The awkward dance from last night didn't leave a negative imprint on their mood. In fact, it created a kind of companionableness between them. It might be masking something simmering underneath but they still weren't done dancing around it.
In other good news, Tenten was able to walk unassisted. This fact was reason for celebration and relief although Neji did feel a pang that last night was probably the last time he would carry her cradled at his shoulder to his bed.
Tsunade, Sakura, and Naruto came by while Tenten was taking a much needed shower. It was a strange feeling. She had a fleeting familiarity with Neji's bathroom but she couldn't remember ever showering there. But she couldn't exclude it. There was still a lot she didn't remember. But there were some things she was pretty sure she remembered and she still couldn't be certain whether she ought to tell Neji or not. When she'd woken up that morning, he'd already vacated the bed, so there was no more opportunity for pillow talk.
Wearing a pair of Neji's pants and a shirt, she joined the informal meeting occurring in the kitchen. Tsunade and Naruto were sitting. Neji was leaning against the counter and Sakura was making tea. Tenten saw an ice pick on the counter and knew instinctively that's what Neji had used to make a hole in one of his belts she was currently wearing. Though still loose, at least now his pants didn't slide off her.
"I really should've thought to bring some clothes for you," Sakura admonished herself, looking at Tenten's ill-fitting garb.
"It's fine," Tenten waved off, then gathered her hair to one side, so it didn't drip down her back onto the floor. Now, instead, it created a big wet spot just above her right breast.
"Would you like to sit?" Naruto offered his chair but Tenten declined.
"I feel fine today," she assured them and stood next to Neji while Sakura gave her a cup of tea.
"I'm gonna give you another medical check," Tsunade announced. "Neji'll be off to meet his uncle and Sakura and Naruto are going to smuggle you up into my office, where you'll be looking at a bunch of documents that I find kind of important right now. See if any of that sparks something. It would really help if we knew what problem you were here to fix and how - or if at all - Hiashi's scroll plays any role in this."
They all nodded. Then Tsunade motioned for Tenten to abandon her cup and follow her into the bedroom.
The three colleagues were left behind in the kitchen while Tsunade satisfied her medical curiosities about time travel. Neji knew Sakura and Naruto wanted to know something. They were both brimming with an awkward giddiness.
"So… Was it weird having a stranger from the future stay at your house?" Sakura finally burst out.
"I gather Tsunade told you that she's from the future but you don't understand that that makes her the exact same person we all grew up with?" Neji asked sarcastically.
"Well, not exactly," Sakura defended herself. "She's a lot more than the Tenten we know. She's older, she knows what happens. Have you… asked her anything?"
Neji rolled his eyes as though he could not believe Sakura was going to exploit this mission as a means to gain personal insight even though he had basically done the exact same thing last night.
"Well, did she just happen to mention anything of her own accord?" Sakura kept pushing sheepishly.
"Yeah," Naruto chimed in. "Do I ever get to be Hokage?"
"Do Sasuke and I ever get together?"
Neji's bad temper was rising more with every question. So it wasn't surprising that when Tenten and Tsunade came back Neji had a particularly misanthropic expression on his face.
There was no time for Tenten to ask him about what had caused his mood to sink even further because as soon as they had returned to the kitchen, Tsunade and Neji departed. That left Sakura and Naruto with a stranger, who just happened to be a longtime friend of theirs.
"We'll let you finish your tea," Sakura said kindly and handed her her cup again. Tenten nodded her thanks. Somehow she felt a lot more self-conscious among Naruto and Sakura's younger selves than she had felt with Neji's past self. Which was ironic because she only had good news for those two. But remembering a fragment of a conversation with Future Naruto and what Tsunade and she had just discussed in the bedroom, Tenten didn't let them know any of this.
"Is it weird being back in the past?" Sakura tried lamely to make small talk. Tenten took pity on her.
"It's ok," she responded. "Just another day at the office," Tenten joked and the other two chuckled dutifully.
"I can't tell you anything," Tenten just put out there. There was a moment of silence and then the two reassured her that they'd never been thinking that and that hadn't been on their mind at all, et cetera.
