The Hokage was one of the finer hotels in the Konoha District. It was the sort of place where wealthy private schools would hold their formals or very well-to-do young couples would book to get married in.
Tenten couldn't help but feel out of place as she entered the banquet room, accompanied by Sakura, Ino, and Temari. She took comfort in the fact that at least she wouldn't look out of place: her new white dress (courtesy of Ino) was very nice, with a flared bell-shaped skirt, and oddly enough, buckles on the straps to adjust them. Though it was cool outside the hotel, inside the room it was nice and warm.
"Anyone see Hinata?" asked Sakura, scanning the crowd.
"No, I see Sand boys, Leaf boys, Sound boys…Not a trace of estrogen in the bunch." Tenten was faintly disturbed by the clinical look overs that Ino seemed to be giving a group of boys standing near them.
"I see her." Temari, who was taller than all the younger girls; spoke up, pointing at one of the large circular tables where the various Shinobi and their families were expected to sit. Tenten followed the direction of her pointed finger, stared, then laughed, wondering how she could have missed it.
The Hyuuga were not exactly a family with varied appearances. Hiashi and Hanabi shared the exact same eye, skin, and hair shades with Hinata and Neji, as well as a stony countenance. They were sitting together, a couple other chairs empty besides them.
She saw Neji look up from talking to Hiashi and start when his eyes fell on her. She couldn't help but smile, amused by his reaction.
"Tenten!" Tenten turned her attention to the left of Neji, where Hinata was beckoning for her to join them. She cupped her hands around her mouth to amplify the sound. "Come over here! There's a seating arrangement; you sit with us!"
Sakura groaned. "Of course they divide us. Could they make this lunch any more boring?"
"Be grateful that there's lots of eye candy, then." Ino grabbed Sakura and hauled her away, searching for a table that had their respective names on plates in front of seats. Temari followed after them, but not before giving Tenten a knowing smirk and a light shove in the Hyuuga's direction.
Tenten just rolled her eyes at her older friend.
"Where's Toyo?" asked Neji as soon as Tenten took her seat between him and Hinata. Like most other boys in the room, he wore a black turtleneck, black slacks, and a sports coat.
"He got sick; I think he ate some bad Gouda or something. So I told him since I was already on the guest list, I'd report back to him on how things went." She gave him a cheery smile, "Besides, I already had a dress ready. See?" she gestured at herself, grinning even wider at how Neji's eyes staunchly refused to leave her face. It didn't matter if she was Tenten or Toyo, teasing Neji was fun.
"Indeed," chimed in Hinata, much to Tenten's surprise. "Even the most tomboyish girls love to dress up. Even Hanabi-chan was glad to wear her dress."
"Not exactly." Like her cousin, Hanabi spoke completely deadpan, though her voice had a more petulant, childish quality to it. "Neji nii-san threatened to string me up by my toes if I didn't."
Hinata simply smiled and shook her head, and Tenten did the same. Her eyes then slid from Hanabi to her father and her smile abruptly froze.
Not only did Hiashi greatly resemble Neji, but he was also about ten times more intimidating. Tenten could practically feel herself shrinking as he appeared to examine her.
"Hello, Hiashi-san." She said, trying to alleviate her nerves by being polite.
"So you're the girl whom my daughter seems to have endless praises for, as well as my nephew."
"Excuse me?" Tenten was thrown off by the bluntness of his statement. Besides her, Neji looked like an ice statue that was beginning to melt.
"You heard me correctly, Tenten. That is your name, isn't it?"
"Yes, sir." Tenten tried to smile, but finding facial muscles refusing to cooperate, abruptly abandoned the attempt.
"Hm. Neji has told be quite a bit about you and your cousin, whom I had hoped to meet. Where is he?"
"He got a fever." Tenten explained a second time, mentally crossing her fingers. There was a sound of a chair scraping against the ground, and Tenten looked to her right only to find that Neji had abandoned her. Mentally screaming, she turned back to Hiashi, whose stern demeanor, to her relief, seemed to have lightened slightly.
