A/N: I've been told that Tenten is a boring character. I beg to differ, and tried to make my reasons evident. This chapter required the most research of them all (so far). I tried hard to explain most of the weaponry without detracting from the story, but if there's any remaining confusion, I suggest google. Another attempt to write in present-tense that I re-did in past-tense. Let me know if I missed anything in the revamp, and hope that this portrays the weapons-mistress as more than an underrated backdrop character.

Tenten

Unable to outwardly display weapons, but still needing to be armed should their presence be detected, the kunoichi improvised. The kunoichi made use of their normal attire along with an arsenal of smaller hidden weapons in the event that conflict should arise.
- Dr. Maasaki Hatsumi

The rain beat heavily against the glass as the wind howled and tore at the wooden frame. The window rattled, but held steady in the face of the onslaught. Tenten traced an idle fingertip along the cool glass, careful to keep her long, loose sleeve from falling back to reveal her wrists. Or, more importantly, the series of wire-activated needle-launchers that lined her forearm. None of the guests at the opulent evening party behind her needed to know about that particular little accessory.

The storm outside darkened the glass, and she watched her prey in the clear reflection of the brightly lit lounge room behind her. Tamayuki Tsuga was leaning casually against a wall, waving a wine glass flirtatiously at a pretty and obviously wealthy girl. The girl was dressed in an elaborate kimono-style gown, cut from brilliant blue and green silk that vaguely resembled the pink and green silk costume that Tenten herself wore. Unlike the kunoichi, though, the girl was obviously making no effort to keep the thing properly and modestly covering her arms, her neck, or even, occasionally, her shins. Considering that she couldn't be more than fifteen or sixteen, she seemed remarkably good at the delicate ways women had of bending forward just a little too much, of letting their gowns slide and twist when they reached to "adjust" their hair.

Tenten wanted to snort, but resisted the urge. No wonder these little debutants, these daughters and nieces of political hotshots or successful merchants had a fifty percent chance of ending up married and pregnant (not always in that order) before they were out of their mid- to late- teens. And no wonder that about eighty percent of them ended up married to useless fops like Tenten's target – the too-rich-for-his-own-spoiled-good, dashing, sophisticated young men who couldn't tie their own calf-skin boots.

Tenten took her finger from the window and folded her hands modestly into her kimono sleeves, tapping the kagi hooks strapped to her left arm (just in case the needle-launchers on her right ran out). There was only about a five to six percent chance that she would even have to fire a needle, let alone throw the kagi, but it never hurt to be prepared, no matter what the statistics said.

Tenten liked statistics. When she was at the Academy, math class had been one of her favorites. It fascinated her, the ability to figure out ahead of time the exact velocity she needed to throw a bisento the right distance. Statistics in particular were fun; the average fukumibari, for example, could be spat about twenty feet on a non-windy day. Tenten herself had experimented with the small pins, and to her pleasure found that with practice, she could spit a fukumibari from her mouth almost twenty-three feet, on average, even with a light breeze. Statistics were fun, but it was more fun to deliberately change them.

Her fascination grew the day that Tenten realized she was a statistic, too. After all, only about twenty percent of the shinobi in Konoha were female, and the numbers were even less in other, weaker villages. That meant that for every five male ninja, there was one kunoichi. And even that was due mostly to the younger generations, the genins and the chunins. By the time most ninja reached jounin level, they got married and had kids, and for the women that usually meant early retirement. So in the jounin ranks, only about ten percent were female.

She intended to change a lot of statistics.

This mission, for example. Neji told her that this particular mission had a fifty percent chance of failure. Taking down the target was no difficult task, but taking him down in such a way that no one would even suspect that his death was deliberate? Not as easy, especially since the host was an ex-shinobi turned political animal. Then again, Neji also thought that women has only a sixty-forty shot at even getting chunin rank, despite the obvious fact that every single one of the three genin girls from the class behind them had become chunin within a year of receiving their forehead protectors.

Someone across the room called out to the young Tamayuki, and he lead his flirting female companion over to the new man, hand placed circumspectly on the girl's back. The rich girl laughed in response, a little too loudly. She'd probably been into the wine herself, despite being obviously underage. But then again, Tamayuki didn't seem too concerned with age restrictions, especially since Tenten knew he was twenty-five years old and had absolutely no right to be putting his hands on that young girl at all, let alone below her elaborately tied obi. If he tried that with Tenten, she'd have been forced to physically disable him before he found the densho and the poison smoke bombs that she'd concealed in her own knotted obi. Or maybe she'd just put a nice scratch across his too-pretty face with her sharply pointed and poison-laced kakute ring. Of course, if he ever tried groping Tenten even when she isn't wearing an arsenal of weaponry under her clothes, she'd clobber him anyway, poison or no. Perverted jerk.

Her target was now standing directly behind her, making it difficult to see him in the window without her own reflection getting in the way. She moved to the side, angling herself to get a better view. He was facing the opposite way, and that hand was definitely moving further down his giggling girl's backside. Tenten scowled. She isn't sure who needed to be slapped more: Tamayuki for being a groping voyeur, or the girl for being idiotic arm candy. Vaguely, Tenten wondered how women like that could stand themselves, and then brushed the irrelevant thought away.

