Hey guys! Next chapter comin' in fairly quick. I had this idea right after I wrote "She Knew He Cared." It's a NejiTen … I suppose the pairing will be a bit more obvious then the last.
aKiRe 11 - You noticed the Kare Kano-ish style too? I saw it while I was typing from my paper... so I rolled with it!
oOooOo
It was a normal day in Konoha, not quite in the spring season, but new buds were forming on the trees and flowers were attempting to pop-up from the frozen ground. Hiding in the trees, TenTen's sharp eyes observed all this while she waited for Neji to step into view. She knew waiting would be stupid, because of his Byakugan, but did it anyways - she was tired.
Stifling a yawn, she shifted slightly in the tree, moving her arm into a more efficient throwing position. The shurikens between her fingers clanged quietly as she did so. 'Like clockwork,' she thought, 'we're out here again at five in the morning so Neji can become stronger by dodging my bullets.' Slightly annoyed, TenTen stood up and stretched, then quickly jumped to another tree. She was startled by a sudden 'thwack!' of an object hitting a tree, and jumped up again, only to realize it was a scroll on her back that had made the noise. Sighing, she hopped back to her original position.
'I'm so sloppy today,' the brunette though to herself. 'He probably already knows where I am and is setti-' TenTen closed off her mind when her ears picked up a small whistle growing louder in her direction. At the last instant, the kunoichi dodged the incoming kunai, grabbed two from her pack, and threw them in the direction where the original came. She dared not breathe for a minute afterwards, but no further attacks came. It was only a warning.
"I guess it's time to go," With that, TenTen stored her weapons back in her pouch, and started jumping through the trees, her ears listening for any hint of an incoming weapon. She'd trained her ears that way, after listening to herself throw shuriken, kunai, needles, and just about every weapon there was, for so many years.
"Ah!" A weapon had flown right past her while she was buried in her thoughts. The kunoichi silently cursed to her self and instinctively reached back, three kunai released from her precise hand in less then a second. But they were recklessly thrown; she saw their forms bounce back, and they forced her to drop to the ground. Neji had used his chakra to repel them, TenTen knew.
All of a sudden, he was behind her, and she could feel the cold press of a blade to the back of her neck. The brunette froze; she couldn't even hear his breathing.
"What's wrong with you today," the Hyuuga prodigy didn't ask - he stated. "You're slacking off TenTen. I'm disappointed that you'd waste this time to train," The kunai blade was pulled back, and the kunoichi took a deep breath.
"I'm so-"
"No. Just be ready tomorrow." And with that, Neji walked off.
TenTen sighed as she walked down the dusty brown roads of Konoha village. She was embarrassed and frustrated. For some reason she was unable to concentrate on training with Neji these days. She furrowed her brow and shifted the large scroll on her back.
"That's it. Maybe if I go home and create some new weapon summoning scrolls I can get my mind off all this…"
Like a flash flood, all the things her teammate had said in the last week came rushing through her mind. All the insults, all the disappointment in his voice. It really made a girl lose confidence.
TenTen looked up from the ground to realize she was in front of a ramen shop. Loud laughter was echoing around the area, and cries of "Narrruuuutooooo!" were screeching above it. TenTen looked down and recognized Sakura's controversial new boots, and Naruto's all too familiar ensemble. Gai's rival Kakashi might have even been in there too. She didn't know, but their joy was beginning to get on her nerves. With a sigh, she continued down the road, just wishing she, Neji, and maybe even Lee could spend time just causing trouble for once.
oOooOo
"Ne ne, TenTen-chan!" a black-haired boy with huge eyebrows was poking her in the head. "Can you teach me how to throw shuriken?" as the words left his mouth, people turned their heads and crowded around. "Yeah, TenTen-chan, pleeeaaaasseee? You're the best one of us all!" a blush crept into the soon-to-be kunoichi's cheeks and she gave a large smile to everyone.
"Sure!" she cried, but as TenTen turned to show everyone how she could put the perfect amount of spin on a shuriken, she noticed a tall man dressed in white walking towards them. He leaned over and snapped the shuriken out of her hand, flinging it into the wall opposite them. TenTen gave a small yelp as the man's face looked like it was covered in puffy veins, and his crystal-like eyes were staring into her soul.
