason to, and decided to simply listen instead of talking back. After all, she was acting somewhat ridiculous. Tenten nodded in agreement and slipped out a few weapons, not missing the satisfied look on Neji's face out of the corner of her eye.
The rock-nin made his next move, covering the two Konoha shinobi in a layer of fine, grinded rock that closely resembled dark-colored sand. Miniature bombs were hidden in the small rocks, but were no match for the byakugan, which read every bit of chakra like an open book.
"Kaiten!"
Tenten ducked as the force of Neji's Hakke Shou Kaiten (Heavenly Spin) surrounded her, clearing the immediate area from any bombs or small rocks. Then, taking this opportunity while the opponents were recovering, Tenten drew out a set of twin scrolls, followed by a few hand seals.
"Sōshōryū!"
Her Twin Rising Dragons attack swept the room into a flurry of weapons and wind, and at one point, even Neji had to stumble slightly to keep his balance. The shower of kunais and other various metallic weapons rained upon both the rock and mist-nin, but injured the rock-nin badly while leaving the mist-nin relatively unscathed.
After the arena cleared, Tenten quickly used the kunais in her hands to attack a distracted rock-nin, knocking him out. She nodded to Neji, who gave her an acknowledging grunt before turning his attention to the mist-nin. Aware of his disadvantage, the mist-nin drew out several unidentifiable weapons and took aim at both opponents, then changed his mind at the last second and threw everything towards Tenten. She managed to counter each weapons with one of her own, but was unaware of the last weapon, which made its way behind her and turned around, hitting her in the back.
The weapon, which resembled an intricately designed needle, dug its way into her lower back and seemed to come to life as it curled around her waist, digging more, smaller needles around her sides. A deep purple liquid seeped out of her wounds, and it took Neji no more than half a second to figure out that his teammate had been poisoned.
Damn. Although not nearly as skilled as Tenten with weapons, Neji drew out a few of his own shuriken and threw them at the mist-nin, creating a momentary distraction that allowed him to hurry to his teammate's side. Despite the stinging pain in her back and the fuzzy surroundings that were growing worse, Tenten struggled to retrieve her last few weapons to finish the fight. Before she could throw them, however, a hand quickly stopped her and a figure appeared in front of her, attempting to talk to her while defending her at the same time.
"Tenten, can you hear me? All we need is one last attack. Can you do that? I just need you to hit his hands. It has to be his hands, Tenten".
"Hands?"
"Just disable his hands and leave the rest to me", Neji instructed. Tenten nodded weakly and took aim, but the world around her had turned to blurs, and the way Neji was darting around in front of her wasn't helping either. The random weapons that Neji deflected only confused Tenten's mind even more and she found it difficult to see her target.
His hands. Just hit his hands.
Her last kunai left Tenten's hand and whizzed towards the mist-nin, only to embed itself in his arms instead of hand.
Shit. He said it HAD to be his hand. She was determined to not let Neji down, and so, not thinking clearly about the consequences or about anything at all, Tenten darted into the middle of the battlefield to grab the nearest weapon.
"What are you doing?!" Neji yelled, unable to believe that his teammate would do something so carelessly. She'll get hit! She's not even defending herself!
Too late.
The mist-nin recognized his opportunity and sent a large weapon on Tenten, creating a gash across her arm. With what was left of her sensible mind, Tenten could still see Neji crossing the room, and she suddenly understood why Neji had wanted her to hit his hands. Close combat. Without his hands, the mist-nin couldn't use any long range attacks and Neji would be able to fight with the advantage.
I just have to keep him from doing anything long range, Tenten thought, Neji just needs one hit and we'll win. She tugged at the poisonous weapon in her back and pulled it out, ignoring the pain and gushing blood that caused gasps among those who were watching.
Tenten squinted at the mist-nin and aimed. She didn't need to hit his hands anymore. Now that Neji was near the mist-nin, all she needed to do was hurt him. Somewhere. Anywhere.
She hit the mist-nin near his rib cage with the foreign weapon and watched triumphantly as his own weapon worked against him. Then, just before everything faded to black, Tenten saw Neji attack, hitting every charka point that could possibly exist.
They won.
By the time Kanaye and Leiko had reached the gates of Konoha, the sun was well on its way to bed and the scent of death had all but disappeared. They paused in a relatively thick part of the forest outside of the hidden village, carefully surveying the structure of its walls and the pattern of ANBU patrollers around the area. They weren't familiar at all with the area, but they knew one thing for sure: the extra appendages they had would certainly not fit in with the citizens of Konoha. How often was it that two spider-looking guys were seen walking around?
"We have to find out who 'Hyuuga Neji' is before we do anything", Leiko reminded Kanaye, who looked more than ready to just jump in and attack. Despite her frustration over the recent death, she was still the more sensible one and managed to think of all the options they had.
"How are we supposed to find him? Walk in and ask around?" Kanaye scoffed.
"No. Any shinobi who could even stand a chance against Kidomaru would have to be superior to most. It shouldn't be too hard to locate someone like that. Plus, if he's from the Hyuuga clan, he has to have white eyes".
"Fine. So what do we do first?"
"We wait until its later, when most of the village is asleep", Leiko decided.
"And then what?"
"And then you follow my instructions".
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