Disclaimer: Naruto and all associated characters, jutsu and recognizable plotlines are the property of Masashi Kishimito-sensei. All original characters, jutsu and non-recognizable plotlines are the property of... well, me.


"Soichiro-san?"

The young man in question was similarly shocked when he saw the bun-haired kunoichi and her white-eyed partner staring at him.

"You've met before?" Nakajima asked, intrigued. His question went ignored when Soichiro asked his own.

"Hyuuga-san, Tenten-san, what are you doing here?

"We were hired to guard someone," Neji answered, recovering quickly from his surprise. He had seen the name on the wedding invitation, but he certainly hadn't expected it to be the same person who had saved them and their mission back in Lava Country.

"You, I presume," the Hyuuga proceeded to elaborate when he noticed the utterly mystified look in Soichiro's eyes. If one could consider the addition of three words elaborating.

Soichiro hesitated, then his viridian eyes narrowed slightly.

"Nakajima-san, what is going on?" His voice was polite, but the tone was one of obvious irritation.

"They are here to protect you, Soichiro," Nakajima explained patiently. "Your father would never forgive me if I allowed anything to happened to you."

Soichiro could only let out a small sigh before he gave in. "Where's..." his voice trailed off when his memory failed to supply the name of the crazy green ninja. Was it Rock or Stone something...?

"Lee's back in Konoha," Tenten answered, apparently having regained her ability to speak. "Err...We heard about your father," she murmured.

"It's alright." Soichiro's tone had reverted back to its usual easy going calm. Then he shifted his attention to Kazuya. "I'm sorry for not addressing you earlier, I'm Fujimura Soichiro."

"Fuuma Kazuya," the blonde allowed, his smooth tenor unchanged as ever.

Soichiro nodded. "Nakajima-san, please continue from where you left off," he said, sitting down on a cushion next to his overprotective guardian.

Nakajima cleared his throat and did just that. "So, Tenten-san, to answer your earlier question, the one you'll be guarding is Soichiro, not myself-"

He was interrupted again by a soft knock on the door.

"Come in," Soichiro sighed, already looking bored with where the conversation was going.

The door slid open to reveal a lovely young girl of around fifteen years old dressed in a red kimono embroidered with white roses; the obi wrapped around her slim waist the exact same shade of ivory. Her long, dark hair was swept into a bun at the base of her slender neck and secured in place with a jeweled hair pin, removing any possible distractions from her fine features.

Behind her stood a man in unrelieved black; black hair, black eyes, black pants and black shirt. His aura was one of subtle earnestness combined with a focus exceptional for a non-ninja.

"Ano... The maids told me that Fujimura-sama had guests, so I thought that I should come and greet them," she said shyly. Soichiro smiled gently.

"Let me introduce you then. This is Fuuma Kazuya-san, Hyuuga Neji-san and Tenten-san," Soichiro told her, nodding at each respective person as he said their names before speaking to everyone else. "This is my fiancée, Sakurai Rin-san and my bodyguard as well as my god-brother, Hiroshi."

"I'm very pleased to meet you, Tenten-san, Hyuuga-san, Fuuma-san," she said, bowing politely while the man merely nodded.

Neji regarded the two newcomers with his standard detached interest. Kazuya briefly turned to Tenten with a meaningful glance.

This must be the person he was telling me about, she thought, taking in the girl's graceful, well-mannered and submissive air as the she sat down on the sole unoccupied cushion beside her fiancé and directly opposite Kazuya.

"Rin, how have you been?" Kazuya asked with a warm smile that faltered slightly when the sole response of the girl in front of him was to lower her gaze and stare at the empty table.

"You know each other?" Soichiro asked curiously.

"Hai," Rin replied, fiddling with the edge of her obi self-consciously. "We were friends when we were children."

Any further questioning was interrupted by the arrival of a maid carrying a finely lacquered tray complete with an elaborate porcelain tea set.

"Please, let me." Rin got onto her knees to take the pot from the maid just as the latter was about to pour the tea. Her hands were shaking so badly that she almost dropped it. Soichiro placed a hand over hers, gently guiding her hand to place the tea pot on the table.

"It's alright, Sakurai-san," Soichiro spoke kindly, motioning for the maid to serve the tea. "You can leave such tasks to the servants."

