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Tenten discovers her strong affinity for the Village Hidden in the Mist during an infiltration mission shortly after she makes jounin. She volunteers for the mission immediately after learning about where exactly they have to infiltrate, deciding that she can deal with the details later.

Her mother told her about her past life as a kunoichi of the Mist, when she was much younger, thinking that her daughter would want to know the truth of her past - namely, her lack of a last name. Tenten had shrugged it off with a bright, sunny smile, claiming that this was her home now, and nothing could change that.

As she grows older, though, she admits to feeling some curiosity about her mother's homeland. The small apartment they had shared was decorated with portraits of the Mist that Sayaka bought, as soon as she had enough money saved up from missions to do so. When Tenten asks about them, Sayaka smiles wistfully and says that sometimes, it's nice to be reminded of home.

Tenten's first impression upon entering Mist is that the portraits didn't do it justice. She is familiar with its bloody, brutal history, and it seems so incongruous, when she sees the beauty of the land.

Genma, a Konoha shinobi born and bred, shudders at the constant drizzle. He claims it depresses him, and takes refuge inside the tent more often than not. Tenten, on the other hand, is more than a little fascinated by the unfamiliarity of this new land. She sits in the branches of the formidable pine trees that comprise the forests of the Mist, tilting her face up to the faint, unceasing rain. It doesn't rain in torrents here, like in Konoha, but instead falls in slow, gentle curtains of blue that cloak the landscape with a mysterious translucency.

From her vantage point, she can see the land below her, which seems to be comprised of several misty layers of blue. The clouds hover nearer to the ground here, and on the rare occasions when the sun peeks out from behind them, it has the curious effect of cloaking the entire village in a sheer golden veil. Most times, it's still drizzling while the sun is out. Within a matter of minutes, rainbows form in the sky, arcing from here into eternity.

There are more lakes here than Tenten's ever seen in her life. Sometimes, at night, she forsakes the precious sleep she needs for the long day of information gathering that lies ahead, in order to slip out of the tent, and sit at the side of whatever lake they happen to be camping beside. Even though the nights are cloaked in mist, it does little to block out the silvery light of the moon, and the image is reflected in the black, seemingly bottomless, depths of the lakes.

Tenten admits to feeling more than a little depressed when their month-long mission comes to an end. She has never been here before, and has no memories of it. But there is something about this mysterious land of mist that just seems to tug at the depths of her very soul.

It is a little hard for her to transition from the eerily quiet, misty forests of the Land of Water to the usual bright, sunny, green forests in the Fire Country, familiar though these forests may be.

Tenten scolds herself for it. A shinobi's one and only loyalty is to their own hidden village, the symbol of which is emblazoned on the forehead protector she so proudly wears. She has no right to miss the Village Hidden in the Mist, and promptly immerses herself in the familiarity of her beloved home village.

In a short span of time, she gets used to the long, hot, sunny days again. Sitting in the sun-warmed meadows while waiting for Lee and Neji to show up for training. The familiarity of her comrades' voices echoing through the streets of Konoha.

Tenten wouldn't trade her home here for the world, but sometimes, after a long day at work, she sits on the windowsill of her apartment, the window thrown open and her feet dangling carelessly into open space. A rare cool breeze blows from the east, and she turns toward it, feeling its gentle caress of the loose locks of her hair, while she remembers a land far away from here, where it's always raining and that breeze is ever-present.

Confusion

One fine spring day, when Team Gai is training arduously in preparation for their next try at the chuunin exams, Lee comes up with the brilliant idea that they all work with their weapons techniques, instead of just Tenten.

The weapons mistress feels quite gratified. Moment of folly number one: she has no idea she should be feeling very, very worried instead.

Tenten has just mastered nunchaku, and she decides that she will work with the ball and chain that day, because she only has her old practice wooden pair of nunchaku with her anyway. So she tosses the wooden nunchaku to Lee, who cheers with excitement and begins his execution of the elementary pattern dance that Gai-sensei had begun to teach him, while Neji busies himself attempting to increase his senbon precision.

Through some sick, insane twist in fate, Lee and the wooden nunchaku end up a little too close to Tenten and the ball and chain for comfort. And the two poor genin are once again dealt a negative fate card.

