Chapter 7: Honour
A low, whispered breath - "Sougushou Fumadou," – and Tenten skimmed her fingers lightly over the two large kanji characters painted onto the scrolls, fingertips glowing briefly as chakra infused into the ink. Neji narrowed his eyes. This appeared to be another attacks that he had never seen; evidently she had developed a whole new range of techniques since they parted.
The scroll disappeared and she flipped back, a thick, heavy coil of metal chains wrapped around her left arm, a massive dai shuriken clutched tightly in her right hand. The weapon was enormous, its diameter dwarfing the entire length of her arm; polished steel gleamed a dark green in a blurred reflection of the grass, each of the four sharply filed blades slicing finely through the air as she twisted it around, one of the deadly protrusions held firmly in her gloved grip.
"Ready?" She flung the word at him carelessly and was in a flurry of movement before he could respond. Nimble fingers threaded the chain through the large hole at the center of the dai shuriken, joining the two loose ends together in both hands; she swung the chain once, twice, thrice around and above her head, the dai shuriken slung heavily outwards in wide circles. "Let's begin!"
A final swing to gain maximum momentum, and then she released one end of the chain; the iron buckles rippled, snapped and flung loose into the air, the dai shuriken propelled into a curved orbit towards the Hyuuga. Neji frowned; the weapon was deadly but large, bulky and easily avoided. He merely threw himself forwards onto the ground in a tense crouch, feeling it slice through the air an inch above his head, spinning furiously as it swung high, high into the sky in a wide arc. Something at the back of his mind was setting off warning signals – it was simply too easy to evade, there must be something else he was missing – but his attention was immediately forced back to Tenten as she cracked the chain, whipping it low on the ground.
He drew in a quick breath, deciding to let the thick metal cord wrap around his left calf; it would bruise later but the injury was worth gaining an advantage over his opponent. Tenten was tugging him in, hoping to trip him onto the ground, but she had not taken into account his superior strength. Neji responded by pulling his leg in a powerful backwards kick, digging his heel back deep into the ground – Tenten was jerked forwards, momentarily losing her balance – he reached for the chain instantly and pulled, hard, using her own weapon against her. Tenten was towed across the grass, unable to unwind the chain from around her arm until she was already too close. She grasped at the earth, searching for purchase – nothing – but her hand clamped around a long, thin branch on the ground, probably fallen from the mishmash that made up the walls.
"Hakke Rokujuyon Sho!" Neji launched into his attack, arms thrusting out in a flurry of motion towards her tenketsu points. His speed had improved over the years, his movement more elegant and efficient; she only had her stick to defend her in the heat of the moment, unable to reach for her blades.
But Tenten was an expert in weaponry, and even a stick turned deadly in her hands. She spun the wood between her knuckles in an impressive show of agility, deftly blocking some of the blows towards the more crucial areas and forcing Neji to shift back and pause in between strikes before resuming his offensive. Tenten was gradually losing her ability to move as more and more tenketsu points were sealed despite her efforts; in a last ditch effort to save herself she snapped the stick in two with her free hand, thrusting one into the hollow of his throat, and the second against the underside of his wrist, slamming his arm against his thigh.
Neji lurched back, dazed and blinded briefly by the pain; if Tenten had thrust harder he would probably have blacked out from the sudden pressure to his pulse points. She herself was in no better a condition. Her left arm hung limply by her side, the main tenketsu points at her shoulder, elbow and wrist having been sealed off. Her torso was twisted in an unnatural position, a tenketsu point at the side of her abdomen having also been closed.
She dropped to her knees, panting with exertion, wiping the perspiration off her forehead before reaching once more for her weapons pouch. Her entire body was throbbing; she could feel the effect of the chakra buildup within the system and she knew she would be unable to fight without opening up her tenketsu points.
"Are you ready to give up?" Neji was bent over, hands on his knees, allowing himself to rest while he watched her slow, tortured movement. "You're a strong fighter, Tenten. You've proved yourself; it's the end now, you have to stop."
Tenten ignored him. In her hand she clutched a scattering of hari, the long, fine needles protruding between her knuckles.
Neji frowned. "What are you doing?"
