Chapter twenty-two.

Gosh it's been a while since I updated…

To all my loyal readers, I apologize; I've had no end of work to do recently, but with any luck I can get a few more chapters written and uploaded over the Christmas holidays…at least I hope so!

Please enjoy and review – those things keep me going!

I do not own Naruto!

Ears ringing as flashes of light filled her vision, Tenten was thrown wildly from the point of detonation, hitting the ground hard. She skidded along the concrete for a moment, scraping the skin from her forearm in the process as dust was thrown up around her. She lay there, stunned for a moment as the pain set in, her arms stinging as feeling returned to them.

Suddenly, she was hit with a flash of realisation. She could feel her arms again! She sat up quickly, looking down at the chard scraps of paper than had been her bonds. Evidently, that had been no ordinary explosion. It must have exuded chakra in order to destroy the paper belts in such away. That could only mean one thing. He was coming for her.

Buoyed by this information, she got to her feet, unsteadily at first. She took a deep breath, knowing her chakra had yet to recover from the repressing drugs she had been given at the prison. However, her hope had been restored, and that was all she cared about. She knew how to fight without chakra – it was one of the things she took express pride in. No, she wouldn't give up, not if he was coming. He cared; he wouldn't leave her to die after all!

The shouts and yells of guards brought her back to her senses, and she knew she had no time to loose. Luckily, the main explosion had missed her; her body having been shielded from the blast by the executioner who had been in the way. Both he and Ibiki were lying unconscious a few feet away from one another, and the two guards were dead. Feeling not a shred of sympathy for any of them, Tenten quickly made her way around to each, taking what weapons they had on their person that she could put to use and stowing them in the black bag that she had 'borrowed' from the unconscious Ibiki.

She was tired, battered and weakened from her ordeal in confinement, but she wouldn't let Deidara down. She would buy herself enough time until he arrived, of that she was sure. Selecting a weapon from her new collection she favoured the most, she took one last look around at the carnage before turning and sprinting, as fast as she could, towards the cover of the trees. This part of the facility, after all, wasn't too far from the densely wooded area that separated it from the main part of the leaf village.

As Tenten reached the tree line, she heard the shout behind her that she had been dreading.

"There she is! Don't let the Akatsuki escape!"

Tenten didn't pause to look over her should to see how many guards were after her. She plunged into the dark depths of the wood, darting between the thick trunks like a wraith. Having had little to eat and drink over the last couple of days, Tenten was already worn out and out of breath, but her stamina training was coming into its own now, and she had never been more grateful for those excruciating days of trekking as part of ninja academy.

It seemed that the scarlet tendrils of dawn had not yet reached the forest; the light having been blocked out completely by the canopy rendering the ground as dark as if it was still midnight. The voices were getting louder, and Tenten crouched behind the truck of a great oak as they approached. Her breath was coming hard and fast as adrenalin raced through her veins, and her legs were protesting painfully at having to be put to such use after days of sitting around.

She chanced a quick glance around her hiding place to see who had chased her here.

"I swear I heard someone come this way…I would stake my month's pay on it." Growled the first of the two thick-set guards.

"Then it's a good job you don't get paid a lot." Snorted his companion, evidently impatient to move on from the area.

Tenten breathed a silent sigh of relief. Good…they weren't anbu. It appeared that the black-ops hadn't arrived yet.

"Fine, you go that way and check the other side of this area of forest, I'll check this side. I heard what I heard." The first guard said.

There came a frustrated sigh from his comrade, but the retreating footsteps told her the man was doing what he had been told. Her heart beating fast, Tenten tried to inch quietly around the tree trunk to hide herself better.

A twig snapped underfoot. Tenten winced as the first man stopped moving to listen.

There then came a moment of pure silence as both she and the guard stayed completely still. Tenten suddenly made out the slight, almost inaudible crunch of dead leaves underfoot as her pursuer started to move towards her. By the time she registered what it was, he was almost upon her and she had barely enough time to roll out of the way before a volley of kunai hit the trunk against which she had been leaning.

She scrambled backwards as the large man approached, a katana in each hand. Tenten stared, wide-eyes as she backed up further, blinding fear taking over from rationality as he got closer and closer. Clamping down on her terror, Tenten tried to reason with herself. It would do neither she nor Deidara any good if she went and lost her head now…probably literally as well as figuratively.

However, it was easier said than done to come up with a plan whilst backing away from a menacing guard armed with two katana, and it wasn't until her back hit the tree behind that inspiration hit her.

Before the man's flailing arm could grab her, she drew on her energy reserves to jump, just high enough so she could catch hold of the lowest branch of the tree. As the guard looked up at her, slightly stunned that she was capable of this after her confinement, she twisted and let go, throwing her body weight forward so that she landed on the man's back.

Tenten quickly dug around in the bag she had stolen from Ibiki whilst the guard tried to claw her from his back. However, in order not to injure himself, he had to put down the katana he had been carrying, buying Tenten more time. Finally so pulled out what she had been looking for. It was a peculiar weapon, but Tenten had instantly decided she liked it the moment she had picked it up. It featured a chain made from interlocking looped of tempered steel so small it was more like a thick cord. At each end was tied a weighted kunai. These kunai had longer handles and shorter blades than the conventional design, but Tenten had already worked out what the weapon's purpose was.

Gripping each kunai end in one hand, she evaded the fist of the guard as he sought to knock her off her perch and then suddenly ducked forwards, looping the thin chain around his neck. Then, as he fought to make sense of the situation she pulled her knees up from underneath her and braced her feet against the man's back, still dodging his fists.

