Note: Thank you very much to everybody who reviewed. Five more Ten-drabbles, all post-timeskip.
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Life
Sometimes, when life gets to be too much, Tenten needs a break.
…No, she doesn't idly wish for a break between throttling enemy ninja or making sure Neji and Lee don't get themselves killed. She needs a break like an Akimichi needs his five daily meals.
And, for those who don't know, is a lot.
Unfortunately, in the busy schedule of every shinobi, there is very little time, if any, allowed for taking a break and heading off for a pleasant weekend spa trip to soak in a hot spring. So the weapons mistress must settle for the next best thing.
Here's to finding out what that 'next best thing' may be.
Despite Neji's generous offer, the Hyuuga courtyard isn't the best choice. Too many little white-eyed Hyuugas running around and hiding behind the willow tree in the courtyard while "secretively observing" the brown-eyed newcomer. After the third set of toy shuriken gets stuck in her hair, Tenten fairly runs out of the manor gates, chased by a screaming line of mini Hyuuga.
It's a good thing they grow out of it, she reflects later, as she pulls out the senbon that hold her tightly twisted buns together. Her hair falls out of the carefully arranged style – two toy shuriken with it. They land in the small, chubby hands of the nearest baby Hyuuga, and he beams at Tenten joyfully. The weapons mistress can't help but smile back. "Now run along, off with you guys."
The horde of white-eyed children dash back to their home quite contentedly, crushing Tenten's dream of a peaceful afternoon beneath their little feet.
Next stop: The Akimichi orchard. Chouza and his sweet wife have always liked her, ever since when she was a little Academy student willing to water the contents of the orchard in return for a few chocolate chip cookies on her way back home from school.
For a time, Tenten thinks that the orchard is perfect. Relatively quiet, peaceful, fragrant, huge trees ideal for lazing under…
Then Chouji comes out back and they talk, for the first time since he returned from his mission in the Land of the Mist. He insists that she stay for dinner, and as Tenten enters the Akimichi kitchen for the first time in years, her eyes can't help but widen at the sight of the biggest spread of food that she's ever seen in her entire life.
It is an hour before a thoroughly stuffed Tenten emerges from the Akimichi household, thanking everybody profusely, but declining the offer of a third helping of dessert. She fairly has to claw her way home, seeing as this is the fullest she's felt in years.
No more orchard, she decides, lying in bed that night and still feeling deliciously full. Way too much temptation. After all, she had forgotten just how delicious Mama Akimichi's chocolate chip cookies are.
In the day that follows, Tenten nixes the Yamanaka flower shop – too much of Ino trying to set her up with every male patron who walks in the door. When Jiraiya, of all people, strolls in, waggling his eyebrows at the two young ladies, Tenten runs out. She toys with the idea of Sakura's quiet, peaceful office, but then decides that she and her compatriots spend far too much time in the hospital for her liking anyway. A weaponry shop would have been the next logical choice, but her presence in the local stores seems to terrify the owners into bowing and scraping their heads at her feet. Tenten despairs.
By sunset, Tenten is lying on her back on the concrete roof of the ANBU headquarters, wondering if she'll ever get her break. She closes her eyes, basking in the glow of sunlight. After a while, she concludes that this is actually rather relaxing. All she has to do is hope that no patrolling ANBU mistake her for a dead body—
Almost at the instant that this thought hits, Tenten's eyes fly wide open and very startled – and with good reason.
"Ah!" she yelps, jumping up and pointing a finger at the intruder upon her personal space. "It's you!"
Shiranui Genma raises an eyebrow, settling back in his kneeling position. "Should I be offended by this greeting, or is it a custom thing for you?"
Tenten offers him a slightly abashed smile, tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "Eh, I'm sorry. I was just…unaware, that's all. It was a bit of a shock." The moment passes, and then she glares at him again. "Is it a custom thing for you to approach people on the roofs of buildings and stick your face an inch from theirs?"
Genma considers this. "No. I think it's just you."
"…Lucky me."
"Oh, you have no idea." The irrepressible young man offers her a grin. "And what exactly are you doing trespassing upon the roof of the ANBU building?"
