Heaven Forbid
Disclaimer: I don't own; you don't sue. M'kay?
Author's Note: Well, the excuses are always the same, so I'm not going to bother reiterating them. Anywho, the beginning of this chapter sucks since I fail at writing anything meaningful. So as you read the first part, just pretend it's good, deal? Also, there's a lot of scene-changing and page breaks because I need to switch a lot between Hidan and Tenten's points of view as well as keep the story going. Y'know, just as a heads-up. Oh, and sorry for the shortness again, but I wanted to leave a cliffhanger and start the next scene with the next chapter. I'll try to make the next one worth it!
So yeah, the plot's actually kind of moving now. Hope you like!
Chapter Eight: Imminence
A week passed.
During the unnaturally long, agonizingly painful seven days, Tenten transformed from Konoha's unofficial weapons mistress to the village's irritable, foul-mouthed hermit. The ire of the kunoichi was understandable to most people—she was traumatized; that had to be it!—but no one could even begin to speculate where she developed such coarse language.
An indeterminate number of ice cream tubs appeared and disappeared across the span of the week as well, indicating that the young woman perhaps suffered from depression. What could possibly depress her so much into seclusion, however, was also a mystery, for she refused to speak to anyone—sans her teammates and certain friends, but that often was in a rather hostile manner—about her ordeal.
Lee definitely was the one trying the hardest to find the old Tenten somewhere in that cold witch of a kunoichi that stood in for her. Still, she refused to train with him and Neji and even Gai-sensei, turning them down with a conduct not quite as respectful as they remembered her to be.
"Go the fuck away" usually came as the brunette's chosen response, though it was occasionally peppered with various other colorful remarks. Lee, in the disbelief that his teammate could utter such profanities, often placed his bandaged hands over his ears in an attempt to block out her words. Tenten would then just speak louder until, eventually, the whole block became able to recognize her shouting, unorthodox words.
This time, her refusal came as "Get the hell off of my goddamned property!" She had shouted through her door before the taijutsu master even had a chance to knock on it.
And this time, Lee gave his teammate a different answer: "No."
The door flew open, and a frazzled Tenten appeared behind the frame, her hair in a tangled mess and her face sallow. Ignoring the kunoichi's disheveled and irate appearance, Lee squeezed himself into her living room, which was littered with empty ice cream tubs and various weaponry.
"I see you have been practicing."
"Just because I don't want to train with you doesn't mean I don't want to train at all."
He cast the brunette a sidelong glance. "There is no point in training if what needs be trained is limited by something as trivial as space," Lee replied sagely, knowing that the confinements of the room hardly provided enough area for Tenten to do target practice.
"Why the hell are you even here, Lee?"
He pointed a bandaged finger to the curtained window, which would have shown a beautiful and sunny street had the drapes not been drawn. "I am here because you are not there, Tenten."
"Just tell me what the fuck you want."
The taijutsu master winced at her word choice, but he proceeded to say, "I want the Tenten that I knew before she got kidnapped. I want to see a Tenten who smiles, who practices eagerly to become as great a kunoichi as Tsunade, who wants to achieve all that she can achieve. I do not want to see this broken young woman with no motivation in life and seems to want to remain a hermit for the rest of her life. I cannot just let you kill yourself like this."
As though some sort of mind block had been raised, Tenten suddenly remembered that Lee was her best friend and broke into tears. She sobbed out, "I'm so sorry, Lee! I don't know what's been wrong with me lately… It's just that after—I—he—"
Erratic breaths muddling his friend's words, Lee gently told her, "If it causes too much pain, you do not have to tell me. I understand. All I want is for you to be you again."
And with that, they embraced, allowing Tenten a comfort she had not realized she needed for so long.
Calming down, the kunoichi released her grip on the young man and looked up curiously at him. "I really don't understand how a guy as nice as you doesn't have a girlfriend yet."
He laughed, much to the surprise of the brunette. "In my worry for you, I completely forgot that you did not know."
Tenten raised an eyebrow. "I don't know what?"
Lee grinned broadly, his shiny teeth glinting dangerously despite the scarce light in the room. "I am currently in a relationship with none other than Hyuuga Hinata."