Her target, claiming a need to answer the call of nature, separated himself from the group and moved towards the door. His giggle-girl immediately pouted, but was easily pacified when the target's friend offered her his own arm and a cheesy pickup line that would have made Tenten gag if she were listening. But her attention was focused elsewhere, watching her target move steadily towards her. Tenten had positioned herself evenly between two of the three doors into the room, giving herself roughly a sixty percent chance that he would use either of those – and she was right.

He aimed for the door to her right, and she slowly, carelessly, strolled through the crowds, exiting only a few moments after him. No one followed her – likely, no one had even noticed her presence for the last hour so, since she'd been very careful not to talk to anyone. But she'd also been careful to always be near enough to a group so that she didn't stand out by herself in the room full of mingling guests. In all likelihood, she could strike and return to the party without anyone being the wiser. She'd be forgotten before she'd even left the mansion, lost in the turmoil that her strike would cause.

And strike she would, because whatever statistical chances Hyuuga Neji might have given the mission, when Tenten aimed, she always hit her mark.

Down the hallway, Tamayuki was whistling in the shrill, off-key way that slightly drunk men tended to whistle. She winced, but the noise and the implication of tipsiness meant that she did't have to worry about the rustle of her kimono or the faint clink of the wakizashi short-sword strapped to her left thigh as she padded after him. The odds were that he wasn't likely to even hear the noise, and certainly not to comprehend it if he did.

He veered into the men's bathroom, and the tiles of that room amplified the horrible whistling. Tenten ignored the tuneless distraction, mentally running through her options. Stabbing would be easy, with the wakizashi or perhaps the kunai tucked into the front of her kimono. But stabbing would also be bloody, and there was a seventy percent chance that a stray drop or two would get on the ample fabric of her disguise. She could try a few senbon to the pressure points, but those would be instantly recognized by the host as shinobi weaponry. She'd been warned not to let the host know the death of his guest was a shinobi hire – he was a particularly good customer himself, but if the politico thought that a ninja murdered one of his guests, he'd likely throw a fit and try to make trouble for them in the Imperial Senate. No, the senbon would just have to stay hidden in her hair, unused, as would the shuriken that were tucked securely all around her waistband.

Poison was an attractive thought, but she'd only brought along the neko-te, and though the water hemlock poison on the metal tips had a ninety-nine percent chance of killing him before he even left the washroom, the claw-like marks she'd have to leave on his body would be fairly obvious. She patted her pockets surreptitiously, pleased to feel that the ten metal fingertip-blades are still in place but only a little sorry that she'd decided against using them. They tended to chip at her real fingernails, anyway.

What were the odds, Tenten thought with an ironic smile, that she would bring all this weaponry and end up having to kill him with something as simple as a hand-strike or maybe a high-kick (if she could move adequately in this ridiculous costume)? Tonight, the odds were pretty good, it seemed.

She slid through the washroom door, taking extra care not to rustle the fabric of her kimono now. It was difficult, but not impossible. Her target was standing with his back to her again, still whistling as he re-fastened his pants.

Tenten waited for the storm outside to make itself useful, and sure enough, a moment later a bright flash of lightening illuminated the room through the delicately frosted glass of the washroom window. Her target jumped at the sudden light and noise, but by then Tenten was on him, snaking her arm around and driving the edge of her hand into the soft flesh of his throat. He gagged, falling forward even as he flailed his arms out. The crash of thunder following the lightening drowned the crash of glass as his head smacked into the porcelain basin before him. Tenten danced back, and without a further glance at the body, was out the door, down the hall, and back in the crowded room before the next bolt of lightening a minute or two later made the crowd gasp and titter like the pampered fools they were.

Settling herself at the window again, Tenten resumed her watch of the storm, this time ignoring the room behind her and devoting her attention to the pattern of the rain drops on the glass. She adjusted her pretty pink and green kimono once, making sure that the iron-ribbed fan in the side folds of her gown was still hidden from the occasional casual glances some of the more drunken male guests were giving her. Yes, everything was in order, and now all she had to do was wait for someone to discover poor young Tamayuki Tsuga in the bathroom. Tamayuki Tsuga, who apparently slipped and fell onto the sharp glass window and hard porcelain sink when that terribly loud clap of thunder startled him. Poor, poor thing. All Tenten had to do was act surprised and dismayed that such a tragic thing could happen to such a wonderful nice young man with so many prospects before him. Then she could quietly slip out with the rest of the dispersing crowd to the carriage that waited to carry her back to her village, where she could finally remove this ridiculous dress and report mission accomplished to Hokage-sama.

And then she'd march right up to Neji and let him know that his statistics were outdated. What did it matter if, given the mission requirements, there had only been a fifty percent chance of success? What did it matter if, given the statistics of previous kunoichi, there was only a ten percent chance of one achieving a successful career? The past was over, and she was looking at the future now. And when Tenten aimed, the odds were she'd hit her mark, one hundred percent of the time.