Chapter Eight: The End and the Beginning of Darkness

Tenten awoke to a bright light in her room, somewhere in the Land of Waves. She couldn't remember being in such a brightly lit room in her entire life. Her eyes attempted to adjust as she opened them. Things began to become clear, as she also noticed her entire body was aching as if something had been ripped from inside of her.

"Neji-Kun?!" She called out almost in a panic, making sure Neji and her son was somewhere close to her. She heard someone whisper as the bed that she was lying on dipped down a little as Neji came into her line of sight, holding something covered in blue cloth in his arms. "Shhh…Tenten, you need to rest, you almost lost a lot of blood…back in the Dark Oracle Society's hide out."

Tenten blinked and then asked, "Where…wheres…" And then she saw the blue clothed bundle and the mess of fuzzy dark hair, and knew that what she had thought was a dream was actually real. She choked back a sob as she closed her eyes, but could not help it when she saw her beautiful infant son safe in his father's arms. Neji looked at her with concern written in his ivory eyes as he leaned down to kiss her passionately on the lips.

"Tenten, what's wrong?" asked Neji as he pulled back briefly after Tenten returned his kiss with much affection. Tenten then said,

"Nothing I'm…I'm just so happy, that we all made it out of that dark pit of hell, Neji-Kun…" She watched him conflict with something and then turn his gaze down to his son who was wide awake and began tickling Toshirou's sides, which made the little Hyuuga boy giggle before finally saying,

"I'm happy too, but this is not over yet Tenten, they are still out there…I am afraid I did not kill the real leader of the Dark Oracle I think. His final words to me, were this, 'The Dark Oracle Society will never…die…not as long as my ambitions…continue on…'that means that I either didn't kill the real leader of the Dark Oracle…or they'll find someone else to lead them…"

Tenten was in slight shock; she remembered watching Neji's battle with Kiran and had to agree with Neji on this. She frowned even more but immediately reached out to her son as suddenly the little boy had begun crying. Neji frowned when the boy did cry, but knew that it was probably a hunger cry so he quickly gave Toshirou to his mother to deal with.

Tenten adjusted the nightgown that Neji had personally placed on her, when they had brought her into the house that Inari had the other villagers set up for them, during the entire operation to get Tenten out of there, and gently brought her son to her breast. The child almost immediately took to nursing, and Tenten watched him carefully. Neji got up and walked over to the window, a little edgy with watching his son nursing and this entire parenthood thing too.

Tenten looked over to Neji and said, "If there's a war out there Neji, then as Konohagakure Shinobi, we should know what we have to do, we will have to fight along side our Hokage to stop this threat…we can't just sit idly by and hope they will just…" Tenten didn't get to finish because Neji had come over to her bedside pretty fast and was kissing her passionately on the mouth. Tenten gasped softly but immediately kissed her Hyuuga man back.

Neji then said after pulling back after a few more minutes of passionate kissing, "I know Tenten, we will have to fight…many might die, but we can't just run away with our tails between our legs." "Once we return to Konohagakure, I want the two of us to get married immediately, and then we will go beyond that point from there and see what the future holds."

Tenten listened to her fiancée's words and agreed silently and turned to continue concentrating on nursing their son. Neji smiled briefly at her and wrapped his arm around her shoulders and sat down on the bed beside her. Neji and Tenten knew that the future looked grim and almost hopeless, but this would not stop them from being happy. They had fought for too long to gain their happiness, and this was only the beginning of a long life of things to come.

Two Weeks Later:

"Do you Neji, of the Side Branch of the Hyuuga Clan, take this kunoichi, Tenten of Konohagakure, as your wife, to love and cherish, in sickness and in health and until death takes you both away?" asked Naruto who was doing the marriage ceremony which had been a quiet one, only Neji's uncle, cousins and both Neji's and Tenten's closest friends had been allowed to come to the marriage ceremony, a week later after the happy yet tired couple had returned with their healthy baby boy in their arms.

