I'm sorry for the long wait between updates, I'm not going to use this space to fill with excuses, so I'll just say this, I lost interest in Naruto for a while, so I found writing fanfiction I wasn't interested in harder and harder. But I'm back into it now, and updates should be more frequent.
Re-cap:
"Tenten." Neji pulled her to her feet, and before she could utter a word, he had urgently pressed his lips to hers.
Tenten stood rigid for a moment, but as Neji's arm snaked around her waist, drawing her closer to him, and his fingers tangled themselves in her uneven hair, she soon forgot her doubts, and relaxed, encircling her arms around his neck, deepening the kiss.
Tenten broke away first, needing to breathe.
"We should go and aid Uchiha and Naruto..." Tenten trailed off, breathlessly.
"Hn." Neji gave a small smile as they headed out of the door.
Chapter 5
Two against four. Tenten smirked. This should be easy.
The first ninja was female, and looked about thirty, she had long, red hair, murky brown eyes and wielded a katana. The second was a burly man, he had no visible weapons. Scars marred the whole of his face, and the flesh around his ear lobe seemed melted, like he had been involved in an accident involving fire at some time.
Tenten leapt into the air, four poison senbon already in each hand. She flung them all at the same time. Seven of them struck the woman, the eighth barely missing her.
The red head turned to Tenten and laughed. "Is that the best you can do?"
Tenten smirked inwardly. It should take around fifteen minutes for the poison to sufficiently work its way into her bloodstream, then it would attack her muscles and vital organs, immobilizing her and maybe even killing.
The womans shape blurred and seemed to melt in front of her eyes.
Tenten didn't realize that the womans katana had been drawn, or that the strange woman was behind her until the razor sharp edge of the Katana grazed the tender skin on her throat, nicking it ever so slightly; blood welling up from the shallow cut and trickling slowly down her neck and into the neckline of her shirt.
Her brain whirring into action, Tenten quickly slid under the blade, bracing her hands as she flipped, kicking the sword out of her opponents grasp. With precise timing and deadly accuracy, she produced one of her many concealed kunai, just in time to parry the roundhouse kick the woman had just aimed at her neck.
Her opponents brown eyes widened in shock. It was too late to stop the kick, and it was too powerful to not cause any damage.
The kunai was sharp, and there was a sickening crunch as it lodged itself in flesh and bone. Tenten tried her best not to flinch as blood started flowing from the wound, cascading down the womans still raised leg, and dripping onto the floor like some sort of sick fountain.
She released the kunai from her grip, and was almost relived as the poison she had got the woman with almost a quarter hour earlier, finally took effect, and the red-head's body crumpled like a crushed paper bird, her injured leg folding underneath her, the wound still bleeding copiously.
Tenten shook her head, trying to regain her composure. It wasn't usually like her to loose her cool on missions. But the blood just reminded of..of that night. The injury...the horrible sound of breaking bones...it..it was... as if..
Tenten mentally slapped herself. Snap out of it, otherwise your just going to get in the way...
She took a deep, calming breath and quickly glanced over to see if Neji, Sasuke or Naruto needed any help.
The other members of her team seemed to have finished their fight also, the burly ninja lay obviously dead, a large gash in his throat. Sasuke was leant nonchalantly against the sone walls of the room, polishing his twin katanas, Naruto held a small unmoving girl in his arms, as Neji peered at her, his brow furrowed.
"Is she dead?"
Tenten's voice seemed to startle the two. Neji didn't outwardly show it, but Tenten had been reading his body language for nearly seven years now, so to her it was obvious he was startled.
Naruto was less apt at hiding it, he visibly jumped, turning to face her, his blue cerulean eyes wide.
"No, no she's not." Naruto spoke, his voice unusually hoarse. "But, she seems to have some sort of respitia – respit, breathing problem."
Naruto seemed to look at her almost expectantly. It took Tenten a moment to figure out what it meant.
"Damn it , Naruto, I'm not Sakura!" Tenten whispered, dread washing down her spine. That much was true – she was no medical nin, her chakra control was good at best, and even that was stretching it. She could mend minor injuries maybe even perform CPR at a push but starting a small child's respiratory system would involve inserting some of her own chakra into the girls chakra stream, to shock the organs into working again, but she would have to be precise, too little chakra would do nothing but irritate the problem further, and too much would be potentially fatal.
She turned to Neji. "Wouldn't you be a better option, your chakra control is much more precise than mine."
Neji glared at her for a second, and she was slightly taken aback. "I need to watch the girls chakra system, to tell you if its too much, or too little."
"Uchiha?" Tenten turned to him almost pleadingly.
The raven haired man just sighed, as if he was totally bored with the whole situation. "My chakra control is marginally better than the dobe's." He admitted begrudgingly.
"I-I..." Tenten faltered. If she didn't act now, the girl would die, the mission would fail and she'd never make it to jonin. Plus the fact she'd never ever live down the guilt if the girl died. Not a child as young as five. But at the same time, this could all go horribly wrong.
"Fine." Tenten almost snapped. "But you do know how wrong this could go?"
She cleared her mind totally, drawing the chakra to her fingers. Carefully, she pressed them to the child's throat.
"Slightly more." She heard Neji mutter to her left. She tentatively increased the chakra flow to her hands.
"Stop." He murmured, closer this time, near her ear lobe. His breath sending chills down her spine.
Tenten swallowed the emotions that had ambushed her and sprung out of the nowhere in her head, and made her mind clear once more.
"Do it now." The byakugan users tone was commanding.
Tenten took a small breath, praying this would work, and pressed her fingers to the childs skin.
For a moment nothing happened. The tension in the room could have been sliced with a knife. Even Sasuke seemed to care about the outcome. Tenten could sense the three other men in the room, how on edge they were, how on edge she was.
The small girl gave a weak cough, and Tenten almost jumped out of her skin.
The girl coughed again, more violently this time, as her lungs began to function normally again.
The girl coughed a third time, this time it was horrible and scratchy and a second later Tenten had flipped the girl into the recovery position as she began retching, bringing up what appeared to be water out of her lungs.
The child's coughs subsided , and her small fists began clutching at Tenten's hair and clothing, an miserable mewling sound escaping her vocal chords, as she began to sob.
Tenten smoothed back the girls hair, trying desperately to soothe her.
Naruto took off his jacket and wrapped it around the girl, before scooping her up in his arms and rocking her back and forth.
"We should get her somewhere warm. She may catch pneumonia if she stays in the cold in those wet clothes any longer."
The girl – The daiymos daughter – had stopped crying now and seemed to be asleep. Tenten sent the blond kyuubi container an appraising glance, she had never expected him of all people to be a good comforter.
Tenten rubbed her temples tiredly, and looked up feeling a warm, reassuring hand on her shoulder. She glanced up and saw Neji, and inwardly smiled to herself.
Okay, so I'm really not happy with this chapter, its too short and I feel like it drags at lot. However, I'll probably come back and re-write it later on so bear with me. On a happier not I finally got the mission finished, so now I can move on the the next segment of the story which has the first major piece of Neji/Ten action. Please R&R :-)