She gritted her teeth and flicked her wrist; the hari flew from her fingers, embedding themselves into each blocked tenketsu point. The pain was immense – her face twisted and she let out a low hiss, blood running in thin trickles down her arm as the needles slid with sickening ease into muscle. Neji looked on, stunned, as she bent her head, hiding her face. She pulled her limp arm against her chest, folding it in until her palm could enclose all three hari. A faint glowing near her hand told him that she was forcing chakra through the needles into her blocked tenketsu points.
"That won't work," he hissed, but she wasn't listening.
A sudden, fierce pulse of white surrounded her hand – Tenten growled, driving a final burst of chakra into the needles - her shoulder twitched, once, twice, and she slowly flexed her fingers. Letting out a heavy, relieved sigh, she drew out the needles carefully. Neji could see the chakra moving freely once again in her arm. No one had ever attempted to open sealed tenketsu points by themselves and succeeded in his entire experience with Jyuuken; Tenten was a medical first, but she had compromised her fighting capabilities. Her precision had meant no major arteries had been opened but her skin was now slippery with blood, the small chakra explosions that had unblocked the sealed tenketsu points had damaged surrounding tissue and she was visibly weakened even as she struggled up, rising unsteadily onto her feet.
"Let's continue." Her voice was faint, but threaded through with her characteristic stubborn determination. She tilted her head up, eyes narrowing as she watched the sky intently for a short moment. Neji followed her gaze, but there was nothing except the dark shadows of the clouds lumbering heavily across the sky and the pale sliver of an early moon, shimmering faintly against the blackness of the night.
When he looked down Tenten was running towards him, sliding a long, thin katana from its scabbard by her waist. Her movement was slower than before, hindered by the sealed tenketsu point at her waist. He twisted to the side and brought his elbow up, jabbing sharply into the bottom of her ribs; Tenten flipped over his shoulder, hand slapping an exploding note onto the ground before vaulting away again. The earth exploded in a short, intense burst of light – Neji leaped high into the air, momentarily hidden by the smoke – and Tenten suddenly appeared by his side, blade slicing into his back. He grabbed her wounded shoulder and flipped her around to face him, ignoring the wince that flashed across her features. They crashed back down onto the broken ground, flying apart instantly; a barrage of kunai was flung at Neji, aimed in a straight line down the entire length of his body. He took a kunai to the hip, the rest deflected with a brief chakra infused spin and his own kunai.
Neji lunged forwards, crouching down suddenly and kicking upwards into her chin, sending her flying back into the wall. She flipped up, using chakra to cling vertically onto a long strip of bamboo. He saw her reach down to her weapons pouch, no doubt to launch another mass of steel into the air – he twisted once more, anticipating her move – "Hakkesho Kaiten!" – felt countless weapons bounce harmlessly off the whirlwind of his chakra – finished the move, and dropped elegantly back onto the ground.
Tenten was gone.
She was not within the fifty feet radius of his Byakugan. Neji narrowed his eyes, turning on his heels to search the area slowly, cautiously, forced to rely on his normal vision.
Ten seconds passed, then twenty, thirty. Still no sign of Tenten. Neji was growing increasingly wary; all his instinct and experience told him that he was in immediate danger, but she was nowhere to be found, gone without a trace...
And then she appeared, slicing through the air, flying straight at him like an arrow and twice as fast. Neji felt her entering his perception field and his neck snapped back, eyes widening at the sight of her hurtling towards him from above, falling at an impossibly steep angle with the katana clutched before her chest – and one foot firmly implanted on the inside rim of the spinning dai shuriken she had flung at him at the very beginning of the fight. At that moment she was a goddess of war, an ethereal, bleeding creature of steel and blade.
Tenten could feel her hair ribbons coming undone as she fell (again, she was falling, but she knew this was going to be the last time), dark tresses slipping out and rippling behind her; she was cold and couldn't hear a thing, the sharp, stinging wind whipping all sound away from her ears. Can I do this? Will I do this? She was so close to the end now.