Naruto was wearing his Hokage robes for the whole entire ceremony thing, which Naruto had whined would be boring to do, but knew he as the Hokage had to do things like this. And also was more then happy to marry the couple off, even though outside of Konoha, things were about to heat up and get worse.

Neji, dressed in a plain silver male type kimono outfit, his hair pulled back in also a simple ponytail nodded his head, as he had been trying to form the words, "I do take Tenten to be my wife, until death takes me away from her…" He stared lovingly into Tenten's eyes as he said those words before looking back to Naruto.

Naruto gave a bored sigh as he waited before finally turning to Tenten, "And do you Tenten, take Neji of the Side Branch of the Hyuuga Clan, and Shinobi of Konohagakure as your husband to love and cherish, in sickness and in health and until death takes you both away?"

Tenten was dressed in also silver, seeing she wanted to match Neji's outfit, but she was wearing a very simple yet flattering wedding kimono. Her hair had been let down, which was extremely rare to see Tenten without her usual double bun hair style, that made her look like a panda bear.

Tenten looked briefly at the entire place where the ceremony had been, which happened to be on the roof of the Hokage office, in front of Hokage Mountain, they had decided this would be the best place to have their small wedding ceremony. She saw Toshirou being held in his god mother's arms as she stood beside Lee, who was dressed in a plain green suit kimono.

Neji had no choice in the matter, he had made Lee his best man and told him to be on his best behaviour on pain of them both kicking Lee's butt from here to Kumogakure. Tenten smiled softly at her best friend and fiancée, who were to get married the following month apparently. She then turned and saw Sakura and Temari there as well as the rest of the Konoha 11 who had managed to make it to their ceremony.

There was a pregnant pause before Tenten turned back and stared lovingly into her soon to be husband's ivory eyes and she finally said, "I Tenten, kunoichi of Konohagakure, do swear to take Neji of the Hyuuga Clan to be my husband, to cherish him, to love him in any and everyway possible, nothing will stop me from loving him, and until death takes both of us away."

Tenten was on the verge of tears after saying this. She was just so happy, her heart was soaring, this was a fantasy of hers coming true in a way. She was marrying the man who had always been at her side since they had all become Genin, and she had already started a family with him.

Naruto then had them exchange rings and then Naruto finally said, "With the power invested in me as the 6th Hokage of Konohagakure, may the will of fire continue on in this village, I now pronounce you husband and wife…" He then waggled his eyebrows comically at Neji and Tenten, as he said, "You can kiss her now Neji." This brought the two of them doing their best not to laugh at how comically perverse Naruto was trying to be in a serious ceremony such as this.

Neji pulled her into his embrace and they kissed gently right in front of everyone. There was a loud cheer, that Tenten could have sworn came from Lee and Kiba, and quiet applause. Tenten was about to pull away but Neji tightened his embrace around her and kissed her harder, showing the world that he really did love this girl, he refused to hide it anymore.

Tenten's heart soared even more as she also felt her knees weaken a little at the soulful, toe curling, heart melting kiss Neji was giving her. She attempted to return the kiss before finally the two of them came up for air.

Tenten didn't hear Naruto saying these words, "May I present to all of you, Mr and Mrs Neji Hyuuga…" She had already knew she would be a Hyuuga the day they had first made love to each other, that had brought them such a beautiful little boy to a world that was on the verge of war once again.

Neji looked at her for a moment and heard her whispering,

"Aishteru Neji-Kun…"

Neji smiled and kissed her on the cheek as he turned and took her arm to lead her away down the aisle quietly, he whispered back as they walked,

"Aishteru Tenten…my beloved heavenly one."

They knew they would love each other until time ended or until death did indeed take them to the next life. But even as a war was on the verge of breaking out, the two lovers knew that their love for each other was undying and this would always be eternal no matter what the future held.

The End?

To be continued in the Gaara X OC story called Loving the Enemy)