"I see, too bad. Well, would you mind if I asked you a question?"
"Sure." Said Tenten, wondering why he asked that when it was obvious that she couldn't very well say 'no' to someone who was probably very high-ranked.
"Well, both my daughter and my nephew have informed me that you are very proficient in the Shinobi sport. Would you care to tell me about your experiences as a captain?"
"Yeah," confirmed Tenten, relieved at how the subject was something she was comfortable with.
The rest of their conversation continued in that vein, though Tenten kept feeling as though she was being evaluated. It wasn't until Neji returned from wherever he had been that Hiashi took his leave of her, going off to talk to a man standing next to the recently-arrived Sasuke and Itachi, looking very much like he had been dragged there.
"Did Hiashi interrogate you?" asked Neji, woodenly as ever. Tenten glared at him and kicked him lightly in the shin.
"Like hell he did! And you didn't even stay around to protect me!" she accused, more to channel out remaining jitters than to show actual indignance. Neji remained mostly unmoved, though his countenance suggested that he was at least a little sheepish.
"Hn."
Tenten let out an exaggerated sigh. "I guess I shouldn't expect much more from you, huh?"
"No you shouldn't." Agreed a deep, somewhat familiar male voice.
Both Tenten and Neji started and turned around to face the one who had spoken up behind them. A young man, with red hair, green eyes, black rings around the eyes, and a red tattoo on his forehead stood behind them. His hands were shoved in his pockets and his face expressed supreme boredom.
"Gaara!"
"Yes, that is my name. How have you been, Tenten? I haven't seen you much at school." As always, he spoke in monotone, his eyes completely blank.
"Ah, very well, thank you." Apprehension curled her stomach, and Tenten prayed that Gaara wouldn't mention exactly why they hadn't seen each other in so long.
Gaara shifted his eyes from Tenten's slightly pale face to Neji's, and offered the older boy a curt nod in greeting before refocusing on Tenten.
"Well, that's good. I've been wondering. Have you met Matsuri, by any chance?"
Tenten blinked. "Who?"
"Okay, you haven't." He turned around and gestured at a brown-haired girl standing uncertainly only a few feet away to come closer, and hesitantly, she obeyed. "This is Matsuri. Matsuri, this is Tenten."
"Hello," she said, smiling at Tenten, who smiled back.
"Nice to meet you, Matsuri-chan. I don't think I've ever seen you around Suna before. What grade are you in?"
"She's a sophomore." Gaara said, one hand on her shoulder. Tenten eyed it with amusement.
"Really? Wow, Gaara, I didn't know you liked younger girls." She teased. Matsuri blushed, but Gaara was unmoved.
"Going out with you made me swear off older women." Tenten tried to grab the front of Gaara's shirt, but he stepped back to avoid her hand and walked away. "Nice seeing you." He called over his shoulder.
"You dated him?" Neji sounded almost incredulous.
"For six weeks; not a moment longer."
"Did it end well?"
"Not really."
"What happened?" Tenten marveled at the way Neji was able to be demanding while sounding as if he didn't care one bit.
"Oh, Neji, you aren't jealous, are you?"
He didn't answer, only glared at her, his temple throbbing. She just laughed and poked him with one of his forks.
"Cheer up, Neji. Considering how many girls go after you everyday, you'd think I'd be the jealous one in this relationship! Neji? Are you listening?"
"He's a prude, Tenten." Hanabi supplied helpfully, "He hates talking about any kind of romantic connection." She snickered. "Wait till you guys start changing bases!"
Tenten had to fight down the blush, but couldn't help but appreciate Hanabi's barbs.
"When did you guys ever reach first base?" drawled a very familiar voice, from right behind her. Tenten twisted around to look up into Kankuro's face, covered in face paint and grinning leisurely
"Kankuro!"
