Hey again everyone! This is chapter two... Also as in the true Etariel fashion I have come up with an abreviation for it. It is now called PYCK in my head. (It's pronounced pick)
This chapter is fairly similar to chapter 6 of Duty Before Honor, a Naruto Fanfiction by SilverShine
I've sent her a message about that. However she hasn't answered, it's been several weeks now I think. I did edit it so it was less like hers but the similarities are still there and fairly obvious. So unless she gets upset about that, this chapter should stay the same.
"Wake up."
She was shaken roughly awake. Tenten found herself staring into a pair of opalescent eyes. Then she focused on Neji's face, and she leaned in towards him, closer and closer. Then she paused and they remained like that for a breath or two. The moment broke when Neji seemed to realise how close they were and pulled away quickly. "Time to go?" she asked, disoriented for a moment.
"Yes," Neji answered in one syllable.
Tenten grabbed her bag and headed behind a tree to change. Neji in the meanwhile cleaned up their camp and kicked dirt over the empty firepit. He destroyed all evidence of their passing.
"I'm all done!" Tenten returned, wearing a loose white shirt and black shorts that reached just above her ankles. Tenten grabbed the end of her braid and fussed with it, while Neji observed her appearance.
"Is that the servant's outfit?" Neji asked.
Tenten blushed, pulling the shirt down a bit lower. "Well I stole the pants from your bag, no way am I wearing that skirt to walk in," Tenten answered, leaning against the tree, her voice mulish.
"You'll have to wear it when we get to the Sato Family Home," Neji noted.
"And not a moment earlier." Tenten was adamant. "Well then, if we're ready shall we be off?"
Then they took down their traps, noting that none of them had been disturbed. Finally they were off Neji took the lead automatically with Tenten following after. "Ne, what were those important family talks about?"
"An alliance," Neji answered in an unyielding manner. His back stiffened but he stared straight ahead as he walked.
"Oh," Tenten lightly dropped the subject, aware that he didn't want to discuss it, and silence once again overwhelmed them.
"We're almost there," Neji said after a few hours' walk. "We should probably get changed."
"Your hair probably needs to be trimmed," Tenten observed running her hand through Neji's hair. "Isao has much shorter hair."
"It'll do, hair does grow after all," Neji frowned, pulling away from the unlooked for contact.
"Right..." Tenten appeared unnerved by him pulling away, as if she were used to it.
"Here's your skirt," Neji handed her the piece of clothing from the bag. "You can change first."
Tenten was back in a couple minutes, kicking at the skirt as she walked. "Here's the pants," she handed him a pair of black pants. Neji sighed and went behind a tree to change. When he came back he looked like a servant, rather than a member of a great clan from Konoha, dressed in cheap but neat clothing. "Don't forget I'm Amaya Hayashi now," she warned Neji.
"And I'm Isao Nakamura," Neji repeated. "Basically we get in, get that scroll and we're gone."
"I wonder how Isao got eyes like yours," Tenten asked, looking at the picture of the guy he was supposed to be impersonating.
"Most likely a disease," Neji offered. "Well let's pack up our bags. Make sure your weapons aren't easy to be found."
"They're in the secret pouches, no one will find them. I am however carrying my tessen with me," Tenten showed him her new weapon.
"It suits you," Neji commented, flipping it idly in his hands, still mindful of the incredibly sharp edges.
The two left, Tenten muttering curses about how hard it was to walk in skirts. Still despite the curses, Tenten never tripped over the skirt but walked as if she wore one everyday. When the reached the front gate they found large, imposing guards there. "Passes?" They asked.
Neji took the pictures that the Hokage had given them, and gave them to the guards. The taller guard had thick dark hair he looked about twenty. The other was somewhat shorter with long hair tied back off his face.
"Nakamura, Isao-san," The one guard looked up to observe Neji. Avoiding looking at the eyes. "You grew your hair out, Isao-san," the second guard dared to speak.
"Hn," Neji answered, his voice lower than it normal was.
"And Hayashi, Amaya-chan," the guards' eyes roamed over her body, "still as beautiful as ever," the first guard bent to kiss her hand and Tenten flushed.
"Thank you," she stuttered slightly.
"Well you came in good time, you did come to observe Tanabata?"
For a minute Tenten was shocked, she had forgotten that Tanabata was this week, but then she recovered. "Of course," Tenten replied, smiling prettily.
"We'll show you to your rooms," the second guard offered to Tenten. She noticed that they avoided speaking to Neji or Isao as they thought, almost like they were afraid of him.
"You're very kind," Tenten said softly, looking downward. She was acting demure and playing coy with the guards. They led the both of them into the main building and up a set of stairs through a fancy door on the left. There was a long hallway with rooms branching off from it every few feet. This must be where the servants are kept, Tenten thought. The doors here were all wooden.
"Well this is your chamber," they stopped in front of a door that was marked. 'Amaya H.' "Isao-san's room is further on."
"Thank you," Neji said stiffly. He parted with them, leaving Tenten with the two guards, and continued on down the hallway.
"If you need help with anything please call on us," the guards offered to her. "I'm Etsuo," the taller guard offered his name.
"And I'm Shun. We would be honoured to help you Amaya-chan." The two bowed.
"Thank you but I don't believe I'll need help with anything," Tenten graciously declined.
"Well we shall be returning to our post, please call on us, should you need anything," Tenten did not mistake the true purpose in that offer.