"No way! Neji'd kill you!"
He smile grew wistful. "Surely that is nothing compared to the humiliation he put me through when we were younger."
Tenten sighed. "At least, he's better now. Maybe he'll react better than we think."
"We can only hope.
"Where the fuck am I?!" Hidan shouted through the trees, hopelessly lost in the forest at the border of the Fire Country. (At least, that was where he hoped he lost himself.)
He paced—it was actually more of a forceful stomp—back and forth along the branch, upon which he stood, trying to orient himself. "Fucking motherfucker forgot to fucking give me a fucking map!" He froze. "The bastard didn't forget; he fucking planned this! Fucking dick has got some balls to fuck around with me!"
Swiveling around, Hidan took a step back towards the Akatsuki, muttering, "Try to fuck with me, will ya? We'll see who's fucked over in the end…"
Then he froze again. "Wait…what am I doing? Kakuzu—the fucking asshole—got me out of that shitty place. And now Leader's probably gonna want to castrate me. Aw, fuck it; I'm not throwing away my freedom right now. I got a girl to get to forgive me, too!"
And so he continued on his merry way. That is, until he froze for the third time in approximately five minutes.
"Fuck, I still don't know where the fuck I am."
Another week flew by.
Tenten had regained some of her old vivacity, speaking with all her friends again and appearing in public with a much less haggard appearance. Sometimes, she would even let out a small—though genuine, nonetheless—smile, her eyes twinkling with their almost-forgotten liveliness.
But she still swore like a sailor.
To be fully honest, Lee had no idea where she picked up the habit. Prior to her confinement with the Akatsuki, she rarely, if ever, cursed at all, seeing as it was a practice looked down upon by Gai. The young woman also, somehow, garnered a more temperamental disposition, easy to anger and quick to defy those who offended her.
Yet she was the same, logical brunette with disturbingly accurate aim as she had always been (at least, as long as Lee had known the young woman).
Tenten refused to go on missions any higher than B-rank, however, as well as ones that required only one person to accomplish them. It was strange; before, she always wanted something with more difficulty, something to challenge her. Now, she seemed afraid that something might happen on a high-ranked mission, perhaps an event or person she wished to avoid. But as to what or who this thing was, neither Lee nor Gai nor Neji had any idea.
"Still no fucking idea…" muttered Hidan, now pacing on yet another tree. He seemed to find himself doing that quite a lot lately. "The least that bastard could've done was given me a fucking map…. Well, at least I got his cash."
The priest grinned devilishly, gleeful at his mental picture of his (former) partner's hateful expression as money from his safe went into the hands of the newly ex-Akatsuki member.
He walked into a wall. "Damn, how did I not see that?"
How indeed? The wall was massive, miles long and encompassing an entire city.
"Wait…that must mean. Fuck yes! I've found Konoha! Girlie, I'm here for you! Whoa, that sounds gay…"
Hidan stopped, suddenly realizing what he was about to do, doubting if this was truly the path he should follow. And then, "What the hell, Jashin-sama loves me!"
"Kami-sama, why do you hate me so?"
Tenten raised an eyebrow at her friend's mournful words. "What happened, Lee?"
The young man looked tearfully at the kunoichi, his thick eyebrows arched downwards in his sorrow, looking fully ready to burst out crying. "It's horrible—truly horrible! I believe the springtime of my youth is coming to an end…"
"Lee," Hinata, who had been accompanying Team Gai to the Hokage's office, said kindly, "I'm sure you're fine."
"Is it really necessary for such melodrama?" inquired Neji, now informed of his teammate's relationship with his cousin. (Although he was not completely sure if he approved, Neji gave the couple his blessing and wished them many years of happiness in the future.)
Lee sprung up from his hunched, depressed position, crying out passionately, "Yes! There is a need for this 'melodrama,' as you call it! For I," he crouched shamefully again, "the handsome blue beast of Konohagakure, have failed in my age-old ritual of my daily morning workout of one hundred laps around the village. I only managed ninety-eight before I grew too tired to finish. I dread the day Gai-sensei returns from his mission; I simply cannot tell him! He will surely disown me as a student in shame…"
Tenten held in her laughter, Hinata attempted to console the inconsolable young man, and Neji just rolled his eyes in his usual Neji way.