"Hai," she complied meekly, returning to her seat. Kazuya merely watched Rin wordlessly for what seemed to Tenten like a very long time before finally speaking.

"You grew out your hair?"

Rin nodded, her turquoise gaze locked intently on her tea cup.

"It looks good on you," he grinned and Rin blushed at the compliment. Luckily her now pink cheeks went unnoticed by everyone other than Tenten, who decided to say something to distract the men before they did notice.

"Soichiro-san, can I ask you something?" Tenten waited for his affirmative answer before continuing. "Why were you in Lava when all this," she made a room-encompassing gesture, "belongs to you?"

Soichiro's reply consisted of two words and a half smile.

"It doesn't."

"My father has always been quite an interesting character." Soichiro's cultured voice was tinged with sardonic humour. "He has stated in his will that If I don't marry Sakurai-san, I will not be allowed to receive my inheritance."

"What? But-" Tenten started.

"Let's just say that I spent the last few years... pursuing my interests. Of course, my father didn't approve of me spending months away from home studying rocks instead of preparing to take over the family business. My guess is that this condition is to prevent me from taking off again once I've succeeded the role he originally intended for me."

Soichiro paused to take a sip of his tea.

"In the event that I don't marry Sakurai-san, everything goes to Hiroshi since he's my father's godson," he concluded casually.

If it hadn't been for the much more serious subject of their exchange, anyone listening would have thought that the young heir was doing nothing more than discussing the weather. Tenten found it extremely odd that Soichiro didn't even sound remotely concerned about something as important as his inheritance.

Conversely, his wife to be appeared quite uncomfortable as she looked down at her tea, the tiny hands holding her cup quivering a little. Whether it was due to the sensitivity of their current topic of conversation or something else, Tenten couldn't be sure.

"Ano... Fujimura-sama," Rin murmured softly.

"Yes?"

"Would it be alright for me to go into town to buy some things?" she asked.

"Of course," Soichiro answered smilingly. "Hiroshi, please escort Sakurai-san."

"Hai," in man in question said immediately. He had been so silent that Tenten had almost forgotten that he was in the room until Soichiro mentioned him.

"I'll come with you," Kazuya offered, but Rin shook her head.

"You don't have to trouble yourself Fuuma-san. Please continue your discussion without me."

Her kimono whispered as she got to her feet and made her way out the door with her bodyguard.


Guarding a civilian residence was any shinobi's nightmare. The castles of daimyo were teeming with trained guards and normally doubled as a fortress. The homes of those who could afford to pay for a ninja's services were usually designed purely for aesthetic appeal with absolutely no attention paid to security.

The estate Tenten was currently patrolling was no exception. In fact, it had taken the unwritten rule of "making your shinobi guard's life more difficult"' to a whole new level. Apart from its sheer size, each room had at least three or more doors that lead to a corridor overlooking a small portion of the over-sized garden. Meaning that once an intruder got in, he could get into any place he unnoticed to by simply hiding out in a bush.

That was only if he was unfortunate enough get in just as one of the few guards passed by.

Then again, since normal guards were more than enough to prevent petty thievery, the worst that could happen was that the owner would go bankrupt overnight. But if they had to hire shinobi to protect them, it obviously meant that a lot worse could happen, even if it didn't happen very often.

Tenten sighed. Fujimura Soichiro was obviously either extremely unlucky or really popular with assassins in general; most likely a combination of both. After all, who on earth could be targeted by two completely unrelated groups for two entirely different reasons, all in the same number of months?

The only person capable of such a feat was sleeping soundly in his chambers located at other end of his opulent home.

Tenten's brow furrowed in concentration as she tried to recall the route they had taken to get to the east wing of the house during the tour Soichiro had given them earlier. If memory served her correctly, she had to go straight past Neji and Kazuya's rooms and turn right.

She found her self glancing guiltily at the unlit shoji screens as she walked pass her teammate's rooms.


"Tenten, you can't possibly be thinking of patrolling this place for the entire night. You'll be exhausted," Kazuya protested.

"Hn," Neji grunted, for once agreeing with Kazuya.

Tenten gave an exasperated groan. Couldn't they have picked a better time to start being all friendly with each other? Why couldn't they understand that she was trying to be more independent? She couldn't spend the rest of her career relying on her comrades for everything.