"What do you think you're doing," it was a statement. "You can't hit anything like that. You're no weapon expert, you can't even hit me."
Tears started leaking down TenTen's cheeks. Just as she was about to run away, the man grabbed her wrist, forced her to stare at his eyes.
"What do you think you're doing," he repeated.
TenTen woke suddenly. She shot straight up in bed, clutching the light blue sheets.
"….what happened…" And that was when the kunoichi realized this had to stop. "That dream is the final straw!" she whispered fiercely. "Neji may be my teammate, and he may be way above my level, but I'm going to cut him down, if only just once." With a determined look in her eyes, TenTen grabbed an empty scroll from her bedside table, some ink and a brush, and started working away on a new summoning.
oOooOo
When dawn arrived, TenTen set down her brush and ink. Being a weapon expert, she had to constantly develop new ways to use them. That was why her family became talented in the business of scroll making. Scattered around her room were homemade exploding tags, kunai, shuriken, knives, and needle summoning sheets, her double dragon spell scrolls, wire, and a family sword, mounted on her wall. Someday her father would teach her the art of the sword.
The kunoichi read over her work before she set a chakra seal on the scroll, as she did with everything she wrote, and then climbed out of bed, red eyes and all. She had a plan, and nothing was going to stop her.
After her morning routine, TenTen was on the street searching for the now famous medic-nin, Sakura. Before she could reach the hospital, a cold hand grabbed her shoulder.
"Where have you been." Again, not a question, but a statement.
"I'm not training with you today," The brunette responded icily. His hand held on for a second longer; she thought she felt an angry chakra, but it disappeared just about as fast as she could throw a weapon. Without looking back, TenTen walked through the glass doors of the hospital, asking the receptionist if Haruno Sakura was available.
"It's kind of important," she urged. The woman behind the desk nodded, and told TenTen to take a seat in the waiting area. The kunoichi felt uncomfortable in places like this, so she forced her self to concentrate on the plan she had schemed.
Sakura appeared about half an hour later, smelling strongly like soap, her hair pulled up messily with a clip.
"Hey TenTen, what was so urgent that you needed me? It doesn't look like you're bleeding?" The medic sat in a chair across from her, looking somewhat concerned. TenTen looked up slowly. She'd been hoping this was possible, and if it was, Sakura was the only one who could really teach the technique.
"I'm not bleeding … But I wanted to ask you something. Is it possible to channel chakra into a weapon of some sort?"
"Hmmm…." Sakura scratched her head and settled back into the uncomfortable chair. "I know Asuma-sensei can extend his chakra past the steel knuckle things he uses…"
"If I let go, will it lose its power?"
"I don't know. I suppose, if you knew the right seals, you could probably contain it for a small amount of time. But to hit you'd need to be fairly close." Sakura gave TenTen a puzzled look. "But why do you ask? You want to try and cover your weapons in chakra?"
"Exactly," the brunette replied, sitting forward a bit in her chair. "And I figured you could help me learn to control my chakra enough that it could cover a weapon while I was holding it in my hand." At this, Sakura pulled a Kunai from a pouch around her waist and held it between her fingertips, then closed her eyes in concentration. Chakra slowly crawled up the sides of the weapon until it was an iridescent blue. Sakura then dropped the weapon, and TenTen counted the seconds before the chakra disappeared.
"You're right. It doesn't look like I'll have too long to throw it…" The kunoichi reached down to pick up the weapon and fit it between her fingers, as if she was about to throw it. Sakura leaned forward now too, pointing at TenTen's hand.
"Concentrate all your energies to your hand; see in your head how all the chakra is flowing there. Then, will it to your weapon, believing that it will strengthen it, and extend through the weapon. It's like the kunai there is just an extra finger."
It took a minute or two, but TenTen eventually grasped the idea of moving the energies through her hand.
"This isn't so difficult once you understand it…" she said slowly, looking at the glowing kunai in her hand. She suddenly looked over at the door and threw the knife, where it landed just above a terrified patient. The pink-haired medic scowled, but once TenTen looked over and smile, she couldn't be angry.
"Thanks, Sakura-san," the kunoichi adjusted the scroll strap and waved over her shoulder.
"No problem…" the medic replied after her. 'But I wonder….what does she need to know that sort of technique for?'