"Glad you're happy to see me, considering that I have been deviously removed from my beloved brother and forced to sit with you." He sat down on Neji's other side, leering. "So, Neji-san. I've heard a lot about you from Tenten. Nice to meet you in person."
He stuck out his hand expectantly; Neji looked at it as though it was diseased.
"You're Gaara's older brother, aren't you?" Was all he managed to say.
"Yup. And I'm Tenten's unofficial brother, too. So as the big brother, it's my job to interrogate you."
"Kankuro." Tenten wondered if she should have told Kankuro about her and Neji after all; it was starting to seem like it had been a bad idea.
"What is it, Tenten?" he asked, feigning innocence, "I thought you said that you thought Neji looked 'hot' when he was being teased or flustered; so I figured that since he must look the opposite otherwise, I ought to help him so he can hold on to you."
"KANKURO!"
Despite the earlier setback, Tenten was eventually able to relax. At least until she caught, out of the corner of her eye, Sakura getting up from the table she had been occupying and headed out of the room into the lobby to, presumably, look for the bathroom.
Normally, she would have simply returned to her lunch, had not she had also seen Karin head for the same destination only a few minutes beforehand.
She excused herself from the table, and walking as quickly as she could without looking like an idiot, exited the dining room. Looking around the lobby, she found her destination the second door down from the dining room.
For a bathroom, it was remarkably ornate; more like a high class spa than anything else. The tiles were a faint, tasteful pink, the floor was clean, and there seemed to be what looked like a small chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A couple of giant vases filled with enormous tropical flowers added color to the room.
Tenten located Sakura by the mirrors, touching up her make-up. Relieved that she probably arrived early enough to divert a disaster, Tenten figured she might as well do the same. Sakura wordlessly handed her some clear lip gloss and began to speak to her absentmindedly.
"Have you seen Sasuke-kun's mother?" she asked as she checked her reflection in the mirror, fluffing her hair and adjusting the short mint green jacket she wore over the strapless, matching dress. Tenten nodded, too busy reapplying the gloss to really say anything.
"She's really pretty, and so nice. You really wouldn't be able to tell they were related if they didn't look so alike. It's really funny, actually, I was just watching, but Sasuke-kun seemed to be a real mama's boy. Itachi too, but it isn't as obvious. But that's probably because Hana has a really tight leash on him, I mean really it's just so…"
Tenten tuned out most of her ranting, though making sure to nod at appropriate intervals, patiently waiting until Sakura paused for breath to speak.
"That's nice. But since when do you call Sasuke, Sasuke-kun?" she asked innocently. Predictably, Sakura blushed, but surprisingly, she answered the inquiry.
"Since I accepted that I still like him." She became very interested in her handbag, as though if she checked, she could find her words in there.
"Accepted?"
She shrugged. "I just accepted that I haven't been eating bad food every day I'm around him, so my stomach couldn't have been flip-flopping from that. Lingering feelings for Sasuke were the next best guess."
"Interesting process of reasoning." Remarked Tenten dryly. She turned so as to properly face Sakura. "Now what are you going to do about it?"
"Frankly, I'm not sure." Sakura raked a hand through her hair. "But I've been thinking about asking him to come with me to Ichiraku's."
"Are you going to go through with it?"
"Do you think I should?" Sakura asked, hopeful, but slightly afraid.
"I don't see why not. It's not like you have anything to hide," she shot Sakura a quick glance. "Do you?"
Sakura laughed, "Nah, I'm too open, so even if I have a personal secret, I would never be able to keep it. I'm better with other people's secrets."
"Hm. Well, I don't know about that, but you're lucky. I think Sasuke likes you back…but I'm not sure. I just have a hunch."
Sakura smiled, "Ino told me the same thing…in more specific terms, of course. Thanks, it's always nice to get a second opinion. Now, he'll just have to accept any invitation I give him." She tilted her head thoughtfully, "Do you think I should ask him, or just do something silly to get him out with me?"
"Try the hammer method."
"What's that?"
"Simple, it can be worked in two different ways. The first one, you use a giant hammer and knock him out, then drag him on a date."
