Heaven Forbid
Author's Note Parte Uno: This is addressed to my lovely readers who have faithfully waited for each update of this story. I thank you deeply for bearing with me as I struggle through the most infuriating writer's blocks. This has been the hardest chapter to write thus far because, surprisingly, the plot thickens! (ZOMG whut?!) Also, I have no idea how to characterize Neji. Thus, forgive my poor characterization, but he has a Byakugan and therefore makes a better plot device than Lee. (In my defense, he was kind of talkative and cheesy, if somewhat angsty, during the Chuunin Exams.)
Author's Note Parte Dos: It may seem like I dislike some characters. I just want to say: I don't. Firstly, I like most characters I come across in any work of fiction, except the truly despicable ones. In saying that, I find it to be a waste of energy to denounce fictional characters because they've done nothing to offend me, being, y'know, fictional. (Danzo is, of course, the exception that proves the rule.)
Disclaimer: I lied in the previous chapters. I actually own Naruto. Believe it! (Yeah, I went there. Damn, what's with all my parenthetical asides?)
Chapter Eleven: Reticence
The days passed similarly, with Tenten leading the 'normal' life of a Leaf kunoichi until she returned to her apartment, whereupon she often found herself engaging in hot, passionate love-fests with her guest, Hidan formerly of the Akatsuki and resident religious enthusiast.
Needless to say, the couple quite enjoyed their 'down' time. (In all honesty, the two spent much of this time exploring all directions.)
This particular day escaped the norm, for Tenten had just returned from her first three-day mission since Hidan began living with her. She went with her fellow kunoichi, Sakura, Ino, and Hinata, to infiltrate a drug cartel located beneath a club. Herself admittedly being the least feminine of the foursome and Hinata unwilling to put herself out as such, Tenten and the Hyuuga heiress remained as backup, setting up booby traps around their camp as well as hiding in the corners of the club, while Ino and Sakura disguised themselves as giggling floozies to gain easy access to the club and the information it held.
The mission went off without a hitch, with the exception of Ino cracking a nail, and the four friends were soon on their way home, ready to celebrate the end of their mission.
"Come on, Tenten," Sakura wheedled without annoying her companions. "I'm beginning to forget what your apartment even looks like!"
The brunette grinned but shook her head. "Sorry. I guess someone thought it would be funny to leave an exploding tag on my mayonnaise and then to leave the mayonnaise in the middle of my apartment because now it's everywhere."
Ino scoffed. "Right. Like when I came over last time and it was supposed to be reeking of old socks, but I'm positive I smelled strawberries? I completely believe you, Tenten."
"You've actually been over to her apartment?!"
"Hey, I was just passing by," the blonde defended with her hands raised. "And while I was there, I made some interesting…discoveries as to the possible reasoning behind her stubbornness against hosting us."
"Ino," Hinata spoke with a timid yet guardedly curious smile, "if Tenten doesn't want you to share her secret, albeit a dirty one, I don't think you should."
"And Tenten most certainly does not want you to share her dirty secret," huffed the brunette with a disagreeable arm-crossing.
A mischievous glint in her eye, Ino asked, "So what's his name again?"
"Ino!"
Tenten shook her head, recalling the various comments her dear friends made about her 'mysterious lover', a laughable description for Hidan, who was neither mysterious nor lovable, in the conventional sense. Then again, everything about Hidan was unconventional, from his unique appearance to his exceptionally turbulent personality. He completely offset Tenten, from her typical rationale to her utter normality, as she perceived herself possessing.
She froze. The door was unlocked.
"Hidan?" the weapons mistress asked tentatively, toeing the door open as she reached for a weapons scroll in her pouch. She poked her head inside the apartment and repeated his name. The closed curtains shrouded the normally sunny rooms with ominous shadows, sending a chill down Tenten's spine.
"This isn't fucking funny, you asshole," she said, but her tone was anxious rather than angry. "Seriously, stop screwing around, or you're not getting any tonight."
The threat came out much weaker than intended. Tenten's voice only grew fainter when she realized that Hidan was not, in fact, messing with her head, that he might actually be missing.