Tenten drops back down to a kneeling position, so that they are both facing each other across the last thin sliver of sunlight. Before she knows it, she's spilling out the whole pathetic story, about mission stress and life getting to be too much, and how there's nowhere for her to go to get away from it all.
Genma listens with a straight face throughout the whole tale. When she's finished, he nods sagely. "If you ask me, I don't think you've been looking in the right places."
Tenten looks up at him. "Right places? Where?"
Genma stands up, and holds a hand out to help her up. "Come with me to dinner, and I'll show you."
It takes a few seconds for Tenten to realize that she's just been shamelessly led into a date, and on top of that, he's still holding her hand, and wearing a cheeky I'm-so-awesome grin to boot. Her mouth opens and closes disbelievingly, and then she sighs, unable to hold back a smile. "Fine."
If Genma was any less awesome, he would have to do a victory lap around the roof and compose a song in tribute of his own awesomeness, but he restrains himself for Tenten's sake.
Later, sitting in the branches of undoubtedly the tallest tree Tenten has ever seen in her life, she has to admit that it had been a fittingly awesome date. The dinner was great, and she had seen with her very own eyes how possible it was to eat with a senbon sticking out of one's mouth. And then he had brought her here, to the highest stable branch of the tallest tree in Konoha's forest, and that's where they sit now, eating fortune cookies Genma mysteriously pulls out from a pocket in his jounin vest, and naming constellations.
"This is amazing," she admits, leaning against his side.
He nods agreement. "Our sensei used to train us here in this very forest – this is the first tree I ever walked up. Raidou and I used to Henge ourselves into branches on this thing when we felt the need to agitate Shizune and our sensei."
Tenten laughs. "You two sounded like…a handful."
"That's the polite way to put it," he agrees ruefully.
Genma looks at the weapons mistress for a moment, her profile silhouetted against the silver stars. He opens his mouth to say something, but then she grabs his hand, pointing off into the distance excitedly. "Look, a shooting star!"
The star is oddly prominent as it streaks across the night sky, leaving a trail of glowing silver behind it. "So it is. Make a wish?"
Tenten considers for a moment. Then, she kisses him on the cheek.
Genma blushes the reddest she's ever seen on a human being.
The next morning, when Tenten meets her teammates and sensei before their scheduled mission, she has a senbon precariously stuck in the corner of her mouth.
Neji, Lee, and Gai-sensei stare. "So it's true," Gai-sensei murmurs wonderingly. "Tenten, my beloved student! You have finally found the joy of the eternal sunny summers of love!"
Lee groans.
Neji goes and finds a tree he can bang his head against.
Tenten smiles.
Devotion
It had to happen eventually, Tenten reasons. She, Lee, and Neji are all fully capable and qualified jounin, and undoubtedly one of the most close-knit teams that the village has ever seen. And yet, Lee and Neji are taking quite some time to get used to the idea of Tenten – their Tenten – having a real significant other in her life.
True, they have all matured, and the current state of events is nowhere near as awful it had been when she had first started dating Kankurou. Now, instead of forcibly trying to split her and Genma apart, Neji and Lee merely sulk.
One night, Tenten takes them both out to dinner with her, to the old dango place. This was where they had first ate lunch together as a genin team, a little more than ten years ago now. She remembers with a pang, how young they had been, and how much all of them have changed…or haven't.
Suddenly, Tenten takes Lee's hand in one of hers, and Neji's in the other. Neji tenses up at first, but slowly relaxes. "Guys?" she asks. "You know that we're always going to be best friends, right?"
This is a ritual they go through at least once a year, and instead of the usual enthusiastic responses (a loud cheer from Lee and a more emphatic "hn" than usual from Neji), this year she simply gets mumbles of assent.
Tenten frowns, and then pokes first Lee, then Neji, in the chest with her empty dango stick. "Okay, you two. What's going on?"
To her surprise, Neji voices his opinion first. "It's just a little difficult to get used to, that's all."
"Everything is changing," Lee agrees glumly. "We're not the young genin or chuunin we used to be. Neji is due to be installed as ANBU captain by summer's end, I am taking my first genin team within the month, and you have been offered a spot as an Academy instructor, as well as discovering the summertime of love. I feel as if we are leaving our springtime of youth behind."