"I got that impression. What's the second way?"
"Wear stilettos and a gorgeous dress. Then drag him away while he's too dazed to think straight."
"Sounds effective."
"It is. For even better results you combine the methods and hit him on the head with one of the stilettos." Sakura burst out laughing, and Tenten couldn't help but join in.
Their laughter was abruptly cut short by the sound of one of the stall doors slamming open. The two girls turned to find Karin emerging from the stall, sneering at Sakura.
"Well, we seem to be over optimistic, aren't we?" She barely glanced at Tenten, keeping her eyes focused on Sakura.
"Whatever would make you think something like that?" asked Sakura, a sickening sweetness tingeing her words.
"It's simple, really." Karin crossed her arms, "If Sasuke could resist a woman who looks like me, what makes you think he won't resist someone who looks like you?"
Tenten noted with some panic that Sakura's fist was minutely trembling, and quickly butted in, praying that she could avert a potential disaster. "I'm sorry, but it's none of your business." She said in what she hoped was a civil tone to Karin, "And that was just uncalled for."
Karin opened her mouth, probably to make some scathing comment, but Sakura beat her to it.
"Tenten, don't worry about it." She smiled with the same sort of sickly sweetness from her words, and turned back to Karin, "First of all, Sasuke-kun can resist anything. It's in his nature. Second, even though he looks like some dreamy Byronic hero, doesn't mean he's looking for some fussy little Ingénue to call his own. Third, Sasuke-kun told me all about you, and let me tell you something, if it was your personality that kept him away from you, he'll stay away from you."
"And how would you know so much about that?"
"First hand experience, Karin darling." She tilted up her chin, and cast the redhead an arrogant, condescending look. "Now ordinarily, I would suggest an attitude adjustment, but somehow I don't think that Sasuke-kun would go for you even if you became the next girl-next-door. He's not into stalkers or bitches. And it seems that you're both."
Karin gave a short, harsh laugh before lunging at Sakura. Sakura quickly fought back, sending Karin into the opposite wall.
Tenten could only watch in horror as all hell broke loose.
"Do you hear something?" Ino asked Chouji, cursing her luck that also placed her across from Shikamaru, though relieved that she wasn't sitting anywhere near Kin or Zaku.
"No," he replied, pausing in his attack of his food, "Why?"
"I just keep hearing this thumping noise." She glared suspiciously at the contents of her plate, "Of course, this cream sauce might have something to do with it."
"Maybe," Chouji returned to his food, "Or you could just be hearing something." He added.
A muffled crash and shrieks quickly proved them right.
"What was that?"
"It sounded like a cat fight." Ino frowned, glancing around the room.
"Huh, they allow cats here?" Chouji raised his eyebrows in disbelief, "No wonder they wouldn't let Kiba bring Akamaru; he would have caused quite an upset."
Ino had to fight the urge to roll her eyes and returned to her food, nevertheless keeping one ear open for more sounds of fighting. If it got any worse, she would go over there herself and set things straight.
You are an idiot. A complete, total idiot. So idiotic that you make Naruto seem like a genius!
The reason for Tenten's current mental self-degradation was simple, and based on three factors.
First, she had not prevented the fight, even though she had followed with that explicit notion in her mind.
Second, she had tried to help Sakura when Karin had knocked her over, and had ended up being grabbed and shoved away from her friend. In the process, Tenten had accidently knocked over one of the large vases. It didn't break, but the loud noise it made on impact with the tiled floor was more than enough punishment.
Third, she prayed like mad that no one would come to investigate.
"Karin, stop!" she yelled, trying to pull the redhead away from Sakura.
When her efforts were proven to be futile, she resorted to a second tactic. Despite some difficulty with her pumps, Tenten managed to effectively jump on Karin's back and grab a handful of red hair, close to the roots, and pulled. Hard.
It produced the desired effect, with Karin staggering away from Sakura, but also made Tenten realize exactly how precarious her position was. If Karin fell over, without a doubt, unless she fell on her face, Tenten would end up taking most of the impact.
