Hey guys, thanks for all the reviews for the first chapter. This is dedicated to you: ylfrettub, sylar1610, Rel, innocent-rebel and Akatsuki18 :) I hope you enjoy this! I've kinda rearranged the first chapter, to make this a nine-part series (hopefully) dealing with how Shino and Tenten overcome those (dis)abilities of his. By the way, I've already finished writing the last two chapters P:

I've also kind of played around with the idea of the Akatsuki becoming "good" after the Pein and Naruto arc. I like them very much, so I've kept them alive :) I apologize in advance if you don't like Deidara/Ino or Sasori/Sakura…

"Hey, Tenten! Last mission before your marriage, huh? Looking forward to it, un."

"Yes. It's nothing much though – just a diplomatic mission to Amekagure; it's really just to help Konan out with re-establishing the village. Now that the Akatsuki have disbanded, we shinobi won't have much to do anymore!" she affected a jovial tone, even though she was going through a tumultuous time inside. It was a weak attempt at best, but Deidara still cracked a grin at her. Good on Ino to have found someone like him, she thought; no matter what people said about them looking like twins she had always supported the pair.

It was strange that the two sides had spent their lives on opposite ends, fighting each other when they had common goals and a common enemy Oorochimaru in sight. In the end, Naruto had gotten through to Pein; and like Gaara, they soon became allies of Konoha. Oorochimaru was gone, but so was Pein, having sacrificed himself trying to bring everyone he had hurt and his new allies back to life as penance for his sins. The look on Konan's face as she held his limp body was one Tenten would never forget. The amount of anguish, anger, sorrow, love that was held in that one gaze….the last an emotion she had resigned to never experiencing.

Deidara's voice brought her back from her straying thoughts.

"You can still do D-rank missions," he pointed out, stepping out of the way of a slap on the shoulder. "So when's the wedding, un."

She smiled at his excitement. He reminded her of Naruto and Kiba sometimes, or the loveable boy with a messy mop of red hair and an infectious grin that was Sakura's child. "I'm not sure… the others are still away on some mission. Leaving me out! Oh, and Shino too. He came back for some family matter, I was told; so now both of us have been given this mission. We also have to escort your lovely teammate, who is currently buried in a pit of rubble, to Konoha on our way back. I don't mind though, there's no need to rush for these kind of missions."

"Ohh, Hidan huh. Hmmm, maybe you shouldn't go. This Shino guy should go it alone, un. If we weren't still on probation, I'd go instead. Or Kakuzu, un."

"Why! Is it because I'm a kunoichi?" she couldn't help but be offended. Just because she was female didn't mean her skills couldn't compare to the boys. She had gotten a lot stronger since her embarrassing defeat to Temari during the Chuunin exams. The extra training she wheedled out of Guy-sensei had helped, and now she was almost catching up to Lee's agility level.

"Yeah," he nodded, his bluntness earning him a raised eyebrow. "He may be in millions of pieces, so I've heard, but that won't stop him from hitting on you. He's annoying, un. You'll want them to stitch him up just so you can kill him yourself by the time you get back here. That's why he has to be immortal, because everyone always wants to kill him in the messiest way possible, un."

She laughed and told him that Shino holding the box containing the still-living Hidan all the way back to the village would be a very fitting punishment for the talkative Jashin worshipper.

It had been four days since they set off, and the number of words her partner uttered in this time equalled the number Lee proclaimed in one monologue about the power of youth or some similar nonsense. Maybe even fewer than that. But during this period, she found she had learnt more about her temporary partner than in her entire life prior to this mission.

Everything she had learnt, she learnt from observation. From what little she could see over his high collar, she now knew what every furrow of his eyebrows, every controlled flare of his nostrils and every tick in his facial muscles meant. She now knew to look out for the slightest shifts in his movements and changes in body language.

Shino didn't need to talk at all, she concluded, not when his body spoke volumes for him.

She liked seeing these little snippets of him that made him more alive, but she wished she could hear him laugh, or at least, see him smile. Naruto had had piqued her curiosity when he told her of his experience with Shino and some laughing drug, even though he had been sworn to secrecy. She supposed he was just itching to tell somebody, and she seemed the best choice. And she was, since nobody really bothered to talk to her much.

