2 Chapter 2

"This is probably all review, but draw an explosive tag for me," Genma said, having given the very tired Tenten a few minutes to recover.

Tenten nodded, her breathing straightening out. She took the offered piece of paper and brush, and quickly drew a simple explosive tag.

"What makes it explosive."

Tenten pointed to the correct symbol.

"And keeps it from exploding at the slightest touch of chakra?"

Tenten pointed to another symbol. "Basic suppression, higher-level tags need higher level suppression though."

Genma nodded. "You know the symbols for a storage seal? Draw them. Separately."

Tenten wrote for a moment, handing him the paper when she was done.

"Good job," Genma said, smiling. "You even remembered the ones for stasis and food seals."

Tenten ducked her head slightly, smiling.

"Now, these ones here are time symbols—" he circled some of the symbols with a red pen he'd pulled from his hip pouch— "and these are the space ones. There's a third category to space/time seals, and that's dimensions. Those are the most dangerous to mess with, because they deal in other dimensions. The summoning jutsu makes heavy use of them, for example."

Tenten nodded, studying the red marks on the paper.

Genma pulled out another pen, this one green. "Minato-sama insisted we make space/time seals of our own before he taught us even the simplest layers of Hiraishin."

Tenten's eyes widened. "You-you'll teach me Hiraishin?"

Genma winked. "I've been wanting to figure out how to do it solo for a while, and Raido and Iwashi aren't interested. Always safer to do Fuuinjutsu with a partner or two. Minimizes crippling injury and death."

Tenten looked to be slightly in shock.

"Besides," Genma continued, "I think the Hiraishin covers most of your problems that deal with barriers and defenses."

Tenten nodded, still shell shocked. "That's awesome."

"Did you want to know what seal I made?" Genma asked.

Tenten nodded rapidly.

"It's a seal that stores poisons. More complicated than you think because a lot of poisons require moving air, fairly moist conditions, and darkness with dim light. I went through a lot of poisons testing that seal. It's helpful cause it means I can make poisons on the road and let them mature a bit."

"Cool," Tenten decided, grinning.

Genma grinned back. "Yeah. But first, chakra control exercises. Hiraishin requires so much chakra control, it took three of us to provide enough focus and chakra control to do it."

Tenten frowned. "I don't have enough chakra control for medical ninjutsu, nor am I a genjutsu type."

Genma nodded. "Perhaps not innately, but I'm not a genjutsu type, neither was I pegged for medical ninjutsu. Chakra control can be taught."

"With practice?" Tenten asked wryly.

"Yep," Genma agreed, sounding rather unenthusiastic about it, despite being the teacher. "I'm gonna have to do it too."

They sat there for a moment, Neji stumbling into the training ground and plopping down onto the ground near them.

"How about, when Neji recovers from his run, I'll watch you two spar, and then I can get a good approximation of your skill level, Tenten."

Tenten nodded, pulling out a scroll and starting to doodle on it.

The spar went about as expected, Tenten threw things at Neji, he deflected them with neat bursts of chakra from his hands. Genma watched silently, not even flinching when Gai and Lee ran in loudly half an hour after Neji had arrived.

Neji finally managed to bleed Tenten dry of her weapons, and got in close to disable her.

Tenten flopped back on the ground, mostly unable to feel her limbs. "I hate gentle fist."

"You say that a lot," Neji noted dryly, starting to pick up the weapons scattered around the field.

"Cause it's true," Tenten complained. "It freaking hurts, and is annoying for days afterwards. Get over here and unblock my tenketsu points, dang it."

Neji obligingly dropped the weapons he'd collected in a pile and unblocked her tenketsu. "Happy now?"

"Yes, thank you," Tenten said, laying there for a moment longer before getting up and starting to collect her weapons as well.

"Alright, you both did well, although Neji, I think you would benefit from sparring with Lee or your sensei a bit more. Only facing one person can stagnate you."

Neji looked like he was debating ignoring the advice, but ultimately nodded.

"Tenten, do you have any melee weapons?"

Tenten nodded. "A few, I can use them, but not extraordinarily well. I don't usually pull them out in spars. Against Neji they don't do anything."

"Try sparring against Lee every once and a while as well," Genma advised. "Melee weapons don't work too well if you've only practiced on posts."

Tenten hummed in agreement, finishing sealing up her weapons.

Lee, who had apparently overheard, and grinned exuberantly. "I accept both! I will endeavor to challenge both of you from now on!"

Tenten and Neji groaned in sync, plopping down on the ground.

At the end of training, Tenten elected to fling herself into the nearby river for a quick rinse before she bothered going anywhere. Neji looked close to doing the same but decided to pretend he wasn't her teammate and walked away.

Genma had to leave earlier, having a mission of his own to attend to while they did their D-ranks. Which was a series of sewer ones. Hence why Tenten tossed herself in a river before trying to go into town.

She needed groceries, so she headed for the market before going home. Basic groceries, then stuff for dinner.

Once home, she put them away, then went to shower and try and get the rest of the stink off. She'd wash this set of clothes later, so she sealed them away into a seal to remind herself, and to keep them from stinking up the apartment.

Halfway through the shower she heard the apartment door open, and as no traps were set off, it had to be Lee, who had taken to dropping by for dinner every so often. Which would have been annoying if he wasn't the one making said dinner each time.

Tenten finished up her shower, drying herself off and getting dressed in clothes she'd brought in. Not her usual mission wear, but a lighter t-shirt and leggings. Better for at home. And she only had so many pairs of the sturdy mission wear.

"Hey Lee," she said, coming into her main room, only to find Neji there, and the sounds coming from her kitchen noting that Lee was in there. "Oh, Neji, hello."

He nodded formally to her, which was an odd dichotomy with his somewhat lazy sprawl across her couch.

"Hello Tenten-chan!" Lee exclaimed, poking his head out of the kitchen.

"Need any help Lee?" She asked, somewhat unwilling to stay in a room alone with the standoffish Hyuuga. Lee was loud, but it was better than awkward silence.

"No thank you!" Lee decided, grinning. "I have it!"

Tenten nodded, then sat down on the other side of the couch from Neji. Which really wasn't all that far away, her couch wasn't very big.

Awkward silence reigned supreme until Lee finished in her kitchen, bringing out something that looked very delicious, but Tenten couldn't for the life of her remember the name of.

"Curry!" Lee announced cheerfully, setting the bowls on the table and plopping down between them.

Of course, it was curry. It usually was. It wasn't always quite recognizable as traditional curry though, with how Lee tended to cook. Nothing was ever the same twice. It made for interesting eating though.

"Thanks, Lee," Tenten said, smiling and picking up the bowl.

"Thank you," Neji said stiffly.

Lee beamed, eating his own food.

It was good, most of Lee's cooking was, and luckily, it seemed like Lee had learned his lesson about the spice. Namely that Tenten could not handle the amount he could, and he had to be careful when putting spicy things in his curry. She really hoped that he didn't forget and cause another incident, the first one had been bad enough.