Chapter 3:

With the sun no longer in the sky to provide heat, the day had turned cold. Tenten, woefully unprepared for a chase (Why, oh why, did Ino make her wear heels!?), much less the crisp night air, suppressed her feelings of discomfort and focused instead on the small figure about 50 yards ahead of her. He was fast, but after years of training with Lee, she was faster.

It took less than two minutes to get close enough to the stranger for her to pull a senbon from her hair, and with swift dexterity, throw it straight into the man's calf. With a yell of pain, the man collapsed in a puddle, gripping his right leg in agony.

"Slow-acting poison. Takes about thirty minutes to kill you, but before that you will feel a lot of discomfort as well as paralysis throughout your whole body. The affects should be setting in right about….now."

The stranger from the dance floor looked away from his bleeding leg to gape up at the Weapon's Mistress. The sight of her at the moment would scare just about anybody, shinobi or not, and this guy was no different. The hair that Ino had spent at least half an hour on was now in a total state of disarray, with most of it hanging loose, blowing across her face because of the wind. She was barefoot, having kicked off the stupid heels in her pursuit, and equipped in each hand was a kunai. But perhaps most striking of all was the blood splattered across her dress and smeared down her face and neck. Neji's blood…and Naruto's.

Tenten squatted down, coming face to face with the man who was far too eager to leave during the chaos. "Where. Is. Neji?" She punctuated each word sharply, as if she were driving a kunai into his flesh for emphasis.

"I-I don't know! Some guys hired me. I-I had no idea what was going to happen. I swear!" Tenten deftly slid one of the kunai down the man's leg, pressing the sharp edge into the already existing wound. The stranger wailed in pain.

"Tenten!" Tenten kept her gaze locked on the face of the man whose leg she had a kunai in. There was no need to look up. Everybody in Konoha knew the pink haired shinobi's voice (it was hard to miss).

"Tenten…what are you doing?" Tenten finally turned her face 90 degrees to the right to see the shocked faces of the three girls she considered to be close friends.

Ino, her blue dress still pristine had blood covering her hands. Tenten faintly remembered the girl screaming Shikamaru's name. Her make-up was not as lucky as the dress though as the tears had left streaks running down her face.

Sakura was in a similar state as Ino, only it was clear that the blood (probably Sasuke's) had ruined her dress, same as Tenten's. She had her bloody hands gripped into fists, and it was clear that she had decided that crying was not the best use of her time.

Hinata, though shaken and crying silently, showed no signs of blood. Naruto had been with Tenten when the arrow pierced his shoulder.

Sakura stepped forward and kneeled down next to Tenten. "He tried to dance with me earlier at the party. Sasuke wouldn't let him."

"I almost stabbed him through the neck with a senbon. Neji stopped me just a centimeter from the guy's throat. He was involved. Somebody hired him to do something to the boys. You interrupted my interrogation."

Tenten turned the full force of her gaze, one she had spent years trying to mimic and perfect from her stoic teammate, back to the man whimpering below her. She kept the tip of the kunai just barely piercing the edge of his wound as she allowed the quivering man to regain enough of his composure to spill the secrets he kept locked inside. "Talk." The word was icy, causing even the kunoichi behind her to shudder. The man did nothing but stutter out random bits of unintelligible nonsense.

"Allow me, Tenten." Tenten turned her head once more away from the man and watched as Ino hesitantly approached. She gracefully slid out of Ino's way, moving to stand beside Hinata who still looked paler than she ought to.

Ino took a deep, calming breath, then reached out her right hand, palm open, and placed it on the stranger's forehead. He went still, and the night was quiet once more. Tenten made a move towards the man, but Sakura, knowing how hard Ino was already struggling to concentrate on the jutsu, held a hand up, blocking Tenten's path. She resolved herself to instead tug down her ruined buns and prepare them in her traditional panda style. It calmed her nerves a bit as she went through a part of her normal routine before the start of a mission.

Sakura turned from watching Ino at work to scrutinize Tenten and Hinata. Knowing Tenten, there was most likely an arsenal of weapons lurking beneath the dress, though the characteristic giant scroll associated with Konoha's Weapon's Mistress was clearly absent. Despite the fact that Tenten's appearance would lead a normal bystander to believe that she was in a state of disarray. However, Sakura recognized the ice behind the stare. She had often had a similar look cast upon her by the girl's gruff teammate. It was a Hyuga stare, calm and calculating.

The same could not be said for the shaking girl standing further back in the shadows. Hinata, though far from the shy stuttering girl of her youth, still looked as if she was in a state of shock from the night's events. Sakura, like most of the other shinobi, was not blind. She was well aware of the newly budding romance between the reserved Hyuga and Konoha's number one unpredictable shinobi. Sakura herself had once been in the girl's shoes years ago when Sasuke first left the village. Love lost is a powerful weapon, and it was a battle that it looked like Hinata was losing.

Sakura turned on her heel and marched further along the path, signaling for Tenten to follow and guiding Hinata gently so as to keep the girl as calm as possible.

"This may take a while. We should be ready to leave as soon as Ino is able to extract any viable information. Tenten, take Hinata to the Hyuga complex and see to it that she is taken care of. Then go gather supplies for the mission ahead, including lots and lots of weapons. I'm going to collect my things and some of Ino's. Meet me back here in 30 minutes."

"I only need 15." Sakura nodded her head, casting a worried glance at Hinata.

Tenten managed to coax the shell shocked Hinata into running along the rooftops until they reached the large complex. She left the Hyuga heiress at the gate with a guard she was on good terms with from all of the practices she had been to with Neji within the Hyuga walls.

Taking to the rooftops once more, Tenten set her sites on her small apartment two streets over and three floors up. She had learned many years ago, when Neji and her first began their training sessions together, that it was best to be as near to him as possible. It saved valuable practice time and she liked that Neji could drop in whenever he wished. They had grown quite close, though not in the normal way teammates or friends might.

Their bond was unique in that most of their relationship relied on fists and metal, rather than conversation or feelings. Despite this fact, Tenten wouldn't deny the sparks she felt when his hand would ghost over her skin after practices as he slowly undid the damage he had caused to her chakra points. Long ago, after first being assigned to Team Guy, Tenten had thought she might have a crush on the Hyuga prodigy, but she had long since dismissed those feelings.

Tenten shook her head, clearing the distracting thoughts and instead went to work on gathering her many scrolls from around the room and changing into her ninja gear.

Eleven minutes later, Tenten was back with Ino, the blonde still scouring the mind of this unknown enemy nin. Sakura joined her not long after, and both girls were shocked when Hinata landed beside Tenten after jumping from the roof.

She looked a lot more put together now that she was in her usual lavender outfit, and the tears that had rimmed her eyes earlier were now replaced with a steely gaze that would have made her cousin proud.

Sakura and Tenten both nodded their approval at her decision to join them and directed their attention back to Ino as she shakily stood.

"I know where they are."