She thought about why she hadn't interacted with him much before this, since he had been on the same team as Hinata, and gasped when she realized she had done with him what she loathed others to do to her. While it was true that her attire and facial features allowed her to assimilate quickly into villages and avoid confrontation when she was on missions, it hurt somewhat to be forgotten or overshadowed by others sometimes. It was the reason why she was on this mission – because she had been neglected when the others were assembling the team to aid Suna. Even Shino had been included, and that fact stung.

She was just plain old Tenten, never good enough at anything.

But now, at least, she was useful for something.

Hanabi was selected to be heir over Hinata, a relief for all involved, because it meant that the older sister would be under less scrutiny and made it easier for her to meet her beloved. But now the pressure fell on branch leader Neji to marry and produce an heir of his own. She had forgotten who had come up with the outrageous idea for her to marry him. It was probably her, she realized with shoulders slumped. Since it was unlikely she would ever be wed, why not help a friend, she had reasoned. With this marriage, she would take a load of both Hyuugas' shoulders. They had objected fervently – what if she met someone later, they argued – but she was adamant to ease their current situation. She could see how good they were for each other, could see how much Hinata had changed her teammate into the way he was now, the complete opposite of the arrogant genius he had been years ago. And the way they looked at each other...

Would anyone look at her like that?

The impending marriage slowly turned into an extended engagement spanning years, as they continually used the excuse of missions to delay their union. Because this whole marriage was an excuse to begin with – just a farce to keep the old coots off her friends' backs while they thought of a long-term solution. But they had run out of time and excuses, and she wondered now if they were really going to carry through with this ridiculous notion of marrying someone she considered a brother.

She wasn't oblivious; she knew that their plan was only grudgingly believable at best all this time because the sole reason this had any semblance of success was by playing on the Hyuuga elders' desperation. She knew they faced disapproval because it was unthinkable for a Hyuuga, even a branch member, to marry a mere orphan; that ancestry and blood purity had greater importance to the council over real skill and character. She knew they only barely allowed this marriage because she was one of the last unwed kunoichi in Konoha, and thus one of the only few options left to them. The slight did hurt, but it was their tradition-extremist attitudes standing in the way of two of her best friends that made her blood boil.

She stole a glance at Shino. Did the Aburame clan have such outdated views too? She wondered what it was like to be part of a clan. If the Hyuuga one was anything to go by, she thought she might follow in Itachi's footsteps, she mused. Still, there was no way she could think of asking him something so blatantly, so she asked him something else that had been bugging her all this time.

"Does it hurt? The bugs?"

He looked up from his spot in front of the fire they'd made when they set up camp, a slight raising of eyebrows showing he had been caught off-guard at her sudden question."No. There is a slight prick, but they heal the holes after their entrance or exit, like a minor healing jutsu. Why don't you try it," he suggested, handing her one.

"I-I can?" she stuttered, surprised. "I thought only the Aburame clan could use them."

"Yes, only we can control them. Why? It is a mutual agreement at birth between the kikkaichu and us. Thus, you cannot use them in battle nor have too many in your own body, but they will not hurt you because you are an ally." And because they too, have recognized you as my...my-

"Shino!" she cried out excitedly at her bug's movement. She watched, fascinated as the bug crawled up her arm and disappeared under her shirt. When it burrowed into her shoulder, she let out a little gasp at the foreign feeling. So this was what Shino felt every time. She pulled the neckline of her top away from her, baring her shoulder and rubbing her fingers over it, expecting a bump or scar but only finding smooth skin. As she exclaimed her astonishment, she failed to notice Shino had stiffened considerably, eyes behind sunglasses pinned on the exposed flesh.

He decided not to tell her that he had given her a female one.

Surprise! Or not. I dragged out revealing who it was she was supposed to marry, but I guess everyone expected that lol. He was the first person who came to mind – it seems to be a popular pairing. But because his original personality and characteristics matched Shino's somewhat (since both are quite detached from society) I couldn't use him in the first chapter.

You might say, "Hey, Neji's even more antisocial than Shino, so why is she marrying him!" but over-explaining then would have killed the mood of that chapter. I hope I did an okay job of explaining a changed Neji…

I hated him at the start of the series, but later on he got quite bearable :) Possibly because of that scene in Shippudden with Hinata and Hisashi; but also after all those omakes I find it hard to see him as anything other than the butt of jokes (I love his 'Hell no' face XD).