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Disclaimer: Naruto doesn't belong to me, otherwise the NejiTen would be canon.

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Enjoy.

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Chapter 21. Agreements

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She took a few steps through the village and without being able to avoid it her feet took her back to Tenten's house, since her departure they had kept all the personal belongings that were there in a warehouse while they defined what to do with them because when they presented the available candidate to the emissary of the village of Lightning, the man made it clear that it wasn't necessary for her to bring anything. All her clothes would be according to the new position Tenten would have in that village and she wasn't expected to use weapons under any circumstances, so all the arsenal Tenten had and that had taken her several years to get should stay.

The brunette hadn't said anything, nor did she give any sign of reconsidering her decision. Tenten just nodded when she was told it was time to go and without further ado she left. The house became the property of the village and was put up for rent, being rented by a family who had no problem taking it furnished but from what she noticed through the window on some of her walks, they had changed the upholstery of the furniture to something less colorful.

Was that all? Was that the whole storm? No, she knew it couldn't be and on that visit for the chunin exams she just put on her best village representative face, surprised at how sad Tenten looked in general. She could see that the brunette had adapted as much as possible to her mission, to being the silent, smiling wife of a diplomat and future feudal of a village, but in the process Tenten had lost herself. The brunette was no longer the cheerful, smiling kunoichi everyone knew. She didn't understand it, she went over and over the matter and it made less and less sense that they had asked for a jōnin to put her to that use, there were women who were bred from birth for tasks like that. Why waste a high ranking shinobi on being a trophy?

That night she had stayed in the office reading some reports as with all the ninja from other villages present it wasn't a good idea to go for a walk, likewise her paperwork had quintupled as having to attend the fights was damming up horribly and she had already said goodbye to her hours of sleep, at least until said exams were over.

The first thing she felt that early morning was the presence of the Hyūga climbing the wall and positioning himself outside her window, she was definitely letting him in too much, especially since she knew how difficult the situation was for him and that he still would have insisted on being present like a pain addict, but that he dared to spy on her was far beyond what she was willing to endure. She was about to turn in her chair to yell at him but at that moment she could feel the other presence finishing up the stairs and peeking timidly into her office.

She saw her falter in her presence, Tenten was frightened before finally admitting that she had attended at that hour to a doctor's appointment for feeling unwell, so she had checked her over, discovering the throbbing pile of energy that was beginning to grow inside her. Joy wasn't a word to describe the reaction the brunette had, it was something more akin to resignation.

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She exhaled heavily, Tenten had just left after her fourth month ultrasound. She would like to say that it was simply collateral damage, a mission gone wrong. But the situation was far from such a definition, meaning, a mission gone wrong could result in serious injury and an undetermined hospital stay, detriment to health, loss of some bodily function or even a limb, in the most extreme cases life could be lost. LOSING a life, not GAINING a life, not coming back with a new life as a result of such a failed mission.

Although such an outcome was precisely because Tenten had fulfilled to the letter what she had to do in the role she had to play and that was to be for the rest of her life, since everyone was unaware that the denouement of such a union was going to be the fall of a feudal lord and the decline of a small village that had been prosperous up to that moment. She wanted to offer her the alternative of terminating the pregnancy and thus not having a permanent reminder of what those months were like, but before she even attempted to mention anything, the chocolate orbs gave her to understand that she wasn't going to do it. Regardless of the other factors, and even if Tenten didn't have a shred of appreciation for the man responsible for her condition, she hadn't been forced and the creature already bulging in her belly wasn't to blame for anything.

She had gone for a walk that night and her feet took her back to her house, it was quite late at night but the lights were on, through the window she could see her opening one of the boxes with her belongings and looking for a place for the object she had just taken out, returning each thing to the place it had before all this happened. The only thing missing was the presence of the other brown to make her believe that it was a common scene. But unfortunately it wasn't she saw her sitting on one of the pieces of furniture and hiding her head in her arms, but the brunette wasn't crying, she was only in that position for a few minutes and then she straightened up, stroked her belly as if it would relax her and continued with what she was doing: organizing at 1am.

She decided to stop going for a walk, not only because finishing the Yoshida matter was a priority and her attention was on that entirely, but because she always happened to be walking to that house and she felt worse and worse that she couldn't help her in some way. Especially since she had never noticed how much Hyūga stubbornness had rubbed off on Tenten, and Tenten refused to accept that everyone in the village was looking out for her well being and wanted to support her, being a single mother was a complicated challenge for anyone.

She would like to have the Yamanaka's technique if only for one night, because she saw Neji in his ANBU uniform completely immersed in his work and seemingly absorbed or disconnected from the hardships that his teammate and ex-partner was going through, she wanted to be able to know what was going through his mind, it wasn't a matter of apportioning blame but – would he feel that it was precisely in large part his decision that had the brunette expecting a child? At least Tenten was apparently finally sleeping before she would have had to do something more radical to get her to rest, which was a bit tricky considering her condition.