"Hidan?" she tried again, stepping into the bedroom. It was immaculate. Everything remained where it should, except for a lone slip of paper that lay ominously at the center of her bed. Both curious and frightened, Tenten reached for the sheet and plucked it off her comforter.
A single word sat on the note: Heaven.
Hidan awoke angrily, furiously thrashing against his bonds. He immediately grasped the situation, as he had experienced the same one many times before, albeit on the opposite end.
"You fucking bastard!" he spat at his former partner. "You knew! You goddamned knew that this would happen! Piece of motherfucking shit—go to hell!"
Kakuzu wordlessly grabbed the younger man by his silver hair and smashed his face into the dirt of the surrounding forest.
When his hair was released, Hidan continued swearing. "If you didn't tie me up, I would fucking tear you from limb to shitty limb! You're just put-the-fuck-off because I get laid more than you—and I took a vow of fucking celibacy! Goddamned prick!"
"Hidan, you really should stop all that cussing," the Akatsuki Leader reproached, stepping from the shadows to confront his former subordinate. "With your face still in the dirt, it's rather undignified."
"Fuck you, dickless bastard!"
Pein remained impassive. "Konan." At the command, the sole female of the organization slapped a sheet of paper over Hidan's mouth, effectively silencing him.
Unwilling to submit to his former peers, Hidan kicked his feet at the tender area of the nearest Akatsuki member.
"Watch it, yeah!" exclaimed Deidara, who leapt out of the way. "Man, I actually like you and what's-her-face. If you die, can I have her number?"
Hidan kicked again, this time right on target.
A certain young man scratched the side of his nose questionably. "Why do you need me to do this, again?"
Tenten, rather hurried due to her distress upon somehow losing her lover (though she had some plausible theories), wanted desperately to shake the idiot. "I need you, Kiba, to do this because I can't find my fucking enchiladas," she said, misleadingly calm. That calm, unsurprisingly, broke quickly as she burst, "Someone's been here, goddammit, and I wanna know who!"
The Inuzuka held his hands out defensively, taken aback by the ire of the usually composed weapons mistress. "Jeez, Tenten, it just seems a bit paranoid, y'know. A little crazy. No offense."
"Kiba," Hinata spoke softly, having come along with Shino as well for some reason unknown, "it's perfectly understandable for Tenten to have some…suspicions after her…ah…ordeal. It's very common amongst people who have…suffered as she has."
Tenten shot her fellow kunoichi a cruelly winsome smile, irritated at Kiba's chastisement from her albeit well-intending friend, for Hinata's words were perhaps better said when the brunette woman was not present. "Thanks a bunch, honey crunch."
The rhyme only served to puzzle the heiress, who reluctantly began to reconsider her teammate's misgivings regarding Tenten's sanity. Nonetheless, she replied graciously, as any good heiress would, "You're welcome…?"
"Now will you tell me what bastards trespassed?" Tenten said, returning her irate gaze to Kiba.
The young man rolled his eyes but obliged her, getting down on all fours and sniffing everything in the apartment with a vaguely animalistic manner. While he examined each room with dog-like curiosity and thoroughness, Hinata and Shino surreptitiously eyed their friend with masked worriment.
The Aburame, offhandedly, spoke abruptly, "If I had been informed earlier, I could have set up a surveillance network with my kikai."
Hinata, though silent, glanced sideways as the chakra of the weapons mistress flared momentarily. What she could not tell, however, was that Tenten's chakra had flared out of irritation, but at the idea of the stoic bug-nin knowing what naughty activities she and Hidan were up to.
Creepy.
"Um, Tenten, do I have to do your bathroom?" Kiba could be heard wondering several rooms over.
"Everything!" she all but snarled in reply. Shino, upon seeing her teeth bared in a rather vicious manner, wondered absently whether she might actually be a distant relative of the Inuzuka clan.
They heard Kiba whine shortly before a door opened, and they knew he returned to his task. After several more moments in tense silence, the brown-haired young man returned to the group, scratching the back of his head in confusion.
"What?" Tenten snapped impatiently. This whole ordeal was rather unnecessary, but she just needed to be positive…
"Uh, nothing really." Despite his words, Kiba's eyebrows remained knotted in befuddlement. "But you were right. The Akatsuki were here recently. Just yesterday, actually."