"Entering uncharted waters," Neji chips in.
Tenten remains silent, stirring her lemonade. As much she hates to admit it, Lee really had hit something on the head. The realization startles her – "This is the unofficial end of Team Gai," she says, shocked, "isn't it?"
"In reflection, our team is one of the last to disband," Neji contemplates aloud. "Team Seven met its end a decade ago, with the Uchiha's defection and Naruto and Sakura moving on to specialize in totally different things. Hinata-sama, Kiba, and Shino are a rarity – they continue to take missions together as a jounin team. They were the most finely crafted team of the former Rookie Nine, and that hasn't changed, even now. Shikamaru is the Hokage's head tactician, Ino has been training under Morino Ibiki in interrogation for a year now, and Chouji has proved himself one of the village's most capable jounin-sensei."
They sit in silence for a few moments. "But…that hasn't really changed anything," Lee says, as something dawns on him. "The friendship that each team shares has been unaffected by the change in the original dynamic."
"Our bonds are too strong to break." Tenten murmurs. "What we've been through together, everything…we're best friends – well, more than that, of course - and nothing can change that."
"Of course, the interconnected strings of our fates will never really diverge," muses Neji.
Lee laughs a little shakily. "I wonder if our teachers at the Academy really know that, when they put together the genin teams, that they are making the ties of friendship that we will live and die by."
"It's a sobering thought," agrees Tenten. She picks up her glass. "I would like to propose a toast. To Team Gai, to our friendship, to the rest of our lives together – and apart."
Neji and Lee lift their glasses and murmur their assent.
Later, as they all part ways to walk to their individual homes, Tenten realizes that maybe; it was stupid to be worried. Because, out of the few constants of her life, she knows that Team Gai, and their devotion to one another, will always live on, no matter what else life throws at them.
Jealousy
Tenten stops by to visit Lee on the afternoon he is due to meet the three new genin that will become his team for the years to come. In the tradition of Gai-sensei, Lee has insisted that his team not be assigned a number.
Remembering her own genin days, the weapons mistress has to admit that she feels a little sorry for the kids who have to get used to being called "Team Lee."
Deciding to put on a little show for the kids' expense, Tenten appears at Lee's side in a swirl of green leaves, right in the middle of his very…youthful and enthusiastic introduction. Upon noticing the assorted gasps, Lee spins around and promptly tackles Tenten in a hug, before introducing his new students to the "illustrious and youthful Tenten-sensei, esteemed weapons mistress of Konoha!"
Tenten admits to feeling slightly gratified at the looks of wide-eyed amazement on the genin's faces.
She excuses herself shortly after, and simply watches proceedings from a high branch on a nearby tree. She realizes that she can't stop smiling, even though there is an oddly unfamiliar ache in her the pit of her stomach.
After Lee dismisses the genin, he waves up at her, and she jumps down before hugging him tightly again. "You were amazing, Lee-sensei," she attempts a smile. "I…it was just like being back here so long ago, listening to Gai-sensei."
Lee holds her away from him at arm's length, giving her a critical look. "Tenten? Are you quite alright?"
She hugs him again, and this time he can definitely hear a stifled sob against his shoulder. "Lee, is it completely stupid to be jealous of three little genin?" she sniffles at last.
Lee wipes the tears away from her cheeks gently. "No, it isn't. Not in the least."
After apologizing for crying all over his green spandex, Tenten wanders off, and without even consciously realizing it, ends up waiting at the ANBU office, just as Genma is wandering in after his coffee break. Noticing her red-tinged eyes, he wraps an arm around her comfortingly and kisses the top of her head. "What's wrong, Ten?"
Tenten looks up at him, squares her shoulders, and makes her decision. "I need to see Tsunade-sama about taking a genin team."
Genma looks at her, remembers what day it is, and understands. "You'll have to wait until the next graduation period, of course, but I'll take you down to see her right away."
Tenten manages a smile. "Thank you."