Shizune was the first to notice the problem in the system, with a simple signature from her and the Raikage the marriage had been annulled and erased from any existing record, anyone who searched wouldn't find anything regarding the subject, but apparently the shinobi records software had been changed in the last 22 years and no longer allowed to make the modification to erase her surname and return to being just Tenten, plain, without the Yoshida preceding her. What was worse, they tried to create a new record and ended up checking that if the father's section wasn't filled in, it automatically filled in the field with the mother's surname and it wasn't modifiable. So it was time to get his advisors to look for a solution to this issue, whether it was legal or with someone who knew about computers, she didn't care. What she needed was to get rid of that surname, neither the brunette nor anyone else in the village needed that reminder.

The initial response of the counselors was simple, change her last name. And how did they achieve that? With another marriage, someone who would 'donate' what was needed, even if it would be annulled later. But she had no intention of proposing that to Tenten; a second, purely transactional marriage was off the table. So she demanded them to continue the search, joining her in her spare time to read some legislation on the matter. Unfortunately, at the ultrasound scan in the fifth month that was still an unresolved issue so she had to tell her. Tenten was obviously upset and with good reason.

Although that wasn't what resonated in her mind from that encounter, what went round and round in her head was the conviction with which Tenten stated that the baby on the way should be a boy and not a girl as was the case. She knew there were some sporadic cases of families having only boys or only girls but really the evidence found in most texts on the subject disproved such a thing and left it more as a matter of chance than something verifiable. Or maybe the father of said child wasn't Toshio, she began to giggle to herself in the office at such an improbable idea. She needed to start sleeping more and thus stop having absurd thoughts.

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She looked at the final case report on her desk, after Neji had disappeared from the barracks for no valid reason and she had reprimanded him, they finally had the interrogations completed and all the inquiries in the Lightning village done. He had been in complete mutism while she vented her frustration and didn't retort any of her words, so she thanked him for his commitment to that mission that still had a pending but it was mostly hers and again there was no reaction, something was hidden from her but she couldn't figure out what.

She wanted to follow him but the priority was the peace treaty to finally close that matter and to be able to continue with everything related to her own village, it almost seemed that the only thing they had talked about in the last months was that topic.

Shizune entered her office with a huge book in which she had highlighted a particular section. The wars between countries weren't something rare, likewise the treaties that were made once it was over were not a novelty, that's why there were statutes that governed the entire continent regardless of which country decided to fight with which one or the reason for such a conflict.

There were guidelines that everyone had to follow, especially in relation to prisoners of war and particularly when they were high-level as were both the patriarch and the son Yoshida. One last wish – what was that? A damned novel? She snorted in annoyance and sent Shikamaru to find out what the men's request was while she and the Hyūga continued in reviewing any other details they might have missed as everything else was already in place.

"The patriarch asked to share a cell with his son," good, something reasonable.

"And Toshio?" she saw the black-haired and Neji exchange a meaningful look, as if the former was apologizing for what he was about to say.

"Talk to Tenten."

"NO," the Hyūga's voice sounded loud and clear as he frowned, "that's not going to happen."

"I told him that because of Tenten's condition it wasn't possible to fulfill such a request and his answer was that if it was necessary he would wait for the birth of his son," he wasn't talking to her, the two men were looking at each other.

"That's not going to happen either," was she painted on the wall?

"It's still almost 3 months before such a thing," the white eyes were stuck on her, she had never seen Neji so upset and much less with the dark energy that was starting to surround him, "it would be better if it's before the birth."

"You can't be serious," she was beginning to understand why he was such a good interrogator, he could certainly be terrifying, "I won't let anyone do that to Tenten," so that was the big mystery he had hidden, he and the brunette were together again – And Shikamaru knew it? And had he purposely kept it from her all the times she sent him to make sure the brunette was okay?

"If you find a way to evade the humanitarian agreements without unleashing a new war before morning, I'll consider it," neither said anything else, they just each took a book and began to read in silence. The sunlight peeked through the window and they couldn't make any headway on the subject. First the surname and now that. Was Tenten doomed to continue suffering for her ex-husband? With a shout she called Shizune, "send Tenten a summons to come here immediately."

"Tenten falls asleep after I get home from work, so she wake up late," Neji added without looking up from the sheet he was on, she smiled inside, in a way it pleased her to see the Hyūga finally talking about his relationship no matter what.

If it wasn't for the fact that he had left the Clan, she was sure it would be a very awkward conversation with those elders for him to date a woman pregnant by another. What if he gave his surname to such a child? Was he aware of the brunette's predicament on that subject?

She would give them a month, she knew it was a sensitive subject, but it had already taken them a couple of years to come out of the closet they had gotten into by themselves, if they had decided to raise such a daughter together it really didn't make much difference if they signed a piece of paper.

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All corrections and comments are always well received, they help me improve a lot.

Hope you like it!

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Regards, Sally K.