"Dragon Lady, please come in. Are you there, Dragon Lady?"

Tenten sighed, bringing her walkie-talkie to her mouth. "Yes, Youthful Green Beast. You've asked me that five times in the past thirty seconds."

"Sorry," said Youthful Green Beast's crackly, grainy voice. "But I'm having really bad connection in this mafia hideout. I couldn't hear you."

"Don't worry about it. Now, what's the situation at their base?"

"The mafia are most UNYOUTHFUL, Dragon Lady..."

"Keep your voice down, they might hear you," Tenten advised.

"Oh, they won't. They've all been gone for a few hours and they won't be back for quite a while," said Youthful Green Beast.

Tenten deflated. Secretly, she was hoping that at least one mafioso would have remained behind. With rogue villain Orochimaru's next weekly attack on Konoha still five days away, Konoha had gotten awfully dull. Here Tenten was hoping that a good old-fashioned fistfight with the Akatsuki mafia would be a boredom crusher, but no cigar. As it was, she was stuck on stakeout duty behind a tree near their den, a nondescript cave, and would be until Youthful Green Beast came back with valuable info.

"Anyway, the mafia are most UNYOUTHFUL, Dragon Lady."

"Green Beast."

"Yes?"

"You should still use indoor voices even if the Akatsuki aren't there."

"Oh. Right."

A faint rustling next to her caught her attention and Tenten turned around to meet the amused white eyes and twitching lips of Hyuuga Neji. He was enjoying the freak show that was Squad Commander Guy's apprentices, was he?

"So ANYWAY," Youthful Green Beast continued, capturing her attention once more. He had apparently decided that heeding her warnings for a grand total of three seconds was more than sufficient. "There's some very interesting equipment in this mafia den. The Akatsuki are most strange and unyouthful."

"Please be specific," Tenten sighed.

"Well...I see lots of ugly-looking black cloaks..."

Tenten snorted. This coming from a guy who spent every day dressed in a hideous green superhero uniform with a matching glaucoma-inducing orange cape.

"And...oooh, there's a cool-looking purple sword in here..."

Neji shot her a look of concern at this.

"And some...clay?"

"Clay?" Tenten asked.

"Yes, clay. I wonder what it could possibly be for..."

Alarm bells went off in Tenten's head and she scrambled desperately to find her bearings. "Green Beast, whatever you do, don't touch any of the objects in that place, okay? We don't know what they are."

"..."

Tenten sighed. "You touched it, didn't you?"

"It doesn't do anything!" Youthful Green Beast defended.

"Green Beast." She massaged her temples in a futile effort to keep the headache at bay. "I want you to leave the cave."

"But Dragon Lady...!"

"Right now."

No sooner had Rock Lee, the Youthful Green Beast of Konoha, scrambled out of the cave than the entire hideout exploded. Chunks of pulverized rock rained down upon them and dusty mist choked the air.

Neji's hair fluttered in the resulting shock wave generated by the flames and Tenten yelped as Lee was thrown back by the force of the blast and right into her torso. Neji, ever the gentleman, graciously pulled the two teammates off each other.

"Thank you, colleague Neji," Tenten said, rearranging her hair buns and wiping the sweat off her forehead (the explosion was intense). "And now...we must deal with..." She turned slowly and deliberately towards her partner in stupidity, who was currently groaning and massaging the lump on his head, right underneath his shiny black bowl cut. "LEE."

Youthful Green Beast glanced at her in trepidation before rising slowly to his feet. "...Yes, my sweet beautiful teammate?"

Tenten would not be mollified by his blatant attempts to soothe her ego and went into full Dragon Lady mode.

"YOU HAD ONE JOB, LEE. JUST ONE JOB."

"Tenten...you need to be quiet or they could hear you..."

This was, without a doubt, exactly the wrong thing to say, as Tenten's hands twitched in a frighteningly unhinged fashion and she reached into her pockets to grab some mystery item.

"Wait." A warm hand grasped her elbow.

Tenten whirled around to face a thoughtful-looking Neji, brow furrowed in concern as his eyes gazed distractedly off into the distance. "...Colleague Neji?"

"Colleague Lee is right. You need to keep your voice down, colleague Tenten," he said, continuing to scan the horizon anxiously.

"COLLEAGUE NEJI, THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT." Lee beamed at Neji with wide, adoring eyes and a fist pump to the air. Tenten growled.

"Colleague Lee, you also have to keep your voice down. I hope you two aren't always like this." Neji still hadn't taken his eyes away from the sky.

"Do you...see anything?" Tenten asked tentatively. "It's your...superpower, isn't it?"

"I wouldn't call it a superpower. More like a curse." Neji scowled and rubbed at the white bandages on his forehead. Like he was scratching an itch.

Tenten frowned. Colleague Neji was as mysterious as ever. Between the strange drama between him and the prestigious Hyuuga group, the odd fact that he of all their Hero Apprentice colleagues had not been assigned a mentor like Tenten and Lee had been assigned Squad Commander Guy, the fact that she had no idea what his superpower even was...

It was weird. And now he was speaking in riddles.

"Colleague Neji, if you would tell me what's wrong, then..."

"Keep your voice down, they could hear you," he advised.

"That's exactly right," said a smooth, deep voice from behind.

All three whipped around.

Standing behind them was...

Some...being. A living thing, if Tenten were to assume. She had no other way to describe this...mafioso.

Tenten briefly wondered if he was a missing test subject of rogue villain Orochimaru. He looked like a mutant blue shark that had learned to dress itself in a black cloak, so it wasn't too far from the realms of possibility.

"Hoshigaki Kisame, at your service." Mutant shark experiment bowed low, sharp, pointy teeth glittering malevolently. "Now...tell me what you were doing destroying our hideout...or I shall destroy you."

Akatsuki mafioso were very unyouthful indeed, Tenten decided, readying herself in a battle stance. Lee was totally right about that, whatever else he may have done to screw up their stakeout mission. Hey, at least she got the fistfight she so desperately desired. She'd have a lot to discuss with colleague Sakura and colleague Ino over the weekend.

Neji rose from their hiding spot calmly but firmly, white eyes as fierce as a stormy wind.

"Youthful Green Beast, Dragon Lady...I've got this."

Colleague Neji got into a battle stance of his own, and Dragon Lady and Youthful Green Beast would soon be awed at what they saw.

A/N: Written for Day 15: Mafia. The other option was any AU, so I thought maybe I could write a little sequel to chapter 2. Not sure I'll write a sequel to the sequel...I think a little mystery is fine...

Tell me what you think! :)