Disclaimer: "Naruto" is property of Masashi Kishimoto, Studio Pierrot, Viz Media, etc.
It had only been one day. One day, and Tenten was already tired. It must have been because she was in the hospital that her resilience had worn thin. Usually, she could put up with this…
"Here's to Tenten's future training!" Guy's fervent voice boomed across the table.
"Hurray!!!" Lee raised a glass to meet his sensei's.
Tenten kept her water on the table. "Shouldn't it be to my release from the hospital?"
"To Tenten's training and hospital release!" the pair cried in unison before bringing their glasses together.
"Wait, I only said –"
"Let them be, Tenten." Neji took a sip of water, perfectly calm.
She glanced beside her and did a double take. 'Did Neji just… smile?' There was no way to be certain. If Neji had indeed smiled, it disappeared a second afterward.
"Tenten! Neji! Lift up your glasses!" Guy amicably commanded. They did so, only to have Guy and Lee crash their glasses into theirs' and shower the tabletop with water. It was a good thing their food hadn't arrived yet. Even if it was her favourite, Tenten did not want to eat Chinese food with Lee and Guy seasoning.
Lee beamed at her. "Tenten, as soon as we are done eating let us commence your training!"
"I don't mind training today, but right after eating? We should at least wait an hour –"
"We need to make use of every minute of our youth to the fullest!"
"I'm saying we should wait because –"
"Whaaa, that looks delicious!" Lee's eyes were shining as the dishes arrived. "Tenten, you take the first bite!"
She heavily sighed and picked up her chopsticks. "Yeah, yeah…"
Glad to have his kids together again, Guy merrily laughed and ordered a bottle of sake. Neji watched and listened to the interplay of his teammates; playing like an old familiar tune he was pleased to hear again.
- - -
There was something strange about it. Sakura thought for sure Ino would be hounding her after dodging her first attempt at wheedling an answer about her recent whereabouts. Yet her friend said nothing. It was peculiar, but what was bothersome was Sakura knew Ino wanted to ask. She could see and sense the grumpy look in her eyes whenever they were together, and it was beginning to get unnerving.
'Darn it, Ino, whatever you want to say, just –'
"So what happened?"
They were walking down a path in the village that was nearly deserted, so Sakura heard Ino clearly when she popped the question. Nevertheless, she decided to draw out Ino's curiosity for spite, in the face of having waited so long to ask. "What ever do you mean?" Sakura replied in a phony tone of ignorance.
Ino's expression crinkled. "You've stopped bolting after lessons."
"Oh, that. I finished my business is all."
Ino's bottom lip slightly puckered. Evidently Sakura was not going to provide a straight answer unless given the right incentive. Her voice raising an octave, Ino said, "My, you must not make for a very good girlfriend if you were dumped by a boy so suddenly."
She fell for it. Simply Ino suggesting Sakura liked another boy, let alone went out with one, was enough to make her bristle. Without even thinking, she blurted out, "I was not with a boy; I was with Tenten!"
The astonishment on Ino's face made Sakura reconsider her words. Given the context Ino had been speaking in, Sakura could guess what was running through her mind. She grabbed Ino's wrist and pulled her into a side path where they could have more privacy, and quickly explained what had really been happening before Ino could jump to any more conclusions.
When she was finished, Ino still looked a bit skeptical. "… A reading competition?"
"I know it sounds odd, but it's true and it was her idea. If you don't believe me you can ask her yourself."
Ino stared at her a moment longer. "… I believe you."
Her surprising faith in her took Sakura off guard, and she blinked. "You do?"
"Yeah…" Ino glanced off to the side, a faint smile playing upon her lips. "If you were lying I'm sure someone with a mind like your's could have come up with something more plausible."
Sakura wasn't quite sure, but it sounded like Ino had given her a compliment. Accolades from Ino were far and in-between, but each time it happened, she managed to stir Sakura's heart.
Ino twisted on her heel so she no longer directly faced Sakura. "So you really do have another rival." She seemed to say this more to herself than to the girl she was with. Sakura wondered why she even said it.
Though it was supposed to be a rivalry, and it was being labeled as such, Sakura still didn't fully accept it. She had thought coming up the winner in their readings meant she wouldn't need to see Tenten for a while; but then Tenten ensured that she would return to the hospital to see her fulfill her self-rule.
To tackle the remainder of her run, Tenten kept her pace at a jog, aiming for endurance over speed. Sakura meanwhile observed her from one of the nearby benches, occasionally getting up to pass Tenten a cup of water. It wasn't a laborious task, which meant that Sakura was left with most of her time available to sit with her own thoughts.
