Nessie's Note: Oh goodness, it's been a long time, hasn't it? This is entirely my fault. What with school and original work and general lack of inspiration, this fic just wouldn't happen. Fortunately, I found a groove and learned that I like writing madmen who just won't shut up. I hope you don't mind. And thanks for your patience on the update!

Also, Happy Birthday to my dear collaborator! Here's some future fic for you!

Thanks For Playing

"The Wheel of Fortune"

By Nessie

Tenten woke at dawn, which wasn't right. It was hours after Neji should have reentered the tent, stirred her from sleep and taken his share of rest while she finished the night's watch. Now she could smell the grass, wet with dew, as dull gray light shone through tiny holes in the old canvas.

Her first instinct was irritation. He did this sometimes; when Neji got into a mood, he tended to stay up all night and let her sleep while he contemplated the future or the purpose of shinobi in life's big picture (at twenty-five, he'd already turned philosophical), always using the excuse that she had looked tired. On their own time she was willing to call him foolish and let it slide, but on missions…on missions it was stupid, and unacceptable. She supposed it was also sweet, but Tenten prided herself on her common sense. Over the years, she had developed a pragmatic side, good for figuring this out and fixing problems – probably from too many missions with Nara Shikamaru.

She and Neji were supposed to be in the Land of Wind by noon, charged with the security of a leading tradesman from the Land of Fire who worried that the group of small villages he was marketing to would take underhanded action if his deal was undesirable. Tenten thought his concern was unfounded; any shinobi the villages hired would be dispatched by the Kazekage, and Gaara would never jeopardize relations between Wind and Fire.

But, Tenten reflected inwardly as she wound her hair into twin buns, it would take Neji's Byakugan to know for sure, and that wasn't going to be easy if the Hyuuga was bleary.

"Neji?" She called for him a second time, trying to keep her displeasure out of her voice so she could unleash it once they were face-to-face. Rolling her eyes when he didn't answer, she shoved her sleeping bag and the blades she'd left lying around (accounting for the tent's holes) into her knapsack, grabbing up Neji's fully packed bag as she went out. "Hey, Neji! Ne—"

He always kept watch within ten yards of the tent, but Tenten couldn't find him within fifty. They had already crossed the point where Fire's springy grass faded into Wind's endless sand. Though they hadn't gotten so far that the true cold of the night desert had ravaged their camp, the trees were fairly sparse and the nearest stream was an hour's run behind them. She gathered up the traps she had set the day before; none of them had gone off. Tenten's irritation began to give way to nerves.

And when she returned to the tent and found a scroll stabbed into the sand with one of her own shuriken, the nervousness stuck in her throat like a swallowed rock. The paper was dry, but the morning breeze had brushed a good amount of sand over it, meaning its deliverer had come between five and ten minutes ago, while she had been searching for Neji. And that was enough time to get gone.

The note was concise, direct. Neji had been taken during the night. The description of him was flawless, right down to the "odd mark" on his forehead. She was to come for him by midnight; enclosed was a map of the Land of Wind. The location indicated was opposite from their mission assignment. She could choose duty, or her partner. And if she didn't come, Neji would be killed.

As simple as the message was, it still didn't make sense. There was no motive, no sign of emotion at all, only instructions like the rules to a game. Creases lined the paper where Tenten's fingers held it, the only outward display of response. Then, carefully, she folded the scroll and added it to her backpack, taking out two more scrolls at the same time. The first was to the Hokage, explaining the situation and her intended plan of action. The second was to the Kazekage, mostly the same but in less detail, along with an apology and her promise that she would take full responsibility for her actions.

Two more minutes and the scrolls were on their way, carried by two summoned hawks with whom she had made a blood treaty more than a year earlier. Once Naruto and Gaara understood her position, she was sure they would pull the necessary strings to rectify the professional mistake she was making. Perhaps she would be demoted afterwards, civilianized, or even exiled from Konoha altogether. It didn't matter.

Someone had kidnapped Neji. Professionalism be damned; this was personal.

***

Night fell earlier in the desert – Tenten liked that. It meant the encroaching darkness and the ever-increasing cold threw off the guards, and the bevy of men at the base of the rock system she was poised atop allowed themselves to be distracted. She watched them shiver. Below her were twelve, and while approaching the site she had counted five walking the perimeter. None of them were apparently shinobi, which explained why no one was posted at the very place from which she now spied; they couldn't climb difficult outcroppings like this cave because they couldn't seal the soles of their feet with chakra. Even if they could, they hadn't been trained by Maito Gai. Tenten and her teammates could top rocks like this on their hands if necessary.

Her frown tightened. Then again, they had also been trained not to get captured. Neji, of all people, was currently being held inside this cave. And despite the directions from his capturer's message, the guards didn't look ready to oblige anyone who sought entry.