"Ok, you two, how are you smuggling me up the hill?"
Sakura and Naruto looked at each other guiltily.
"Well, you're going to crawl onto the back of a supplies cart," Sakura told her the bad news. Tenten scoffed. Of course she was. She stretched her poor back in anticipation of being in an uncomfortable position, then said:
"Let's find some answers to my memory gaps."
ttt
Three hours later they were nowhere near figuring out why Tenten could possibly be here. Tenten was going through policy statements, trying to see whether any policies were being issued this year that could somehow be relevant for the future.
More money for academy teachers, hiring quotas for more kunoichis in ninja-dominated fields such as hand-to-hand combat - one of Tenten's personal favorites as she would benefit from this initiative greatly in the future - a joint cultural initiative between Suna- and Konoha-Gakure for the preservation of heritage, and blah blah blah…
Tenten's mind was numb. It didn't help that every once in a while Sakura and Naruto wouldn't only show her more documents to see if it triggered something, but also ask her random questions. Because, even though they all agreed Tenten couldn't tell them anything and they weren't even really interested, they still liked to see Tenten's reaction to possible avenues for their future.
"Do you and Neji ever hook up?"
Tenten had been ignoring them pretty well but this one caught her by surprise.
"No, of course not!
Too late did Tenten notice that this was the only answer she had outright answered, which made Sakura, who had asked the question, give her a quizzical look. Sakura opened her mouth to say something when Naruto interrupted. He hadn't been listening to the two and cried out at a find he pulled out of a new box of documents:
"I got something on the Hyūgas!"
"Great, lemme see," Tenten demanded.
"This is strange…," Naruto murmured, staring at the document.
"All the better. Now give it," Tenten encouraged. Strange might just explain time travel, after all.
"No, I mean strange in a totally different way. This definitely has nothing to do with your mission," Naruto chuckled and passed the document along. Sakura leaned over to get a look at the document Tenten was holding.
"Neji was engaged? No way!" she gasped. Whispering into Tenten's ear, she admitted:
"Ok, now I believe you two never hooked up."
"This is several years old," Tenten heard herself say.
"Yeah, so?" Naruto wondered. Tenten swallowed and quickly came up with a reasonable answer.
"Try to check out the end of the box for more recent stuff," Tenten commanded. Naruto got right to it. Sakura also went back to her box. Tenten had trouble clearing her mind. Not just that her friend had been engaged to a lady from Suna-Gakure but that he had never told her about it rattled Tenten. There was this whole important life event that she had never been privy to. She thrust the paper away and tried to refocus on other things but her emotions were in uproar. Tenten had to admit that she wasn't really taking in any of the documents she was reading when Naruto said:
"Hey, here is Hyūga stuff from this year!"
They all gathered around his box and grabbed a file. It took another 30 minutes but then Tenten finally saw something that wiped Neji's engagement from her mind. At least for the moment.
"Do any of you know what kind of items Category B in an import manifesto denote?"
Sakura's eidetic memory came to the rescue:
"I only interned at that department one summer, but I think it's something with culture. Cultural artefacts. Something related to heritage."
"Heritage?"
"Yeah, old paintings, rusty swords, lost family seals," Sakura explained.
"Surely you didn't come back into the past to round up some stuff for a museum?" Naruto sounded skeptical. Tenten ignored him and stuffed the shipping manifesto into her belt.
"Is there any more stuff about this import in there? I need to know what Hiashi brought into the country."
Surprised by Tenten's sudden urgency, Naruto gave her the stack with dates that corresponded to the import date. Tenten's eyes sped over the papers, thrusting papers at him every now and then. He threw a questioning look at Sakura over Tenten's shoulder but she didn't seem to have any clue what was happening either.
"We're going. Get that carriage ready," Tenten announced and got up.
"Sakura, you stay here and clean up this mess. Naruto, you're with me."
And then Tenten just started walking.
"Future Tenten is kind of authoritative," Sakura whispered. Then Tenten barked:
"Naruto, you coming?"
And the future Hokage scrambled to his feet.