In a momentary loss of control, the other end of Tenten's chain wraps itself around Lee's left ankle, dragging the spandex-clad boy to the floor, head-first, with a loud thud. As a direct result of this action, the wooden nunchaku leave Lee's grasp, and go flying through the air…

…Where they deal the unwary kunoichi a solid blow to the head. Tenten is down within a second, peacefully unconscious.

Leaving the very stunned Neji to stand in the midst of the clearing, staring down at his two unconscious teammates, wondering what the hell just happened there.

Hyuuga Neji's most taxing endurance training to date: Carrying his two unconscious teammates, one over each shoulder, across the village to the hospital.

Luckily, he runs into Haruno Sakura during his first stagger into the hospital. Taking one look at the rather demented-looking white-eyed boy, the drooling Lee, and the remarkable bump on Tenten's head, the pink-haired apprentice grabs the front of Neji's shirt and buzzes him right through the information desk, and into the nearest available room.

Within a few minutes, Lee and Tenten are tucked into neighboring hospital beds, and Sakura has fairly forced Neji into a seat while quizzing him about the methods of injury. Neji tells the sordid tale in his usual monotone, and to her credit, Sakura keeps a straight face through all of it and refrains from letting her "Team Gai is definitely insane," expression show.

"Alright, Neji-san," she says at last, once she is finished probing Lee and Tenten's heads with her chakra. "They should awaken soon, with no real side effects save for a relatively short-lived headache, as well as mild and temporary mental confusion." Upon seeing the drastic expression change on the Hyuuga prodigy's face, she offers a sweet smile. "Nothing long-lasting, I assure you. If anything seems to be too out of sorts, just buzz me."

With that, she waltzes out of the door, leaving Neji to glare sourly after her. While he waits for his teammates to awaken, possibly in a dubious mental state…

Neji sighs. Sometimes he swears that life is out to get him.

It is another fifteen minutes before Tenten regains consciousness. She cracks first one eye open, then the other, in the hopes that will lessen her splitting headache. She is disappointed.

She is in a completely unfamiliar, white room, one that seems to swim before her gaze. Tenten giggles.

Then, lo and behold, a person appears in her field of vision. A funny person, with swimmy brown hair and swimmy white eyes. "Tenten?" the person says, very cautiously.

Tenten giggles more.

From what she can see now, the person looks highly unsettled. "Tenten, it's me, Neji."

Neji. The name is vaguely familiar. After about a minute of deep thought, it clicks. Brown hair, swimmy white eyes. Neji. Of course. And yet, something is very, very wrong…

"Where's Lee?" Tenten demands abruptly.

Neji blinks. "Lee?"

"Spandex. Green. Loud." These are only a few of the simplest adjectives that spring to mind…for some reason, she can't seem to puzzle out the others. A little voice in her mind is telling her that they don't make sense.

"Ah, he still hasn't regained consciousness." Neji nods toward the bed next to her. What he isn't prepared for, however, is for Tenten to almost roll out of her bed upon hearing this. He catches hold of her shoulder quickly, saving her from toppling flat on her face. "Tenten?"

To his eternal shock, Tenten reaches out an arm toward Lee, a look of eloquent hopelessness and despair in her brown eyes. "Oh, Lee," she murmurs, before falling face-down on her pillow. "The love of my life…why does he continue to elude me so…?"

At this point, Neji begins to wonder if it's really him who suffered the head trauma. He gives himself an experimental jolt of chakra.

…Nothing. Neji is beginning to feel very, very afraid.

Tenten is still gazing at the blissfully unaware Lee with a look of nothing less than absolute adoration. "Lee?" she murmurs again.

Miraculously, the Green Beast of Konoha stirs, before sitting up in bed, apparently not any worse for wear. "Ah, Neji, my youthful teammate! Where is our beloved weapons mistress?" In response to Neji's wordless gesture, Lee glances to his side, at his team's kunoichi.

"Tenten!" he exclaims. "You shouldn't be walking just yet-"

Before he can say anything more, Tenten gives a slightly drunk wobble and collapses on Lee's hospital bed, her arms linked around his neck. She gives him a shy smile. "Hi."