The guards gone, Tenten tentatively tried the door only to find it unlocked, what good fortune. The room was large compared to what the other rooms seemed to be and there was another door on the far side of the room. There was a double bed in the centre of the room and other than the basic furnishings the room was empty.
Tenten dropped her bags with a sigh, she jumped onto the bed only to sink into it. She wondered if all the other beds were this soft. A half an hour later (or so it seemed) someone knocked on her door. "Go away," Tenten muttered. She was now just on the brink of sleep, turning over she closed her eyes and ignored the knock. To her agitation the knocking grew more persistent and louder.
Then when she couldn't take it any longer she lurched out of bed, ignoring the dizziness she felt with such a quick movement and threw open the door. There in front of her was Neji. "What can I do for you?" she asked, covering her mouth as she yawned.
"Can I please come in?" Neji asked, his voice slightly lower. Without waiting for an answer however, he brushed past her into the room. And he took a seat on her bed.
"What would you like?" Tenten was slightly grumpy and did nothing to hide it in her voice. "I was in the middle of a nap!" Tenten's hands had found their way to her hips.
"It's safe to talk here," Neji told her. "I found the location of the room."
Tenten cast a glance out the window, the sky was darkening. "What time is it?" Tenten asked, yawning again.
"Almost seven," Neji answered. "The Sato Family is currently dining. The servants waiting on them."
"So only the guards are left to worry about?" Tenten asked.
Neji shook his head. "They're drunk," he said contemptuously, disapproving of drunk guards on duty. For once Tenten had to agree, if the Sato Family was all that powerful, and if the scroll was as important as it seemed to be, having drunkards on watch did not seem like a good idea.
The two shinobi sneaked past the guards who were snoring heavily. They crept lightly though Tenten was almost certain, if the huge pile of sake bottles were any indication, that the guards would not have heard them even if they were stomping around clanging pots together. The room they were supposed to be guarding was full of documents carefully sorted and filed away, making it that much easier for them.
Still they must have been ill-timed for Neji had no sooner taken the scroll and changed it into a kunai and placed a fake in its place then Tenten heard voices in the hallway. "Crap!" she muttered, brushing some hair out of her face. She shot a 'what do we do?' look at her partner. Neji was clearly thinking of some way out of this, if the look in his eyes were of any indication, but damn it they didn't have enough time.
Whenever Tenten had no clue of what to do, she turned back to the Shinobi Handguide she'd received on her first day at the academy. It contained a list of rules that all shinobi, that even the most powerful and strongest were supposed to observe. For a moment, Tenten was once again spread out on her apartment floor, with the rule book in front of her. She was idly flipping through the pages of a book that she'd already read too many times to count. At this particular moment one rule popped into her head, When compromised, change the compromise.
Tenten had spent hours puzzling this out, trying to make sense of it. Iruka-sensei had said that it meant making people see something else rather than what was in front of them. She thought he'd meant like an illusion or something. It hadn't been till she was much older that she had realised what it really meant. It simply meant, if you're going to get caught no matter what you do, don't just stand there, try to pass it off as something else, something minor. Tenten had learned that the best way in a situation like this would be to start making out.
After all two house servants making out in an out of the way room was no big deal, after all who could doubt that that was all they'd been doing. Two servants standing there on the other hand with no excuse was a much more serious problem. "Neji, I'm sorry but I'm going to have to kiss you," Tenten said quietly, turning to face him.
This was Neji standing in front of her, the same as he'd always been. The stoic Hyuuga Prodigy, her teammate and sparing partner. He hadn't changed much over the years that she'd known him, he'd always been standoffish and disliking contact. This was the same person she trained from dawn till dusk with everyday, the one on whom, when was much younger, she'd had a crush on. This was the same boy, no that wasn't right, young man who had lost to Naruto, who had beaten her almost everyday, the one who'd taunted Lee, who believed that fate was unchangeable. This was the young man she'd unknowingly loved.
Maybe she'd delayed too long, because she felt lips press against hers. Neji was gently kissing her. Then she'd felt herself rammed lightly into a wall. She gasped, she hadn't expected that from Neji. Then she felt his fingers undoing the buttons on her shirt, might as well make it seem authentic. "Tenten," Neji muttered against her lips. The vibrations and his husky voice alone were enough to make her moan. Her hands, without a conscious order from her, threaded themselves into his hair and tried desperately to pull him closer to her.
The voices in the hallway were louder and they were certainly moving faster towards them, they must have heard the noise. Neji's tongue lightly forced its way into her mouth, causing another louder moan. His hands were on her hips, sandwiching her between the wall and his strong, warm body. The door slammed open, causing Tenten to shiver but maybe that had more to do with the fact that one of Neji's hands was currently tracing circles around her breast.
"What the hell are you doing here?" Neji and Tenten jerked away from each other, looking exactly like two interrupted lovers.
"Um..." Tenten tried to reassemble herself. Her mind felt like it was in twenty different places.
Standing in front of them was a guard, and what obviously was a Sato Family member. The man was dressed in rich clothing and wore the air of superiority like a cloak. "This place is off-limits. Get out!" The Sato Family member yelled.
"Sorry, Sato-sama," Neji bowed deeply to the man. He grabbed Tenten's hand and dragged her behind him as she was still slightly dazed. "It won't happen again," He said as they passed by him.
"If it does, I can guarantee I won't be so lenient," The man said disapprovingly. "Now get out of my sight."