As she watched Tenten run, she realized that although on the surface self-rules were penalties for losing a challenge, it also doubled as training. Sakura remembered how the previous day the elder kunoichi had been determined to finish what she started. Even now, her expression wasn't tired, but resolute. It appeared she was used to this sort of exercise in addition to doing it alone.
The majority of Sakura's studies toward becoming a shinobi had taken place while enrolled in the academy, or afterward with her squad. She studied because she had to pass, she worked because she needed to get it right; but those were benchmarks, minimum requirements. It wasn't enough.
"I'm done!" Tenten announced with a breath of exhaustion.
Her voice and the oncoming trudge of her footsteps awakened Sakura from her reverie. "Oh, good work."
Tenten picked up the towel draped over the bench's backrest and pressed it against her fevered visage. When she pulled it away Sakura could still see a fine sheen of sweat. If she touched her skin, Sakura imagined it would feel warm and clammy. The bench creaked as Tenten sat beside her and picked up a fresh cup of water.
Sakura glanced at her while she drank from it."Do you always push yourself like that?"
Tenten rested the cup in hand on her lap and stared straight across the hospital grounds. "I suppose. Guy-sensei always gives us intense routines to follow whenever our team trains."
"It sounds like you have it rough."
Her mouth formed a jaded smile. "Don't let him know I said this, but I'm actually kind of grateful. It's because he keeps pushing us that we're able to grow stronger." Tenten turned her head to look at Sakura. "Having a rival has the same effect, right?"
She wanted to ask about their rivalry. She wanted to know why Tenten thought of her as a rival. She wanted to know why she was being so friendly… It was probably just her imagination, but Tenten seemed to be glowing.
I was tired of being cooped indoors.
In the end, Sakura didn't say a word. She merely nodded and watched as Tenten drained her glass with a toss of her head.
In the present Sakura was looking at Ino, her thoughts shifting and delving deeper into the recesses of her memory. The rival of her past, her present… "Hey, Ino… You'll always be my rival."
Ino blinked at her for a second. Sakura's eyes were serious but bright, and she was smiling. With a smidge of amusement, she mirrored her expression. "The same goes for me."
- - -
Returning to work with her team wasn't a problem for Tenten. After warm-ups and a couple of hours under Guy's tutelage, she was getting back into the swing of things.
What proved to be challenging was working one-on-one with Lee. It was just herself, and Lee to place attention on the other. No Guy or Neji to act as buffers. Usually this was not something Tenten would be too concerned about, but Lee was pouring on the training, punctuated by his dramatic outbursts. Even though she was expecting this, it was a sharp turn from Neji's reserved and calculated efforts.
There was no way she could meet Lee's benchmarks; but where she would typically brush it off after reaching her limit, Tenten was rather frustrated. She would be lying on her stomach, arms like wet noodles, watching Lee do his umpteenth pushup while instructing Tenten to keep going. The whole experience gave Tenten feelings of guilt and envy.
It dawned on her how hard Lee had been working all this time to improve his skills, striving to become a splendid pure-taijutsu shinobi and defeat their genius teammate. She was beginning to regret having told Lee he could never beat Neji.
Stronger than we were yesterday! That was the dictum behind their team's training.
Stronger… Lee was definitely strong. Tenten knew he held back when they sparred, because if they were to have a true fight, his taijutsu would surely trounce her own. Their team was balanced that way; the guys engaged in the frontlines while she supported them with her ninja tools. As she learned with Temari however, she needed to fortify and establish a necessity for her close combat abilities.
In order to do so, a sizable amount of time was spent sparring. They always exchanged a flurry of kicks and punches, but Tenten was never able to hit Lee. She suspected he was maintaining a careful equilibrium in capability which would challenge, but not overwhelm her, while also skipping ahead when she got too close.
This method may have been fine for Lee to measure her progress, since if Tenten was improving he would need to exert more effort; but to Tenten a sign of improvement would mean inflicting bodily harm. A sense of pride prevented her from saying this to Lee, so she channeled her disgruntlement into her attacks, building them with fiercer movements.
The added fuel to this fire began when Lee casually spoke on an abrupt topic in the midst of sparring. "Did Sakura return to the hospital to see you run?" he asked as he blocked her.
"Yes – she did!" Tenten gasped while throwing a series of punches.