Lee's face is rapidly turning several different shades of red. "N-Neji…what's going on?"

"Mild and temporary mental confusion," Neji says dryly. "I think you're the love of her life."

Lee almost passes out again upon hearing this statement.

Tenten blushes at the cute look of utter confusion on his face.

Neji merely sighs. "As amusing as this state of events promises to be…I think we should probably find Tsunade-sama and ask her to attend to Tenten."

Lee nods agreement, a little bit tongue-tied due to the fact that Tenten is now nuzzling his cheek.

Neji flees the room before his mental scarring is completed further.

After a few minutes that are absolutely heavenly for Tenten (Lee is patting her head and asking her how she feels!), and kind of a completely unique experience for Lee - he has no experience in dealing with befuddled girls - Neji enters the room again, attended by Tsunade-sama.

Neji and Lee get the impression that the Godaime thinks their little problem is very amusing, judging by the good-natured smirk on her face. Tenten sits still obligingly as her idol gently inspects the considerable bump on her head. "Well," Tsunade-sama says at last, shaking her head in amazement. "Your teammate seems to be having a unique reaction to her injury. The bump has swelled up quite a bit since Sakura inspected it, and accordingly, Tenten's mental confusion might last a little bit longer than expected."

"But she'll be fine?" Lee inquires anxiously.

Tsunade smiles at the two boys. "Perfectly. You just have to deal with her whims for the next day or so, until her mind regains its usual equilibrium. Bring her back to the hospital if this last more than two days." And with that, the Hokage is gone, leaving Neji, Lee, and Tenten to blink at each other.

"Ah…" Neji swallows. "Should we go back and train?"

Tenten nods enthusiastically. "Lee?"

"Yes, Tenten?"

The weapons mistress blushes faintly. "Can we hold hands for a bit?"

Lee falls back down into bed again, the shock having proved too much for him. Tenten gazes at him, slightly confused and wondering what she had done wrong.

Neji merely covers his eyes with one and hand and sighs. It is going to be two very, very long days.

--

Luckily for them all, Tenten's confusion wears off after one and a half days, when she dozes off while they are all relaxing in the meadow after training, and has a near heart attack upon waking up to find herself hand-in-hand with Lee.

Neji explains the events of the past one and a half days to her, and after Tenten is finished banging her head against the nearest tree, she gives her now very afraid-looking teammates baleful glares. "This incident shall never be mentioned again."

Neji and Lee frantically nod their assent.

That night, when Tenten gets home, she burns her wooden nunchaku, and spends the hour after that throwing kunai, denying that it felt nice to hold Lee's hand, with each one that lands solidly in the center of the target.

Fear

Arguably one of Tenten's most irrational fears: the dark.

At the age of fifteen, and ranked as a chuunin, it is something that she should have outgrown a long time ago. And it's quite ridiculous by anybody's standards that an accomplished kunoichi, who can already kill twelve men in twelve seconds, should be afraid of something so very…mundane.

Tenten lives in fear that someday, Neji or Lee will discover her little secret. True, she's done an admirable job of avoiding the darkness for the past two years that they have been teammates. But still…

One day, that very fear comes to pass. They are assigned to stand guard over a certain manor on the outskirts of the Fire Country, until the wedding day of a certain lord who resides in the aforementioned manor. Tsunade-sama had impressed on all of Team Gai how much of an important mission this was, even though it wasn't the usual type of thing they were assigned to.

Tenten understands this. After all, they can't always be taking field missions and slaying the enemy. What she doesn't understand is why they all have to stay in a little wooden shack in the woods, with next to nothing in the way of modern amenities. Including electricity.

Which means that, after seven in the evening, darkness falls. A deep, penetrating darkness. Neji, Tenten, and Lee sit in their miserable shack, while Gai-sensei takes the night guard, and Tenten can't help but listen to the eerie sounds that only the woods at night can produce.

Needless to say, it becomes near impossible for her to get any sleep during that mission. The combination of utter, stifling darkness, and mysterious sounds and shadows and lurking things outside the cabin guarantee that.

Tenten thinks that it can't get any worse.

Then, there is the thunderstorm.