"Look. This is supposed to be a solo mission. My solo mission," the brunette weapon mistress was slow and deliberate in her speech, stressing the 'my' part as she did so. "I'm supposed to be the one doing it and I'm the one getting paid so both of you should go and sleep. And if I find you two awake, I'm going to pin you to your beds with kunai," she finished before stalking out of the room.


It was an empty threat and all three of them knew it, but judging from the way the lights in both Neji and Kazuya's rooms were off, they had taken her warning to heart.

Now she was beginning to regret her stubbornness.

Pushing aside her self-pity and remorse for not accepting her teammates offers to help her, Tenten surveyed the finery around her, suddenly remembering the answer she had received when she'd asked Neji and Kazuya before their little argument began.

About whether arranged marriages were a common occurrence for people of their social standing.

"Most can't afford to marry for love," Kazuya had told her resignedly. Neji had simply nodded in silent agreement.

Tenten smiled sadly. It was strange how a person could have everything and yet be denied something as simple as marrying someone they truly loved.

That reminds me, Rin-san's room should be-

She froze when she realized that something was very wrong.

Tenten hurriedly broke off into a run, following the faint, unfamiliar chakra signature through the maze of corridors, not knowing where, what or who it would lead to.

She came to a stop when she got to the outside last door at the end of the corridor. Rin's room.

Tenten pulled the sliding door open as quickly as the wood would allow her to without it breaking and ran inside the bedroom. In the far end of the room, a shadowy figure was standing beside the bed, holding a short sword that glinted in the dim light of the corridor over the futon's blissfully unaware occupant.

Oh God.

One, two, three seconds later, as if only he had only just noticed her presence, the figure turned slowly to face her. With the darkness shrouding his features, she was couldn't tell who it was, but the fact that he was holding a sword was enough.

The unknown assailant charged towards her. Tenten reacted instinctively, sliding a kunai out of her thigh holster to parry the heavy-handed blow.

Her opponent was clearly unskilled at the usage of a sword. How he managed to get so close to his target without alerting her had yet to be explained. But as long as this was a fight involving weapons, she wouldn't lose.

As if he was privy to her thoughts, her opponent suddenly decided to switch back to his original target. Tenten was fast, but not fast enough. By the time she reached the bed, the assassin was already delivering the killing blow.

In that split second before the blade reached its mark, Tenten did the one thing she thought she'd never have to do; at least not for this mission.

Even though she was mentally prepared, it did nothing to reduce the searing pain as the sword stabbed straight into her right shoulder. There was another smaller, stinging pain in her left wrist which had hit something on the bedside table when she'd thrown herself into the sword's path to prevent it from hitting Rin.

Tenten knew that she wouldn't die from something this trivial. She'd had worse in her seventeen years. But the pain was so intense that her voice caught in her throat and she couldn't scream to alert everyone else about the intruder.

She was utterly relieved when whatever it was that her hand had knocked into earlier hit the floor with a resounding crash.


Author's Note:

School's finally out! XD

I'll be going away on holiday to New Zealand on the twelfth of November. As usual, I'll be planning in my head and writing ideas down in my little plot notebook, but the bad news is that I probably won't be writing anything for real unless I manage to find a computer. T-T

My mom says that the place we're staying at has a com with internet connection, but the information is pretty dubious since you can never really trust anything she says when it has to do anything Windows related. And no, I don't mean the ones you look out of. My dad is bringing his laptop, but he'll be using it for his work quite often so if I'm really lucky and can ask him before my siblings do, I might get to borrow it. Of course, this plan depends on whether or not I even have internet. If not, I'll just have to do it when I get back.

Or if I'm extremely lucky, I'll get a sudden surge of inspiration and be able to finish this entire arc, or at least half of it before I leave so I can post all the chapters at once.

(Please note that the chance of the above scenario happening is quite low as I don't really feel extremely inspired at the moment. Unless I suddenly find some inspiring music or something that puts me in the mood that matches the one in the story. That usually helps a lot. So if anyone finds/knows anything good, tell me.)

This chapter was beta-read by Midnight Memories, queen of all things grammar, spelling and punctuation related. Big thank yous to both her and all the readers. Your comments and reviews are extremely encouraging. :)

TTFN.