She was silent as she unraveled the pale wire, thin as two strands of her hair and twice sharper than a kunai, and lowered a loop of it, the two ends wrapped around her gloved hands. Only the one nearest the entrance needed to be taken out discreetly. A Soshoryu at half power would take care of the rest. She watched her target, a lanky man who looked on the verge of chattering, as he swatted at the wire, undoubtedly mistaking it for a string of spider-silk in front of his face. He missed and the loop hung loosely just above his neckline. Tenten pursed her lips. A weapon-filled scroll was tucked under the middle finger on both hands. She flicked a last glance at the unwitting men, trying not to wonder if they had families. If she waited any longer, her breath would become visible in bright puffs of air over their heads. She pinched the ends of wire beneath the opposite thumbs and forefingers.

The scrolls flew open. And she tugged.

***

The cave was only one big tunnel, not several as she had thought, but that simplified things. She only had to walk for a minute before she could see a faint glow ahead, and she ran at the light, blinking rapidly after emerging in it.

It was a room, mostly bare but for a carpet on the stone floor, a small table, an odd mechanism with a lever set into one wall, and—

"Neji!" Her call reverberated in the cave's high ceiling, magnifying the shock in her voice.

Her partner was chained to a round slab turned on one end. Triangles of blue, green, red, and yellow divided the wood, so bright and cheerful that it absurdly looked like a giant lollipop. Neji's chin pressed to his chest, hair falling black and tangled close to his face. At the sound of his name, he looked up, eyes wide. "Tenten?"

Relief coursed through her like a healing vaccine. For a moment, she had feared his eyes would be gone; blood limits were popular to hidden villages that didn't have any. But aside from a section on his scalp where his hair was clumped with dried blood, his missing forehead protector, and bruising where the chains held him, he appeared fine. Sakura could cure head trauma, and bruises were nothing. "You're alive," she exhaled. "You're all right."

Neji's gaze moved to a point behind her.

"That depends entirely on you."

A kunai was raised and pointed at the speaker faster than Tenten could turn her head to look at him. A tall and portly man of dark complexion and light hair stood in the mouth of the tunnel. He was too clean to have spent much time in the desert and too well-dressed to be a local of any nearby villages. Yet here he stood, at the middle of Wind inside a damp and chilly cave, smiling at Tenten as thought she was an unexpected guest he was pleased to see.

"Allow me to introduce myself," he began. "My name—"

"I don't care," Tenten said sharply.

The man was halted, unused to being interrupted, and it took a second before he relaxed again. "I think you will once I explain the predicament you are in. After all, you don't know what that is, do you?" He gestured to the mechanism on the wall.

Tenten didn't answer.

"No, I didn't think so. You fighting types know so little about technology." The man cleared his throat, and the beginnings of a second chin wobbled in front of his neck. "My name is Suichi. I'm a businessman from the Land of Water. As such, I've had some experience with shinobi, though Konoha has a rather different mentality than Kirigakure. That was an unforeseen…ah…" Suichi aimed a hard smile in Neji's direction. "Issue."

"What is it you want?" Tenten demanded, tired of his babbling. "What's so important to a businessman from Water that you would kidnap my teammate?"

"Nothing much. You see, I'm no longer working. My trade was quite successful, and I've retired. But retirement can be boring – just so you know, when you start considering it – so I took to traveling. I came here." His smile widened. "And I seek to amuse myself with a game I've devised. Observe the wheel."

Tenten waited until he moved to where she could keep her eye on him before she looked. What she really saw was Neji but she again noted the colored triangles. "What about it?"

"It's hollow. Lining the insides are two hundred explosive tags." Tenten's breath caught. "Now, I'm no shinobi but even I can perform a simple hand seal to set them off. The chains binding your partner run beneath this carpet and into the wall behind that lever. When it's pulled, the wheel shall spin until it loses momentum. The result is whichever color is aimed skyward."

Out of instinct, Tenten checked the current result. Yellow. Neji's dark hair was shocking black against it. She deliberately kept from meeting the eyes just below.

"Each color represents a different outcome, or action I should say. Here." He handed her a small card, which Tenten accepted balefully.

Green: Hyuuga's chains release and you leave.

Yellow: Nothing happens. Play again!

Blue: Hyuuga's chains release, and I get one free mission from Team Gai. Everybody wins!

Red: The 200 tags explode. Everybody loses.

THANKS FOR PLAYING!

"You bastard!" Tenten screamed, the curse echoing forcefully around them.

"Oh, but you still have one more option," Suichi said calmly. "You don't play at all. You turn around and walk out right now. Hyuuga stays. I'm sure someone will try to win his life for him, Tenten. You certainly don't have to."

