Rain
Thunder crashed overhead, deafeningly loud, as the blue-white glare of lightning illuminated the field. Tenten stood in the midst of the latest slaughter, bodies of the Amegakure ninjas surrounding her, weapons slick and gleaming with rain and blood, and laughed at the irony of it all. It wasn't funny, she knew, but she laughed anyway; laughed until she was red in the face and short of air and aching in the gut and sides. Lee's already wide eyes went wider in shock behind his ANBU mask (a bear) while Neji (his mask a hawk) shook his head. They both knew it was only a matter of time before the missions took their toll, and here it was.
The field they stood in was littered with bodies, used scrolls, weapons of all shapes and sizes, small craters from Neji's kaiten, and shredded bandages from Lee's Lotus attacks. The Rain nins' umbrellas lay scattered in the tall, bloodstained grass, their senbon sticking out of any and all surfaces at odd angles. The three ANBU were splattered with blood, both their own and of foreign origin, their uniforms torn and masks looking worse for the wear. Tenten's cat mask had three senbon poking out of one cheek, giving the impression of whiskers, but the tips were darkened with poison. She had been lucky that none of them hit her skin.
It had been, overall, one hell of a fight. The Rain nin had not only an advantage in numbers, but had attempted an ambush as well. They hadn't known that one of their pursuers was a Hyuuga, hadn't known that he had seen them long before they had seen him, and had fallen victim not only to Tenten's impeccable aim but also to Neji's Gentle Fist. The three ANBU had clustered together, all three of them short range fighters but that was fine in cases like this, and let the wave of attackers crash down on them.
Lee had attacked so fast that he was a blur of green and white, bandaged fists pummeling their attackers. Quite a few bones snapped under the impact of his punches and kicks, crunches and yowls of pain filling the air. Some assailants fell back under the onslaught, hands flying through seals to make the already pouring sky rain down senbon as well as sheets of water. Neji's kaiten lit up the field, the whirlwind of brilliant blue chakra knocking aside the senbon easily. Tenten had long ago learned to get over the odd sensation of drowning that tended to accompany Kaiten, her hands forming the seals necessary for her Soushou-ryu attack as the chakra swirled around her. The scrolls she used for the technique had gotten bigger as she too had grown and now summoned forth five times the weaponry as during her first Chuunin exam.
When the blue glare of chakra and lightning had died away, she had leapt up into the pouring rain, smoky dragons twining around her, and reached out towards the scrolls for her weapons. Kunai, senbon, maces, katanas, bombs, grenades, exploding tags, scythes, and shuriken bombarded the Rain nin, amidst other gleaming weaponry. Tenten's chocolate brown eyes narrowed behind her mask as she tried to keep up with her many moving targets without hitting Lee or Neji, which she managed solely through practice. She had landed on her feet and just looked up, eight kunai in her hands, to attack again when the poisoned senbon embedded themselves in her mask.
While distracted, another Rain nin charged up to attack her. She wouldn't have reacted fast enough on her own, but Neji had covered her, hands soaring over the man's tenketsu, sealing off his chakra. One final jab to the chest with one hand and to the gut with the other made the other man fall to the grass, coughing up blood violently. Neji hauled Tenten to her feet, shouting over the crash of the thunder at her to keep close to him. She understood the unspoken plea: Cover my blind spot. She stayed close enough behind him so that his sole blind spot was guarded, far enough so that she could throw her kunai at someone charging up on Lee while he was landing from a Lotus attack.
And the battle raged on. Tenten's biggest scroll went to the effort of taking down a small mob that had ganged up against Lee, most of Neji's chakra went into a 256-Point Strike, Lee wore himself out by opening five of the Gates, probably doing considerable damage to himself, but he had closed them after Tenten had saved him. She and Neji covered their weakened partner against the last three nin, tired, bloodstained, and drenched to the bone by the driving rain. Neji's mask was askew as he landed silent but powerful hits on one of the ninjas. Tenten didn't have enough range to throw the last of her kunai, so she stabbed it into one man's neck instead, watching as he fell with a gurgle. She drew her katana, a token weapon of any ANBU, and drove it into the final ninja's gut. He fell, and there he lay, twitching, when she had started to laugh.
The rain was already washing the three ANBU of the blood they had previously been drenched in. They would have to pile up the bodies, burn them or bury them, and take back the stolen scroll that had been the source of this entire mission. A powerful, sealed scroll, meant to stay locked up in Konohagakure, hidden.
Tenten had her doubts that the ink remained on it anymore, with how much rain was coming down. They had fought the Rain ninjas, in a torrential downpour, over a scroll that probably hadn't even, to use a bad pun, weathered the battle.
It was worth a good laugh in her book, as well as worthy of letting her knees give out beneath her, sitting down heavily in the mud, and sobbing.
It wasn't that she had never killed a man before or felt that this was a waste of life; she never would have made it to the rank of ANBU if such a thing daunted her. A mission was a mission, and if that included killing a fellow ninja, then so be it. She did what her Hokage asked of her.
It wasn't that she thought the mission was pointless or a failure; the rain had been a freak coincidence. How could they have known that the sky would open up and dump water down on the scroll, washing the letters right off of it? Had it not rained, they would have fought the battle the same, taken the scroll back to Konoha, put it back in its rightful place to wait for someone else to come along and steal it some day. That had been the mission, rain or shine, and they would do what was asked of them. No mission was ever pointless, and it was only a failure when you couldn't bring back / protect / retrieve whatever it was you were supposed to. They would bring it back, alright, and that was the only order given.
It wasn't even that she mourned the state of her weapons, dulled and notched, hidden and stuck in various surfaces, bloodstained and charred and probably gearing up to rust in the downpour. Weapons could always be replaced, even that favorite kunai (a 'good luck charm' that had gotten her through her second Chuunin exam) that was now stuck fast in some complete stranger's skull.
In fact, she didn't know what it was that made her laugh and sob all at once, clinging desperately to Neji when he came over and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder. It was just the irony, she supposed, the recurring theme of rain in that one single battle. One rain defeated, one rain washing away all traces of the other; had the rain triumphed in the end? Was this some kind of forewarning?
Her summoned weapons were vanishing, fading away and saving everyone the trouble of having to pick them up. All that was left were the shuriken and kunai from her pouch, which would have to be picked up eventually or everyone would know that the Weapons Mistress of Konoha had been in the battle; nobody else could make such precise hits, driving a kunai deep into a man's temple or lodging shuriken into various pressure points on another. Lee had already set to work gathering up the bodies, tired as he was, while Neji tried to calm their hysterical teammate.
"You have done your job, Tenten," he assured her, patting her back soothingly as she whirled around and sobbed against his chest. "The Rokudaime will be proud."
And it was this assurance that they told themselves every time, that got them through the most insane and impossible missions.
Rokudaime will be proud.
Author's Notes: Ah, this one's a little mooky. I don't like it all that much, but I had wanted to play with the rain element for a while, so this was what came out. (I am, clearly, not that good at angst. XD;;)