Neji is unbothered by the vicious bolts of lightning and the loud claps of thunder alike, and although Lee jumps every time a particularly bright flash of lightning illuminates their dark cabin, his reactions cannot even compare to the terrible twitchiness of Tenten's thorough terror.

After things escalate to an unbearable level, she abandons her pretense at meditating with the rest of her team, and crawls to her little cot and throws the thin blanket over her head, where she proceeds to begin shaking like a skittish stallion.

Neji cracks an eye open. "Tenten?"

"Are you alright?" Lee inquires.

Tenten draws the blanket a little bit tighter. "Ah, I'm just fine," she says, hating the way her voice trembles. "Just tired, that's all."

In another hour, Tenten is eating her words. Neji and Lee are in their individual cots, soundly asleep. Her cot is near the window, and she hates to admit it, but the insane flashes of lightning and thunder are almost as terrifying as the blackness that coats the shack between flashes.

By midnight, her nerves are worn completely thin, and she thinks she might be going insane. So, abandoning her pride, Tenten stands up shakily, wrapping the blanket around her. Maybe she'll go sit next to Lee for a little bit. Just to calm herself down, and convince herself that she's not alone in this awful, dark little space.

The weapons mistress resolves to be very, very quiet. No need to wake up her teammates and then face some awkward questions about why she's wandering around the shack in the dead of night, during a raging storm.

Halfway across the floor, a ragged voice whispers, "Tenten?"

Tenten spins around, and finds herself confronted by a pair of ethereal-looking white eyes, just as the lightning flashes again, silhouetting the figure in darkness.

Without further ado, she screams and jumps as far away from the creepiness as humanly possible.

…Which ends up being into the cot of one now very, very awake Rock Lee. "Tenten?" he asks groggily, undoubtedly confused as to why his female teammate seems to have him in a cross between a formidable death grip and a hug.

"…Hello, Lee."

"…I had no idea I looked this bad after a couple hours of sleep," Neji says grumpily, padding back to his cot. "Serves me right for wanting to check on the mental health of my teammate."

Needless to say, Tenten has to explain herself. Neji and Lee do not laugh. Instead, they stay awake together until the storm is over - Lee and Tenten together on the cot, while Neji self-consciously attempts to finger-comb his hair, talking about the most random fears they have all experienced.

They do this until a few hours before dawn, until Neji falls asleep again, ruining his intense hair care efforts of the past hour and a half. The storm has stopped and it's not as dark anymore, but Lee doesn't ask Tenten for full possession of his cot again. Instead, he simply lies down on the rock-hard pillow, and is snoring softly within a few minutes. Tenten nestles her head into his shoulder, and slips into the most peaceful sleep she's had in a long time.

Lightning/Thunder

Ever since this one incident, Tenten overcomes her fear of the dark.

But still, whenever there's lightning and thunder and darkness, she ends up curled beside Lee, and Neji ends up forsaking his beauty sleep, as they all sit together and talk until the rain stops, the clouds part, and the sun rises again.

Bonds

When Team Gai first becomes Team Gai, none of them believe that they will ever become best friends.

This notion is shattered several times over. The first time, when they nurse Neji back to health after his experience with chicken pox. The second time, when they each end up saving each others' lives during a mission. The third time, when Tenten sprains her ankle during a mission, and Lee and Neji link both of her arms over each of their shoulders, and carry her all the way home. The first time Tenten unleashes her temper regarding Neji and Lee's constant fights, the two boys look at each other, mutual disdain forgotten, and shudder at the kunoichi's wrath.

When Lee almost breaks his hand in his continuous attempts to increase his taijutsu skill by punching trees, Neji is the one who holds the hand still and bandages it, while Tenten bathes it in ice to numb the pain.

Whenever Neji's angst threatens to overwhelm, Lee and Tenten drag him out to the ice cream place and bully him into buying a triple-scoop watermelon swirl waffle cone, while assuring him that no, he doesn't look like an idiot, carrying around an ice cream cone that's about twice the size of his head.

All of Tenten's most important, significant, amusing, touching, and…well, all of the memories that she holds dear, she has Neji and Lee at her side.

She loves them more than she will ever admit.

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