He slightly frowned in contemplation. "Perhaps I should have put aside training that day."
Tenten nearly fell over after executing a roundhouse kick. To hear Lee saying something so blasphemous just so he could see the girl he liked was inconceivable. "Are you serious??"
Her reaction was bewildering to Lee. He artlessly replied, "Why would I not be?"
In response, Tenten made a face and resumed her assault on Lee. Backed by a flame of irritation, she more than ever was intent on striking the boy. It seemed to be that whenever Sakura came into the picture, Lee was prone to drop any prior plans; just like in the Forest of Death when their squad was to regroup at the assigned meeting place, but Lee opted to get into a fight with some sound-nins. She was so consumed in her thoughts that Tenten wasn't prepared when Lee jumped up to avoid her attack. Her left punch stayed on its path and painfully struck the tree trunk left in Lee's wake.
She yelped and retracted her hand to cradle it with her right. Lee said something about focusing and Tenten bitterly suppressed her annoyance at both herself and Lee. She distracted herself by examining her hand, white scrapes and spots of red speckling her knuckles. Lee came close to her holding a lengthy roll of bandage.
"I'm not hurt that badly," she said.
"Yes, but if we continue training it would not be good if dirt got into those minor injuries."
She would have rebutted, but something told her that Lee would be insistent; so she held her hand out.
Lee started to expertly wrap the bandage around and between her fingers, then across her knuckles and hand. Tenten was the only weapons specialist in the village. Despite her regular use of sharp, pointed ninja tools, her hands were mysteriously kept in pristine condition. There was hardly ever so much as a scratch on them. It was a shame to see them marred.
"Lee, you don't have to go that far," Tenten said when he began to wind past her wrist.
"That may be, but it will be easier to keep the bandage in place. Plus, it will make you look like a fighter rather than someone who is injured."
Tenten was surprised that Lee had taken aesthetics into consideration; given his own choice of appearance.
When he was finished Tenten flexed her fingers, eyes going over Lee's handiwork.
He grinned and placed his hands on his hips. "With one arm bandaged like that you resemble Neji."
She looked at Lee, then back at her bandaged arm. It was true that Neji wore a bandage like this, but it was on his right arm instead of his left. She wondered where he was right now…
"Tenten, let us work on your strength and speed!" Lee was rummaging through a small satchel he had brought to the training grounds, which Tenten eyed with curiosity and dubiousness. He produced a number of weights set into bindings, one for each limb of the human body. Tenten was now simply dubious. If those weights were anything like the ones Lee wore… and they were.
The instant Lee strapped them to her limbs, gravity became her sworn enemy. It was a struggle just to stand upright with the incredible mass around her wrists pulling her down, and it felt as though her feet were nailed to the ground. "L-Lee, this is too much weight!"
"Nonsense, Tenten. The more you pack on the faster you will improve."
'That logic is flawed…'
A hearty chuckle cut through the air, announcing the arrival of their sensei. "Giving Tenten quite the workout, aren't you, Lee?"
Lee straightened like a soldier and faced him. "Yes! Guy-sensei!"
He chuckled again. "As expected from my favourite student."
"Guy-sensei!" Lee looked like he was about to have another one of his dramatic moments.
Tenten fumed from watching them. It was obvious, and expected that Guy would favour Lee over herself and Neji. Lee looked up to their sensei, and Guy was fond of Lee's tenacious spirit and ability. Still, Guy didn't have to make blatant remarks like that – in front of another one of his students no less. She looked away and focused on moving her body forward.
Lee heard her grunting and the shift of her feet. He turned back to her and whooped, assigning her the unreachable goal of ten laps around the village. At her snail's pace, Tenten couldn't even complete one by the time the sky began to darken. Lee assured her with more practice she would be able to, but Tenten didn't have the energy to care.
She returned home free of the weights, the muscles in her arms and legs sore from bearing them. She took a quick shower and changed into a clean set of clothes before digging up some leftovers from the refrigerator. While waiting for the food to heat on the stove, Tenten sat sprawled in her chair at the kitchen table, speculating whether or not she could expect every session with Lee to be like today.
'Probably…' she wearily thought. Training with Lee was different from training with Neji. Everything seemed to be on fast forward. She wondered if she would be able to keep up. Then she decided she had to. The whole reason she had agreed to work with Lee was so she could become a better shinobi.
Her hand brushed against neat piles of paper she had left on the table – the notes she had taken from the library books. They really should have been put away instead of left in the open where they wordlessly mocked her.