"Lee, I'm sure Gai-sensei'll forgive you," Tenten assured him as they approached the facility.
"One can only hope."
Upon reaching the office of the Hokage, they were greeted with the familiar sight of papers flying around the room as Tsunade furiously signed and stamped them while Shizune, ever the loyal assistant to her sensei, brought stack upon stack of the endless supply of documents.
"You're ten minutes late," the blonde woman huffed matter-of-factly.
Lee opened his mouth to apologize and give an undoubtedly lengthy explanation, but Neji interrupted, saying, "Please, Tsunade-sama, don't get him started again."
Arching an eyebrow in interest, she shrugged and proceeded to assign missions to the chuunin. With the threat of the Akatsuki and some of the other villages, particularly Otogakure, being imminent, Tsunade explained that she was cutting the teams down for missions that had little danger. As such, only Neji and Lee were designated to escort a local noble's daughter from her vacation spot in the Wind Country back to her father's estate in the outskirts of Konoha.
"So what do we get to do?"
"Just you, Tenten. Hinata already has a mission with Kiba that starts in an hour. Hyuuga-sama, shouldn't you be readying yourself?"
Hinata blushed profusely in embarrassment, apologized to the Hokage with a stiff bow, and kissed Lee good-bye on the cheek before rushing out of the office. The two young men followed soon after, having to make the necessary preparations for their long journey ahead, but not without glancing worriedly at their teammate prior to their exit.
Once they had left the room, the weapons mistress turned back to Tsunade, a strange expression on her face. "I can't do a solo mission. Can't you reassign me to something?"
The older woman sighed. "I've been giving you easy team missions ever since you returned," she stated pointedly. "I know you're afraid of running into them again, but you've got to get over this fear. It's just simple guard duty to ease you back into a normal schedule. You'll just be a little outside the walls, so someone will be by your side in a jiffy if you need it."
"But, Tsunade-sama—"
"No buts!" interjected the Hokage, waving a hand in dismissal. "Now go."
Defeated, Tenten exited the office. Crossing the threshold of the building, she exhaled deeply, unsure of what exactly she was supposed to do. "Well, I can't just ignore the orders of the goddamned Hokage, can I?"
With no other options to consider, the kunoichi rushed into the forest outside the village, sprinting for all she was worth to get this whole 'making a perimeter' shtick done with.
"Twenty minutes of guard duty still left? Shit, this is the longest guard duty I've ever been on," Tenten muttered to herself four hours and forty minutes later.
In those four hours and forty minutes (actually, four hours and thirty-eight minutes, but she rounded), Tenten had seen nothing, heard nothing, sensed nothing and encountered nothing. For that much, she was glad, but it was still a long, boring four hours and forty minutes.
She really had no reason to be so jumpy, and she knew it. It was unlikely that any of the Akatsuki members would follow her after having received their ransom money, and most definitely not him.Nonetheless, Tenten could not help but feel strong anxiety as she waited for something unexpected outside the village walls.
The twenty minutes passed, and in them, she saw nothing, heard nothing, sensed nothing and encountered nothing.
"This hell's finally over!"
Tenten was on guard duty again the next day, as well as the day following. Tsunade seemed to believe it was some sort of therapy for the younger woman, a kind of rehabilitation that would reinstate her into the 'normal' world. Tenten thought it was more like some form of psychological torture.
Again she found herself counting the last half hour down, having nothing better to do in her uneventful mission, when she heard a pathetic-sounding moan from below her perch in the trees.
"What the fuck?"
Jumping down from the tree, she slowed upon approaching the source of the noise, inching forwards to where she believed the sound to have come from. "Who's there?"
Her answer was another pitiful groan.
She pushed away branches and leaves to find a body lying underneath the foliage.
Wait… No, it couldn't be…
"Hidan?"
Afterthoughts: Does anyone have anymore -ence words that I can use for chapter titles? I'm running out...and they're making less and less sense as I name them.