That night, TenTen went to bed early. She wanted to burn Neji from the start.
oOooOo
This was the first time the Chinese kunoichi had seen dew on the morning grass in a long while. It felt good to stand out in the chilly air with just a sleeveless shirt and short blue pants. She was wide awake and ready, sharpening kunai while waiting for her opponent.
Neji appeared in the forest minutes later. He stopped abruptly in surprise, staring at TenTen somewhat confused. She gave him a light smile, jumping off into the trees without a word. It didn't take long for Neji to break out of his stupor and activate the Byakugan.
And there they sat, like clockwork, bright and early training.
TenTen grabbed a scroll from her back pocket, unfurling it slowly, and placing her hand in the center. She then made a few hand symbols and stabbed at the paper with her index finger; a large bag of weapons popped on top of the paper with a small puff of smoke, and the ink of the scroll slowly dissolved away. TenTen snatched the bad before it could clink against the tree, and started hopping from branch to branch, tracking the faint feel of Neji's immense chakra.
He was ready for her, and she knew it.
The sighting of him was lucky; she had been flying through the canopy, and just happened to see a strange flash of white that couldn't be a bird. Her immediate reaction was to throw shuriken at the sighting, and her aim was sure - the same weapon came flying back toward her. Now was the time to attack.
TenTen reached back and grabbed three more shuriken between her fingers, flinging them off without chakra. She then ran across the branch and landed in another, quickly reaching back an attaching a handmade exploding tag to a kunai knife. She touched the tag with her chakra and launched it with a follow up of more shuriken and knives. Neji was too closed in by foliage to make a safe dodge, so he simply began to spin and emit chakra from his body. And just as TenTen had planned, the tag exploded, expelling smoke everywhere, right as the tip of the kunai hit the chakra shield.
Neji's protection dropped suddenly, as he stumbled slightly in the smoke. His eyes could still see past it all, but it was choking him. The Hyuuga never expected something like this. Seeing this as her opportunity, the kunoichi leapt straight over the top of Neji to another branch, raining weapons down on top of him. Regaining control of himself, Neji did another Kaiten to repel both the smoke and weapons. They bounced off easily, only to suddenly jump alive again because of the strings that attached them to TenTen's fingers. She knew this wouldn't do anything, and so immediately cut the strings with her free hand before attaching more exploding tags to more kunai. She tossed three at once after activating them, and watched as Neji knew what was coming, easily avoiding them and disappearing into the smoke. TenTen threw a shuriken in three directions, using sound to confuse Neji as to her direction. Although he had an all-seeing eye, she could use those split seconds to get him. Next she summoned more kunai, but attaching fake exploding tags to them. She saw Neji staring at an area to the left of her, and took that opportunity to launch her arsenal of kunai and shuriken. Being surrounded by weapons, Neji used his ultimate defense again, knocking all the objects away. He looked down at the tags, not understanding why they weren't exploding. That was when TenTen leaped across the gap in the woods again, another shower of weapons exploding from her hands. She had a huge supply of them.
As those new weapons fell and exploded around another chakra barrier, TenTen fixed three needles between her fingers. Quickly concentrating, she forced her chakra to surround the needles and empower them. The smoke was just beginning to clear, and Neji's Kaiten was just beginning to fade. In what would normally be called a suicide move, TenTen leapt out of the trees and ran close enough to Neji to throw the needles into the disappearing smoke. When she heard a surprised gasp of pain, the kunoichi knew her plan had worked. Right when his chakra weakened, she needed to throw her own and break through his; everything before it was for show and to confuse him, to make him drop his guard.
Her opponent now walked through the smoke, straight towards her. He stopped when they were about three feet apart, and reached to his arm where he pulled out one of the needles TenTen had thrown. The brunette smirked and placed her hands on her hips.
"What's wrong with you today Neji? Slacking like this, I'm disappointed in you."
oOooOo
A/N: Yeah it ends abruptly, but it's supposed to. This one took a lot longer to write because it ended up being a really long story! It's unrealistic to write a real love story between Neji and TenTen, and this seemed to me like something that would really happen. I thought it was pretty good, but I'd like to hear all your thoughts! Feel free to review, but I'll still keep writing… Next up is probably a ShikaIno, and it might be rated M…