Picking the moment, Tenten suddenly slammed her feet forward, kicking herself away from the man with her hands still gripping the ends of the chain tightly. The piercing crack of the man's neck echoed dully through the woodland, dampened by the morning mist. Tenten landed painfully some feet away, jarring her ankles and breathing hard from the exertion.

Cautiously, she approached the body of the fallen guard, and peered down at his face which still held an expression of mild surprise. Yes; the neck had definitely snapped.

Tenten sighed, stowing her new weapon back in her bag of stolen goods, and began to make her way once more through the trees.

It was getting harder and harder to remain unseen amid the trees, especially as she had to stick to ground level due to her lack of chakra. To make matters worse, the dawn light had finally infiltrated into the depths of the wood, making her all the more easily spotted.

She found herself absent-minded wondering where Deidara was. Had he arrived at the execution sight, only to find her missing? Then again, surely he must have known that she wouldn't hang about for the guards and anbu to find – that would have been suicide. She leaned a against a tree for a moment of respite, knowing from the painful protest in her legs that she couldn't keep this up for much longer.

Closing her eyes, she tried to reach out for his chakra patterns, to which she had become accustomed over the last week. No…the patterns of all the other milling Guards and shinobi in the forest and around obliterated his signature, and she supposed he would be trying to keep it undetectable to the Konoha forces anyway.

From a little way away came the distant shout:

"Here! There's a body…it's one of ours!"

"The Akatsuki bitch must have gone this way…"

"Look here – tracks leading away from the corpse…!"

Tenten looked around her shoulder briefly, cursing at her carelessness. In any case, there was nothing she could do about it now. Her only option at this point was to keep running. She hated having to flee in this manner, but there was truly no other course of action she could take. With a grimace, the kunoichi turned and set off once more, deeper into the wood.

"Can you see her yet?" Deidara growled, his unhidden cerulean eye flicking back and forth between the trees of the misty forest.

"Not yet. This forest covers a large area and the chakra signatures of many others are masking Tenten's, and there's the fact that she probably has little of no chakra of her own right now, making her very difficult for me to pick up."

Neji was walking a little way ahead, the blood vessels around his pale eyes extenuated and standing out from his pale face as he used the Byakugan. Beads of perspiration had appeared on the young man's neck and brow, and Deidara guessed they were a culmination of the stress and trying to keep his chakra undetectable whilst using it. The only thing Neji seemed to deem more important than finding his friend was keeping himself hidden.

Tenten must had made a dash for it after the explosion hit the execution area, if the amount of guards and shinobi pouring into the forest was anything to go by. It made his and Neji's rescue mission even more difficult and had resulted in having to dispatch two enemies already.

They had made the decision to traverse the woods on foot because it made it easier for Neji to search for Tenten using his ocular powers, plus he had completely refused to fly on one of Deidara's clay birds anyway.

"We're not far from the edge of the woods and the site of the execution now…she must have gone in a different direction." Neji observed.

Deidara snarled with impatience.

"This is ridiculous! When we've rescued her, I'll kill her myself, hmm?"

The pair walked a little further in silence, thankful that the patrols seemed to have moved away from this particular area.

Suddenly, Deidara gave a start as his foot connect with something soft.

"What the…hey Neji, look at this, hmm?"

Deidara crossed his arms as he looked down at the body of a Konoha shinobi, face down in the decomposing leaves that littered the forest floor. Neji squatted by the corpse and ran a finger over the man's pulse.

"His neck has been broken. From the looks of it, a cord-like weapon was used. I know few people who use such objects…"

"Yes, yes, I can tell all that. It must have been Tenten; she must have passed this place."

Deidara grinned to himself, his cold eyes narrowing a fraction. Yes…it was completely in his kunoichi's character to do something like this; to be able to kill a trained shinobi even when exhausted and low on chakra.

"Indeed. However, it is clear that she used no nin-jutsu, and there is no trace of her chakra in the area. Therefore we can only assume that she has none remaining. If so, then we have even less time than I feared – the strength will fail her before long."

Deidara chuckled.

"You should have more faith in your comrade. She won't succumb quite as easily as you'd think."

Neji didn't look at Deidara's face, but he could sense the cold tone in his voice that was tinged with grief.

"You're wrong Akatsuki. That kunoichi is not my comrade."

There came a few moment of silence, before Neji spoke again.

"Of course this will mean she will be far more difficult to locate, seeing as her chakra signature will be almost impossible to make out. However…"

Deidara cut him off before he could continue.

"You know, we could just follow her tracks."

Neji glowered at him.

"They must be hers; they lead away from where the leaf litter was disturbed in their battle, and head west. Moving quickly, we should easily catch up with her, hmm?"

After another pause in which the two shinobi glared at each other, Neji nodded.

"Very well, it would seem to be the wisest course of action…"

Deidara allowed himself a smug grin, before the pair of them set off once more into the depths, where the light was just beginning to punctuate the darkest recesses of the foliage. The cold mist seemed to have soaked into Deidara's robes, and felt heavy and uncomfortable, not to mention cold.

Not only that, but his long hair now felt damp and was sticking to his face which was lightly covered in a mixture of mist and perspiration. Neji seemed to be no better off; his white Hyuuga shirt was stuck to his body.

Deidara's temper threatened to kindle as irritation filled him. Trust the hidden Leaf village to have a maze of a forest in which you could loose yourself completely. Why were kidnapping or rescue missions never simple? Last time, he had to traverse his way across a desert filled with sandstorms. Nothing was ever simple.

Suddenly, there cam a 'swish', and something heavy collided with him at speed.

Deidara was thrown off his balance and landed on his back in the rotting leaves. He whipped out a kunai and rolled over so whatever had attacking him was under his weight.

He stopped himself just before he slit her throat.

"Tenten?"