Fortunately, Karin managed to regain her balance. Unfortunately for Tenten, she had the sense to try to get the girl off her back by backing into the wall. Tenten hit her head and unwittingly let go, sliding to the ground, clutching her head painfully.
Sakura tried to get away from the redhead, but Karin grabbed Sakura's hair and yanked it back painfully. Sakura screamed and lost her footing, landing on her backside painfully.
Deciding that there were better uses for her pumps, Tenten yanked off one and threw it like a boomerang, hitting Karin square in the back.
It didn't stop her, however, and she managed to grab a hold of Sakura's foot as the girl tried to scramble to her feet, only to come crashing back down.
"Okay, we've been hearing you guys from the dining room, so what is going—SAKURA!"
The three girls paused in their struggle and turned towards the door Frozen in the doorway was a shocked Ino, mouth half open.
However, she quickly regained her composure and stormed in, fully intent on helping.
Unfortunately, Ino hadn't been the only one to hear the commotion. Close on her heels were Tayuya and Kin, apparently determined to give Karin a helping hand. Or at least in Kin's case, have a second round with Ino after their last fight.
Though relatively roomy, with the addition of three other girls to the fight, the bathroom seemed to become very crowded as the girls shrieked, pulled hair, and hurled insults at one another. They crashed into things, stepped on feet with heeled shoes, and just caused general, painful damage.
"WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON IN HERE?!"
The girls froze, turning with dread to look over towards the entrance. From her position on the floor (she had tripped on her one heel) Tenten could see a furious-looking Tsunade, while behind her was most of the male members of the Shinobi teams looking both excited and scared, as well as a shocked Hinata visibly restraining Hanabi.
"What are you louts doing here? Scram!" the principal snapped at the boys, sending them scurrying back into the safety of the dining room. Hinata remained, and followed Tsunade into the restroom to face the six girls.
"All of you, come with me." Her voice was icy, and Tenten wasn't surprised to find the normally stubborn girls simply dust themselves off and follow meekly behind her.
They were brought into what looked like an unused conference room, with a plain wooden table with swivel chairs lining each side.
"Sit down."
Again they obeyed without a word, though there was an exchange of glowers as the Oto and Konoha Kunoichi sorted themselves out onto their respective sides.
Tsunade remained standing, arms crossed.
"That is no way to behave at this sort of gathering," she began flatly, "All of you really ought to know; a professional attitude needs to be taken at all times. This sort of fighting makes your respective teams look bad; like they don't know good sportsmanship."
Tenten could practically feel herself shrinking as each clipped word left Tsunade's lips, and from the corners of her eyes see similar effects on the other girls. It surprised her, considering that Tsunade was Konoha's principal, not Oto's. But then she reminded herself of Tsunade's reputation as a former kunoichi. That was why they listened with respect.
"Now, your particular situation is even more precarious, because remember, your place on the team could be in jeopardy—"
"What!"
"I'm not saying your spots are definitely in jeopardy," she explained hastily, holding both hands up, "But I'm warning you girls. A lot of people don't like having Kunoichi on the team, and if any of you act in a way that suggests you could harm the team's reputation, chance of winning—whatever, and people might decide that girls shouldn't be able to try out for Shinobi teams, period. Do you understand me?"
"But that's not fair!" Snapped Sakura, furious.
Tsunade sighed, "I know it isn't." She said gently, "But it's a fact. Let's just keep it from becoming a barrier, all right?"
There was ragged chorus of mumbled agreement.
"Good. Now come on, girls, let's go back to your lunch." She turned on her heel and stalked out of the room; after a moment's pause the girls filed out in two lines, determinedly not looking at one another.
Other than a few stares at their bruising and slight limping as they entered the room, no one commented on the fight and the various conversations resumed as normal.
Despite Neji's and Kankuro's attempts to draw her into conversation, Tenten remained quiet, moodily picking at her half-eaten food.