When Neji had been distracted by his Kaiten Tenten had immediately taken the opportunity to take the last step in her plan. Concentrating chakra into her legs, she had leaped high, high into the air, soaring above the powerful, spinning whirl of chakra; at the pinnacle of her jump she had tugged at the delicate chakra strings, thin and faint enough to escape detection by the Byakugan, that had allowed her to guide the spinning dai shuriken on its aerial journey; she had deftly manipulated the weapon as it arced through the air to boomerang sharply back towards her figure as she spun, suspended in mid-air like an acrobat. From then on it had only been a matter of guiding the sai shuriken on its final, fatal trajectory. A light flick of both wrists, bringing the spinning center swinging beneath her, and then she had reached down with one foot, lightly tipping the inner rim of the spinning disc to redirect its path with her body weight, aiming it straight down towards the Hyuuga. Now she was falling with the dai shuriken at her feet, her ankle caught in the spinning center and her katana held out before her chest, and she was to kill Neji now, right?
Now was not the time to doubt herself, she knew, but as the ground flew up to meet her and Neji's pale figure drew closer and closer she finally realized just how scared she was, how absolutely, ridiculously terrified.
Can I do this? ...I love him, Anko...
They were lying shoulder to shoulder on the grass, watching the stars glimmer faintly in the velvet darkness of the night sky. The first day of her training with Anko had been spent putting as great a distance between themselves and Konoha as possible, and now they were both exhausted, their backpacks flung carelessly between the thick roots of a nearby tree. Neither had spoken much during their journey, their silence punctured only by cheerful (and often lewd) remarks made by Anko.
"Tenten, are you still awake?" she spoke up softly, twisting her head to peer at her new charge.
"Mmmhmm," Tenten murmured noncommittally, keeping her eyes on a particularly bright, faintly blue pinprick of light near the North. It reminded her somehow of Neji; everything today had seemed to remind her of him, actually, though she supposed it was only because she was not used to going even a day without seeing him, be it merely a glimpse of a quiet figure on the street or by their training grounds.
"You know, that boy who came to see you off….what'sisname? The Hyuuga..." Anko trailed off. "Naji? Noji, was it?"
"Hyuuga Neji." Tenten smiled hesitantly, amused by Anko's butchering of her teammate's name but unsure of where this was leading to.
"Yes, him. Are you two close?"
"Well...he's my teammate," she answered guardedly.
"Which is why you were kissing him. I see."
Tenten started, blushing as she glanced at her sensei. "Um...well...that was not really what I had...er...well..." She flushed deeper when Anko let a wide, wicked grin spread slowly over her face. "How did you know, anyway? I thought you had gone on without me..."
"Nope. I made the guards let me onto the guard tower and watched. Just in case, you understand."
"Anko-sensei!" Tenten cried out, scandalized. "How could you – I mean –"
"He hadn't forced himself on you, had he? Because if he did, by the end of your training with me, I swear you'll be able to kick his ass from here to Sunagakure as payback," Anko told her simply. Tenten could feel her cheeks burning up.
"No, no, he hadn't..." Oh lord. Please, let the questions stop now.
"Do you love him?"
"What?" Really, every question that came out of this woman's mouth seemed to throw her off balance. "Neji? No, of course not. I mean...yes. No. I don't know..."
Anko looked like she was enjoying making her young charge squirm. "Is that a yes, or a no?"
Tenten averted her eyes. "Um...well..."
"Hmm?"
"I think...yes. I do. I think."
"Ah." Anko's voice was surprisingly soft. Tenten blinked, surprised, and looked over at her sensei. The grin had gone, replaced with a gentle, even solemn expression; her brows were furrowed slightly.
"Anko sensei?"
"You're going to miss him, aren't you?"
"Mmmm...yea, I will," she admitted, a hand reaching up and threading fingers through her loosened hair. Anko didn't respond immediately and she was worried for a second that she disapproved, opening her mouth to add that yes, even though she would miss Neji, she would still concentrate on her training so please don't worry Anko-sensei, but the other woman beat her to it.
"Get used to it."
"Huh?" Tenten started slightly. Where had that come from?
"People leave each other all the time. It's either you leaving him or him leaving you," Anko told her, uncharacteristically serious. "You might as well get used to it now, to spare yourself some useless heartache later on. Relationships often mean nothing but pain, you know."
"......I...I see."
Anko suddenly seemed to catch herself, shaking her head a little before showing Tenten a bright, rather forced smirk. "Of course, when you go back you'll be free to marry him and make babies and such, so I guess a little parting here and there won't matter much, neh?"
"Anko-sensei!"