"Shit." Elaborating no further, Tenten snatched her resting travel pack from the floor and dashed out the door in pursuit of the intruders.
"Wait, Tenten—" Hinata moved to follower the older kunoichi, but Shino grasped her arm before she could.
"Kiba has something to say."
To Hinata's surprise, the confusion of the Inuzuka persisted as he began rubbing his neck as though he realized something particularly stressful. Abandoning her usual reserve, the heiress pressed, "Yes?"
"Well," Kiba said, his nose crinkling slightly, "you see, I definitely smelled Akatsuki, but one of the Akatsuki smells was really weird because it was—like, everywhere. And for a few days, too. So I sniffed around some more, and I was right. Apparently Hidan of the Akatsuki has been all over Tenten's apartment…and maybe Tenten. And not just yesterday. More like…yester-week."
Not quite understanding the implications of Kiba's words, Hinata asked, "What does this mean?"
Kiba, as though still unsure as to what to make of the situation, shrugged. "I guess it means that unless Hidan enjoys masturbating repeatedly on his victim's beds, he and Tenten have been going at it for a few weeks now."
The poor girl gasped so suddenly at this news that Shino had to make sure she did not faint.
The Aburame noted, with the faintest hint of sarcasm despite his diplomacy, "Kiba, I believe that could have been worded better."
"Well, it's true!" The other young man shrugged again. "What do we do now?"
"Um," Hinata finally managed to recuperate from her momentary heart attack, "perhaps we should report this to the Hokage."
Nodding in assent, the trio set off together toward the offices of Tsunade.
"Kiba, did you really mean everywhere—?"
"Hinata, it's probably best if I don't say anything about it. I'm scarred already, and I honestly think you can do without."
"Okay…"
"Fuck, the things I'm gonna do to those shit-heads if they've so much as scratched the bastard. This is fucking ridiculous—the nerve of those ass-wipes!"
"And who, pray tell, are said ass-wipes and shit-heads?"
Tenten stumbled at the abrupt inquiry and stood before the asker. "Shit, Neji, I almost had a seizure right then."
The Hyuuga raised an unimpressed eyebrow and crossed his arms. "You're not usually this distracted."
Rolling her eyes, the brunette made to circumvent her teammate. "Forgive me for having a life and cares in the world outside work." She was quickly halted in her escape, however, by Neji gripping her arm, almost painfully. "Let go!"
"Tenten," he said, the faint amusement disappearing from his expression, "I know." Though her face hardened at his confession, he continued, "I've known all along. Hell, the Hokage probably knew. It's not easy keeping an S-class criminal a secret beneath your roof in Konoha. Especially not when your teammate has the Byakugan."
"You spied on me?"
"I was worried," he insisted, "but you weren't letting anyone in—not even Lee! I couldn't check up on you without being rejected, so I took some liberties. It may not be moral, but we live in a shinobi village, for goodness' sake!"
The eyes of the weapons mistress narrowed coldly, and she attempted once more to wrench her arm from his grasp, with the same result. "Why didn't you do anything then, if you knew for so long?"
At his friend's iciness, Neji hardened his tone, "Because, at the time, I thought you were fragile. I could tell that you needed him then. To take him away would've broken you further. But I thought that you would be logical—like you used to be—and leave him. Or he would leave you."
"And lead you to the Akatsuki," she finished.
Neji's pale gaze turned to meet anything but Tenten's own stare. "That would have been convenient, yes."
Tenten finally managed to tear her arm from his grip, but she did not leave right away. Instead, throwing her arms to the air, she yelled, "Are you happy then?! Now, he's fucking kidnapped by the Akatsuki! Is that a good enough lead for you?!"
Tearfully, she threw a punch, which was, of course, easily blocked. "Get a hold of yourself! I'm here to help you!"
"How, asshole? You gonna keep me in here so I don't get hurt, is that it?"
Neji sighed, blatantly reluctant to admit his willingness to help his long-time teammate and friend in her moment of need. "I'm going to help you get him back…and take down the bastards who took him."
"Well, ain't this fucking ironic?" Hidan sneered once his gag was removed. "All those bounties we did together and now I'm just another tally for ya. How's that figure, ya godless old fart?"
