(A/N) Sasori! Did'ja miss me? Also, you wanted a date, so here you go. Is this me delaying the fight scene I don't want to write? Maybe. You can't prove anything though. Also, for the record, Tenten is Bisexual while Mei is lesbian.
"Tenten?" Mei said, poking her head into the space Tenten currently pretended was an office. It wasn't, it was just a seals testing room, but with the lack of people with enough sealing knowledge, she was the only one who used it.
"Yes Mei?" Tenten asked, amused. Her girlfriend appeared to have done the roughly once in a blue moon brushing of her hair, and admittedly, it looked a bit odd.
"Are you done? I finished all of my work for today."
Tenten snickered. "Yes, I'm nearly finished. Just let me ink in these final sequences." It appeared someone was eager for their date.
Mei settled for leaning against the wall and pulling her hair up into a bun. It was advised, considering what they were planning on doing.
"Did you remember to get permission?" Tenten checked as she finished up and leaned back to check her work. "Yes, I did make sure the place was reserved."
"Whoo! Then we're all ready!" Mei cheered, beaming.
Tenten chuckled, and put away the seal. "Yep, we're all ready. Let's go, shall we?"
Mei nodded enthusiastically, leading the way out of the R&D area and to the training ground they'd reserved.
It was all set up when they arrived, each material set out in their order. Tenten pulled out a wad of explosion tags she'd been making for the last few days when they first decided to do this.
"Let's go!" Mei cheered.
"Indeed," Tenten replied, amused. She handed half the stack to Mei, using the other half herself to apply the tags to the materials. Well, to one of each of them. They'd need to do multiple tests of each object, just to make sure. This was a durability test afterall.
"Alright! First object!" Mei shouted, putting the first thing to blow up in the middle of the field, then backing away. "Will you do the honors?" She asked Tenten, grinning like a cheshire cat.
Tenten grinned in answer, bringing her hand up into a half ram. The tags went off as she pulsed her chakra to explode them, the explosion being magnificent. She stopped Mei as she tried to run over to inspect the object. "Careful, it's still hot." She handed over thick gloves she'd made just for today.
Mei waved an arm dismissivly, but grabbed them anyway, sliding them on, then approaching the object. "It's warped, and pretty badly!" She called back. Tenten marked it down, then stored the notebook to also approach the object.
It was indeed warped badly, glowing red hot with heat and barely recognizable.
"To be fair to that material, we did use full strength explosion seals that I made," Tenten said, staring at it.
"Eeh, if it can't withstand that, I ain't working with it," Mei said, shaking her head. "Let's do another! Isn't determined if it doesn't happen at least three times!"
Tenten giggled, but let herself be dragged to get another piece of metal covered in explosive seals.
Shino didn't know what Tenten was doing, but she was very excited and happy about it, so he was content. They'd recently parted ways with It-Risu, and Kisame, Shino was still getting used to the name change, so they were just sort of vaguely wandering around. They didn't really have anything to do for now except wait for a sign of the remaining three Akatsuki members. Sasori, Zetsu, and Orochimaru. They'd figured it'd be easiest to isolate and kill Zetsu last, just so he didn't try and go to any other member of Akatsuki for help.
Shino was currently waiting for Jiraiya to finish a chat with a part of his network disguised as a book signing. It should be over soon, but you never knew with Jiraiya. He was rather flaky. And that wasn't a compliment.
Luckily, Jiraiya arrived less then an hour later, apparently bearing grave news, if his expression was anything to go on.
Shino hopped out of his tree to land in front of the sannin. "Anything?"
"He knows where Sasori is heading," Jiraiya said, looking rather grim. "He's heading for the old ruins of Uzushio."
Shino frowned. "There isn't anything there for him. He wouldn't be able to find the libraries even we couldn't locate, and while there are poisonous plants there, none of them are things that can't be found in easier access elsewhere."
He and Tenten along with three others, Yuugao, Sakura, and Shikamaru, had lived on Uzushio for a long time, using the wards to hide themselves from Obito. It was also where Yuugao and Sakura had died, sealing the island with their blood. It wasn't a place of happy memories.
"We should stop him before he gets there," Shino finished, letting out a long breath. He didn't like the island, but he'd go there if he had to. "Will we require Tenten's help?"
Jiraiya shrugged. "Probably. Let's go. We have to catch up to him if we're going to get him before he gets to Uzushio."
Shino inclined his head, and they set off.
They stopped him only an hours journey from the barrier. It was close.
Shino pushed urgency into the seal, and was rewarded by a burst of surprise, then an affirmation.
Tenten appeared next to him a moment later, a bit of soot on her clothes and thick gloves covering her hands. "Don't worry, Mei understands, and will let me do this so we can get back to our date afterward."
Well that was one of his worries soothed. "Sasori is coming up on us fast. We're only an hour or two from Uzushio. We shouldn't let him get there."
"Right," Tenten said, nodding. "Aim for the heart," she called to Jiraiya. "It's a cylinder in his chest. Destroy that and you destroy him."
Jiraiya nodded firmly, and they fell into ready stances as they heard Sasori approaching.
Tenten started tossing hiraishin marked kunai around the clearing, hiding them fairly well in an attempt to catch Sasori off guard. With any luck it'd be quick, and Sasori wouldn't have a chance to pull out any of his puppets. Shino doubted they'd be that lucky, but it was nice to hope.
Sasori, well, him inside his carrier puppet, arrived moments later. He stared at them blankly. "You three."
"Us three!" Tenten replied cheerily, using a kunai stuck in the ground to teleport next to him and lop the carrier puppet's head off.
She dodged the tail that followed it, pulling out a sword to fight it.
"Rude," Sasori huffed from inside the puppet.
"Break it," Shino told Jiraiya in no uncertain terms, locating thick gloves for himself to hopefully give him at least a bit of protection against Sasori's poisonous traps.
He used his kikai to burrow into the wood when he struck Sasori, going for frontal assault. It wasn't his usual style, but they had to keep him distracted until they destroyed his outer puppet enough for them to get at his heart.
Shino dodged to the side as Jiraiya's hair entered the battle, focusing instead on getting his kikai to sneakily get to Sasori's heart. Once inside, they would destroy anything they could, eating most of it. Once his kikai reached the heart, they'd won.
He snuck some more in when Jiraiya's hair retreated slightly, instructing them best he could.
They made happy little cries of 'meat, chakra, food!' When they reached the heart, and Shino let them eat. Once they finished their work, sucking up the chakra around the heart as well, Sasori collapsed like, well, a puppet with his strings cut.
"Is he dead?" Tenten asked, prodding him experimentally with her sword. The tail lay in pieces behind her.
"I believe so," Shino replied, calling his kikai back to him. "Perhaps destroy the heart further to make sure."
"Everyone out?" She checked, then at Shino's nod, she stomped down hard over where Sasori's heart should be. Red blood coated her boot as she crushed the heart. "There. He won't be a problem any more."
Shino inclined his head. "We will allow you to return to your date now."
"Thanks," she replied, shaking her foot in a vague attempt to get the blood off. She gave up and hosed it off with a fast water jutsu, then hiraishined out.
"She was on a date?" Jiraiya asked skeptically.
Shino nodded. "With her girlfriend."
Jiraiya's face of shock was amazing, Shino decided as he turned to walk away. Well worth it.
(A/N) Too easy? Eeh, it made sense to me. Orochimaru next time! There are a lot of slots on my update schedule open, so here's the link to the poll for that! /27wYJyJei3QmmfLU8