"Why are you doing this?" she hissed. "Why to us?"

Suichi looked annoyed. "I've told you already. I am bored. And you Konoha shinobi, you have such a go-to mentality. And you, Tenten?" Suddenly, he grinned and held up a page taken from his pocket. It was a copy of her Bingo Book profile. "I can see you're a player."

"No." Neji's tone was so hard, so ice-cold that Tenten almost flinched. "Look at me, Tenten."

She did, and then immediately wished she hadn't. Neji's gaze was steady but the light in it was fierce.

"Don't do it. He's insane. There's another way."

She breathed deeply, nodding agreement, showing her support. "Yes. We'll find—"

"You won't," Suichi interrupted loudly. "I've done my research, young lady. You could free him from those chains with your impressive arsenal, but not faster than I could set off the tags. Neji might be able to break iron with his Hakkeshou Kaiten, but not bound up like that. You like to think your way out of things, don't you? But this isn't a game of wits. You'll notice the lever doesn't account for strength. You can't determine the force to use for achieving a desirable result. This is a wheel of fortune. This is a true game of chance!"

"And if I kill you right now?" Tenten inquired, raising the kunai higher. She had already identified sixteen places she could throw the blade and snuff out Suichi's life instantly.

Suichi shrugged. "That would be an interesting course of action. Maybe I would form the seal in time, maybe I wouldn't. But what has the better odds?"

He was right. When it came down to it, her success with the wheel had a likelihood of three-to-one. That beat fifty-fifty.

Slowly, she lowered the kunai.

"Tenten," Neji began as she stepped toward the wall-mounted lever. "This is…" He stopped when their eyes met. Tenten didn't smile, every one of her muscles was tense, but she still believed this was the right move. He could see that without Byakugan. Neji sighed. "It's your game."

"No, Neji." Tenten set her hand on the lever. The wood grain was new and smooth under her palm. "I don't think of it as a game. Close your eyes." He did. Across the room, Suichi's eyebrows rose with anticipation. Tenten smelled her own sweat. The lever came down.

The chains rattled in the wall and under the rug. The unseen engine whirred and Neji, eyes closed, spun round with the wheel. He turned once, twice, and half of a third time before the wheel slowed and finally stopped.

"Oooh, yellow!" Suichi yelled, excited beyond reason. "Try again, Tenten! Again!"

"Yes," Tenten murmured, never looking away from Neji. He breathed steadily, and next to his eyes a trail of veins protruded. "I think I will."

She pulled the lever.

***

"Here." Tenten handed Neji his forehead protector, found on the table beside the lever. He tied it hurriedly into place; she knew he didn't like her seeing his cursed seal. She smiled up at him. "I'm really proud of you, Neji."

"You thought I wouldn't figure it out?"

"No, I…well…" Tenten grinned sheepishly. "I was worried."

"I don't have to be standing on the ground, or even upright, to perform the Kaiten. All I need is rotation, and the jutsu activates. But then," he added with a smirk, "you know that."

With the Kaiten activated, the iron chains had broken under the force of his chakra while Tenten had apprehended Suichi, rendering his threat of explosive tags useless.

Neji rocked back on his heels. "There will be consequences, you know. The Hokage may ignore it this time since our mission was more or less pointless—"

"Naruto knows what it's like to have a teammate kidnapped," she cut in. "He would've done the same thing. Any of us would have, and everybody knows it."

Neji nodded, wordlessly agreeing with her.

"You damn—damn shinobi!" Suichi shrieked, as he had for the last five minutes, chained to his own wheel by his own chains. "This wasn't part of the game! This isn't how you win!"

Neji leaned on Tenten, and the two ignored him, making their way out of the cave. Only after they had passed the perimeter where the last of the bodies Tenten had silenced lay did either of them speak.

"Do you remember when we were Chuunin?" asked Tenten.

Neji was focused on conserving his energy but he murmured a reply. "Yes."

"You saved me. All the time, it seemed like. This is the first time I've saved you."

Silence passed between them while they clambered up a dune, then paused to stare at the stars. Neji was judging by the constellations which way would take them to Sunagakure. Tenten was just staring.

"Never take the whole night watch again," she ordered. Her tone left no room for refusal.

The desert was bitterly cold, and he tightened his around her, rubbing his hand over her arm in an attempt to keep her warm. The sand under their feet slowed their progress, but she held onto him. "I should say thank you."

"Neji." His name sounded like you know better. She stopped and turned to him. Cupping his face between her cool hands, she rose onto her toes for a long kiss. When she broke away, he was smiling. "For what?"

Neji brought her closer until not an breath of air would fit between their bodies. His mouth hovered over hers. "For playing."

The End