The more she thought about it, now, the more certain she was that she was doing wasn't entirely absurd. If what Tsunade had said was true, then there was a good chance that girls, at least in the city, would be pushed out of Ninjutsu.
That couldn't happen. It was one thing if there were more girls who were disinterested in Ninjutsu that interested—at least the interested ones could go at least into Genin. But if girls weren't allowed to go in the games period, then that was truly unfair.
She was so caught up in the monologue composing in her head that she missed the stuffy speech the Head of Ninjutsu gave to the teams when their food had been eaten, full of empty phrases and warnings to not pick personal fights that had been quickly improvised, much to all the Kunoichi's annoyance.
A soft tap to the shoulder alerted her to Hinata. She turned enquiring towards the younger girl.
"Tenten-chan, Hanabi-chan and I are thinking about going out for some ice cream. Would you like to come?"
Tenten grinned. If there was anyone more empathetic than Hinata, it would have to be a supernatural being.
"Sure, but let me tell Temari first. She's the one who drove me here."
"Eh, just go. I'll tell her." Kankuro, sprawling in his chair, gave her a lazy grin.
Tenten fixed him with a deadpan stare. "You mean the way you told her about me going to a male strip club when I specifically told you I was going shopping?"
"Hey, you gotta admit, the male models weren't exactly wearing much—"
"Eh, I'm leaving. Kankuro, that message better get to her in one piece or tomorrow morning, you'll be in pieces."
"Love you too, sweetheart."
"Bye Neji-kun. See you as soon as I can!"
"Hn." He gave her a dismissing sort of nod and Tenten just laughed before leaving with the Hyuuga sisters.
Later…
"You seem to be in a good mood, Uchiha."
Sasuke simply smirked and said nothing, continuing to neatly annotate the poem as homework. The two prodigies were in the library, doing their work and occasionally talking to one another. It was a tradition of sorts; trying to work in their dorms when they had roommates like Naruto and Lee simply didn't work.
"Did something happen?"
"You could say that."
"What? Did you finally get the guts to ask Sakura out?"
The pencil that narrowly missed his eyeball was a definite 'yes'.
"Ah, congratulations. You finally came to your senses."
"Not quite."
"So you didn't ask her out?"
"No, it was more of a mutual agreement."
"So she was the man and asked you out."
A second pencil projectile.
"I see. Wimp."
"At least I'm not blind." Sasuke returned, "Letting myself be fooled by others."
Neji scowled, "What are you talking about?"
"You know perfectly well." When Neji continued to look blank, Sasuke snorted and elaborated. "Katana."
"So? He's weird, but Lee's worse. What's wrong with that?"
"Nothing's wrong with being weird but—have you really not noticed?"
"Noticed what?" Neji had a nagging suspicion as to what Sasuke was talking about, but didn't voice it.
"Don't act stupid. Katana and your new girlfriend—I know they say they're cousins, but they seem a little too, close, if you understand me."
"I don't think I do." Neji's voice was like ice.
"I'm not implying incest, but I've been noticing things. Katana fights like a Kunoichi, or at least he did at the beginning of the year. Your Tenten was a Kunoichi. They look too similar to be cousins—if anything, I would think they were twins. But they're not" Neji checked around them for listening ears. Thankfully, their part of the library was deserted.
"You're not making sense, Uchiha. It sounds like you're saying that Toyo and Tenten are the same person."
"It sounds ridiculous, but from what I've seen…just think about it."
Sasuke closed his binder with a snap and shoved his things into his backpack. He turned to leave. As he walked away, he called over his shoulder:
"For cousins who say they are so close; have you ever seen them in the same room together?"
For a long time, Neji just sat where he was, considering the pieces that Sasuke had presented him with in the puzzle of Toyo, wanting to reject them despite their nearly perfect fit.
A/N: Whew! That one was fun to write. Hopefully no one found anything too over the top in this chapter, even though I sort of stretched the envelope.
Review!