Part 7: Heart Matters (3)
"Oh … there you are. Your friend… the Iwa soldier… he'll be fine, Tenten. Ino managed to patch him up well enough, and now Shizune's healing him nicely. You don't have to worry."
Slightly taken aback at the informal way Haruno Sakura was addressing one who was more senior than her, Tenten acknowledged those heartening words with a slight nod. The pink-haired teen had busied herself with readying supplies once she had stepped into the medical tent, giving information to her fellow Konoha kunoichi in a tone that portrayed barely any emotion. At this moment however, she raised her torso upright to face her peer and wore a quizzical look on her face. "Is there any else you need in here?"
Tenten shook her head as she recognised that look of caution Sakura was now wearing. Across all divisions, everyone had been instructed to be on high alert, especially the medical camp since the White Zetsu clones were mainly targeting Alliance medics, Sealing Team members, as well as those who were injured. Cutting down the numbers of the Shinbo Alliance Force in that way had unfortunately been a deadly and effective tactic, as the headquarters continued to provide distressing reports that the number of shinobi soldiers being taken out showed no signs of abating.
"I don't want to disturb your work, Sakura. I… I just want to know a little more about… I heard from Shikamaru about your encounter with the Neji impersonator… and… and I just want to know…if you don't mind."
The look of doubt vanished immediately, replaced by one of understanding and concern, and the Hokage's star apprentice agreed to the request without delay. It was quite rare for Team Guy's spunky female member to be spluttering through her words, and the much softened demeanour she was wearing now just went to show how greatly affected she was. Sakura spent the next few minutes relating the incident, and at the end of her recount, noticed that her friend was only responding via silent nods, barely even attempting any eye contact with her throughout the one-sided conversation. Genuinely perturbed, the Konoha medic and female brawler sat herself down beside the dark-haired girl, taking her cold hands into her own.
"Thank you, Sakura… thanks for letting me what happened," Tenten mumbled softly as she continued looking down at her lap. "And thank you for the information you gave…if not the entire alliance will definitely be in more dire straits now."
For as long as Sakura had known her, the weapons expert had never spoken in such a solemn tone before. Granted that they were not particularly close, for unknown reasons mostly due to the fact that she was the star pupil of the Hokage whom Tenten had idolised since young, the two girls had always maintained a cordial friendship, even if they shared the same bosom buddy in Yamanaka Ino. Noting that the older girl was clearly not in the right state of mind, Sakura asked a question that she never ever fathomed she would.
"Tenten… do you want me to help bun up your hair?"
The chastised teen girl finally raised her head, dumbfounded, caught unawares by this utterly unexpected question. Sakura was wearing a look that was so gentle and compassionate, yet Tenten still found her query weirdly mind-boggling. Stranger still was her response following it,
"Yes, Sakura. I would like you to help… bun up my hair."
Holding their gaze for a mere moment longer was sufficient to send both girls breaking into girlish giggles, the intensity of the atmosphere suddenly plummeting to oblivion. The initial hesitant sniggers augmented quickly to hearty guffaws, and soon the whole tent echoed with merriment that one would never expect to find in the middle of such chaotic mayhem. Shizune popping her head quizzically through the tent flaps ignited a whole new load of unrestrained chuckles, and the disgruntled general of the Medical Corps exited abruptly, grumbling about how youths should know how to behave better when the world was at its end.
"Thanks… I really needed that."
It was evident minutes later that Tenten was not just expressing gratitude for having her hair back in its rightful buns, and Sakura acknowledged that with a light pat on her friend's back. Placing her expert hands over a swollen and bruised cheek, the medic cast a glowing aura from her palms. The patient let her lids droop and felt her lashes kiss as she basked in the energy pulsating through her raw and tender flesh, attempting vainly to push the invading memory of how she had received that bruise in the first place. Even as Sakura worked her magic however, a sense of discomfort surged from her chest yet again, and the trickling warmth caressed her face in tiny rivulets.
"It's ok… whatever you're blaming yourself for… it's ok. Let it out, my friend."
Refusing to wallow in self-pity for more than a few moments, Tenten disobeyed her physician's orders as she dried her tears soon after her cheek had healed beautifully, choosing to pour her woes out to Sakura's patient ears instead. Knowing that her friend could have other injured patients to attend to did not seem to deter her from sharing, and the previously disoriented girl soon found herself re-telling her tale from start to finish, leaving only the most minute details out.
"And now… now I feel so foolish!" she spat as her right fist pummelled the make-shift bed. "If I had not acted so rashly… if I had only thought of asking Hiashi-sama to locate Neji's whereabouts using his Byakugan instead of plotting my own course of action without actually using my stupid brains to think..."
"Your friends would all be dead. Including the two men and the female from Iwagakure."
Momentarily stunned by the interruption, Tenten faced the pink-haired girl with an incredulous expression. A firm nod was followed by an analytical explanation that, while did not make the Division One soldier feel any better about the loss of lives at the forest, proved her friend's earlier words to be absolutely true. Tenten had only wanted to accompany the medical squad led by the Kurotsuchi impersonator for a short spell, and even her stumbling of the real Kurotsuchi's battle with the resurrected Guren and her henchmen was by accident.
"Logically, if you had not strayed away from the medical squad, the Iwa female would have definitely been killed by Guren and her team. What's more, it was only due to Ino finding out from Chouji that you'd left the camp that the Shikamaru quickly gathered Hiashi-sama and the Sealing Team. If they had not bothered to go after you, the whole squad would have been annihilated, and who knows what the Edo Tensei versions of Guren and her men would have done to your division if they'd reached your base camp to rescue Kakuzu and his hearts? You foiled their plans, Tenten, even if by accident. You foiled Kabuto's plans and saved many more lives."
Astounded by Sakura's keenly observant scrutiny of her words, Tenten lowered her tingling body back to the bed as she realised once again that Fate had been playing her the whole time ever since the war began the day before. It was as if everything had occurred the way it did for a purpose, and the Konoha teen could only surrender to what it had planned for her. The discovery of the Bashosen had clearly opened up a whole new world for her, and this novel world seemed to want to continue introducing untrodden paths and fresh challenges for her to bear.
"The true question now, Tenten," Sakura seemed to be slightly relishing her sudden status as a psychiatric expert, "is that with all this information and the fact that you're now much closer to Neji than before, how will you move on from here? Are you going to return to Division One with the rest later, or are you going to continue your way to Division Two and look for Neji? We really are much closer to his division at our current location."
It took a few seconds for it to dawn on Tenten that whatever her friend was saying was exactly right, and that out of the blue, the urge to meet her Hyuuga teammate was re-ignited and escalated to its former glory.