Hands
When Genma proposes, on the one year anniversary of their first date, Tenten's first logical thought after she says yes, and stops sniffling, in that order, is wondering how having a ring on her finger is going to affect her execution of weapons' techniques, if any.
The diamond ring fits on her finger perfectly – it isn't too tight, but it doesn't slip even a fraction of a centimeter as she goes through her nunchaku patterns.
Tenten still worries about it, though. She has never worn any article of jewelry in her life, even though her ears were pierced as a baby. Most kunoichi don't, in the fear that it will either hold them back in battle, could be used against them (Kurenai was almost strangled with her necklace as a chuunin), or become damaged on the field.
Seeing as the ring is perfectly battle-efficient – Genma even pointed out how much it would hurt if she punched or backhanded an enemy with her ring hand, and Tenten cannot think of any plausible scenario in which an enemy could use it against her, the only remaining problem is that the ring has quickly become one of her most treasured possessions outside her weaponry, and she can't stand to think of it being damaged in any way.
After puzzling over the issue for quite some time, Tenten mentions it to Sakura in passing conversation one day, and the medic-nin blinks. "Well, that's simple," she points out. "I can put a small shield of my chakra around it, so that it can withstand physical and weapons-related blows."
Tenten hugs Sakura and proclaims her a genius.
They go to her office afterward, Tenten takes a seat as Sakura puts on her white coat before sitting down across from her. "Here, may I see your hands?"
Tenten holds them out dutifully, and as Sakura centers a small ball of chakra in her palm, Tenten notices her own hands for the first time in – well, maybe forever. They are quite small, but callused from years of holding kunai and shuriken, and strong enough to block even the most powerful blows effectively. Her fingers are crisscrossed with tiny white scars, where the points of her weapons had met her skin.
Sakura molds the ball of chakra into a flat disc, gently lifting Tenten's ring hand up. Slowly, she guides the disc over the ring finger, and Tenten can feel the tingle of power that accompanies Sakura's chakra. The glowing green chakra disc settles over her ring, and seals, becoming completely transparent. Tenten blinks, curling the hand into her fist. She feels no real difference, except a slight thrumming over her ring.
"And that's it." Sakura smiles, pushing her chair away from her desk and standing up. "The ring will come on and off without any problem, although the shield won't dissolve."
"Thank you so much!" exclaims Tenten.
The medic-nin demurs. "Your ring is absolutely gorgeous, Tenten. You really are lucky."
Tenten doesn't miss the slightly wistful look in Sakura's eyes, and she raises an eyebrow mischievously, even as she lifts her hands up to make the beginnings of her disappearing jutsu. "Hey, Sakura?"
"Hm?"
"Don't worry. Neji will come around."
Sakura's jaw drops, and before she can stutter out a completely unconvincing denial of knowing what Tenten's talking about, the weapons mistress has already disappeared in a swirl of green leaves, although her laughter echoes around Sakura's office.
Taste
It's the end of the year already, and there is, as usual, a party for all of Konoha's jounin on New Year's Eve. The mood is celebratory as always, but Tenten thinks that it might be a little more than that.
Lee has decided to enter his team of genin into the upcoming chuunin exams, and he is more than confident that every single one of them will do well. Right now, he and Gai-sensei are quite seriously comparing pre-exam training methods, Lee earnestly taking notes on his small notepad, and seeming not to notice Yamanaka Ino making eyes at him across the room. Tenten really hasn't thought of it that way prior to her talk with Ino, but apparently the green spandex displays his "toned, muscular physique" in a spectacular fashion.
Neji is doing as successfully as ever as ANBU Captain, but it's not that that concerns Tenten. He and Sakura have looked very close to holding hands at a couple of times during the night, and Tsunade has an office-wide pool going that tonight's the night they become official.
In the ten seconds before the clock strikes midnight, Tenten is standing next to Genma by the window. Neji, Sakura, Lee, Ino, and Gai-sensei wander over as well, and listening to their casual conversation, Tenten tilts her head up to the sky and her smile widens in anticipation of the year to come.
She can almost taste the new beginnings.
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Genma is fittingly awesome, no? XD (and never fear alt-pairing fans, there will still beNejiTen and LeeTen in the following chapters.)
Reviews appreciated.