The woman's smirk widened as she visibly relaxed. "Oh, you darling little girl. Goodnight, then." At that, she turned around, adjusting her cloak around her shoulders and promptly dropping off to sleep. Tenten stared at her back for a while, wondering why Anko had suddenly seemed so bitter, so devastatingly unhappy.
Her sensei had been right, after all. She had left Konoha, had left Neji, and now Anko had left her. All of her relationships had ended in pain and unnecessary heartache, and Tenten was sick of it.
Neji was right before her, pale eyes widened in shock. They both knew it was too late for him to begin another Kaiten, too late to avoid the last, killing blow. Tenten raised the katana high above her.
Goodbye, Neji.
The dai shuriken carved into his chest; Tenten slashed down, her blade slicing cleanly across his neck.
Neji disappeared into a thick cloud of smoke.
... ...A bunshin?
Tenten tumbled to the ground, her knees jarring painfully against the dai shuriken as it buried itself into the earth. Neji must've switched after his Kaiten, while she was concentrating on manipulating her chakra strings; she herself must've been too preoccupied to notice anything different, to see any dark shadows pressed up against the wall or crouched in the grass, wherever he had hidden himself……..
And then suddenly it was over.
A hand reached over her shoulder, gently disengaging the katana from her grip. Tenten started, turning around, but it was too late and she could feel the cold metal against her neck. Neji bent down behind her, placing one hand on her good shoulder as he leaned against her back, mouth tracing slowly up her neck to her ear.
"Was it worth it, Tenten?" Was Anko worth it? Was leaving Konoha worth it? ...Was giving us away worth it?
Tenten did not – could not – answer, only shivering at the feel of his breath, hot against her skin. Neji stood up, sighing, letting the katana fall from her neck. Surprised that she was still alive, Tenten finally turned around and gazed up at the man before her.
It was only when she faced him properly, when their gazes met once again and she could see his tired, worn out expression that the reality of what she had done finally hit her, sending her dizzyingly off balance. She had just proved that she was willing to murder Neji. There was nowhere she could run to, no moral high ground she could defend her actions from – the katana in his hand and the dai shuriken splitting the earth beside them was glaring proof of what she had chosen, and she had not chosen to let Neji live, no matter whatever motivation she had; if he had not replaced himself with the bunshin she would have had his death on her hands by now. Neji, too, seemed quietly shocked; perhaps he had never really truly believed that Tenten would kill him- perhaps some small part of him had desperately hoped that she would be unable to deliver the final, killing blow if she was ever given the chance - and the sight of her driving her blade into his replica had been a rude awakening, leaving him abruptly ringing hollow and empty.
The truth was out, visible and palpable between them; there was no more need for arguments, for defensive explanations. Regret was not an option.
"I'm not sorry, Neji."
He said nothing, merely offered her his hand. She took it hesitatingly and he pulled her up onto her feet until they were standing face to face, barely an inch apart. His hand remained wrapped around her own, drawing her even closer until her chin was on his chest, eyes wide and unblinking.
And so we end.
Without a word, she tilted her head back and he leaned down, pressing a hot, hard kiss onto her lips. She reached up, fingertips slowly tracing his jawline.
I still love you.
...I know.
Tenten pulled back first, looking down at the object he had gently slid between her fingers. One edge of the katana was dark red, crusted with dried blood from Neji's back. She played with the blade, twisting the well worn handle around against her palm. Dazed, she noted vaguely that Neji's hair was loose, dark ink spilling over his shoulders, a shock of black against the white of his shirt.
"Tenten."
She blinked, glancing up at him, and he couldn't breathe for a brief, painful moment because her eyes were just as expressive as he remembered them to be. "I said earlier on that I was here to offer you an honourable death." His grip tightened around her hand. "...Do you understand?"
He closed her thumb over the handle of the katana, slowly guiding her hand up until the blade nipped lightly into the soft skin at her throat. Then he stepped back, hand dropping to his side.
"Are you asking me to kill myself?" Her voice was dull, flat, but her eyes were filled with an immeasurable sadness, a dead grief that stained dark the normally light brown irises.
He took a deep breath. "Yes."
"Anko..."
"I will find her. There will be a rescue operation; Team 7 has already been dispatched to eliminate Orochimaru," he reassured her, voice rough and cracking. It was all he could do for her now, these promises. "Do this for me. For yourself."
"...I understand."