Kakuzu rolled his green eyes at his former partner. "Shut up. You might want to actually listen this time because now I can actually kill you."
Ignoring the threat, the younger man persisted, "Tell me, how much more is my head worth than yours?"
When the Falls-nin grabbed Hidan by the neck in an esophagus-crushing grip, all the Jashinist did was smirk deviously, much to the dismay of Kakuzu. "Tell me, how much do you want to die?" he venomously retorted.
"I ain't dying," spat Hidan, the violet hue of his eyes flaring defiantly with his inherent desire to utterly slaughter the man before him as his smirk widened wickedly. "Not by you. I'm worth a hell of a lot more alive."
Considering himself a generous and overall better man, Kakuzu released his grasp on the former Akatsuki member, shifting his glowing gaze to the task at hand.
Though incapacitated by the binding ropes, Hidan would be damned if he remained idle, even if he resorted to annoying the bastard to the grave. He thusly said, "What the fuck's that for?" jerking his head at the mass of strings in Kakuzu's hands.
Smirking hostilely at his captive, Kakuzu simply pointed to his back, indicating his masks and hearts.
"Sick fuck."
Tenten was surprised to be not only intercepted, but joined by several other friends in her excursion. They all asserted, however, that they intended to defeat the Akatsuki rather than save her lover. Most felt quite perplexed and even infuriated at her choice of romantic interest, thus refraining from outwardly supporting their comrade in her endeavor.
In any case, the weapons mistress appreciated their aid, no matter how grudgingly they offered it.
It still hurt though that Lee, her very best friend besides Neji, refused to make eye contact for a significant portion of their journey. Furthermore, Tenten had an inkling that the only reason Neji seemed to 'understand' was due to his prior investigation of her interactions with Hidan. She was not quite sure how to address the Hyuuga's ease of access to her private life.
Unfortunately, her harshest critics were not quite as kind as Lee in their treatment of her. Naruto, who utterly despised the Akatsuki (especially a certain Uchiha) for making Sasuke seek Orochimaru and for hunting down the jinchuuriki, continuously made subtle yet snide comments about Tenten's relationship with Hidan. She could also feel the cold stares of the other shinobi whenever she joined them to eat or plan their attack. Although unable to hear whatever was said behind her back, Tenten knew most of those words were critical and unkind.
The kunoichi sighed, burying her face into her hands as the source of her problems came to mind.
"Damn you," she muttered, thinking wistfully of violet eyes and silver hair and a smirking visage. "I'm victimized yet again, and I need their goddamned forgiveness? This is all your fucking fault."
Elsewhere in the camp, Lee occupied himself with prying information from his fellow teammate on their friend's dilemma. "Neji, you cannot keep this from me!"
"It's Tenten's own business," replied the other young man with a shrug.
"But you know!"
"I know because I was assigned with watching over her, lest she do something stupid."
In one of his rare sarcastic moments, Lee scoffed, "I take it you were unsuccessful."
Shooting a pointed look at the taijutsu master, Neji said, "The action of immediately taking him away from her might have caused emotional backlash and a subsequent breakdown. Besides, his body language conveyed no ill intent."
"Still, you could have told me…"
"And let you barge into her apartment to kill the man?" It was Neji's turn to scoff. "No, it was better to leave you in the dark." At the hurt expression of Lee, however, as well as the knowledge that it was Lee who was most involved in helping Tenten readapt to Konoha, the Hyuuga sighed, though noncommittally, "Sorry. I guess you can call us even."
"Even?" Two extraordinarily bushy eyebrows furrowed together in contemplation.
"I've kept this secret from you…and you've kept a secret from me."
Lee briefly panicked before he frowned once more. "It is hardly a secret, then, if you already know of its existence."
"There is a secret, then?"
Realizing his slip, Lee said hastily, "Ah, Neji, you have outwitted me once again. As punishment, I shall run the length of this forest twice!" With nary another word, the Beast of Konoha took off in a sprint, leaving the Hyuuga alone to wonder what the secret could possibly be.
Post-Note: A little subplot for you literary sharks out there. If you want to know what Lee's secret is, read Chapter 8 more carefully!
