The Forest of Death - 2

Neji immediately took to the treetops, his dark hair flapping wildly behind him as he and his teammates ascended. They moved predatorily, ready to take a scroll from the first unwary team to cross their path.

As usual Lee was the most cordial at the moment, despite their objectives.

Team 13 had begun to take the net of safety that the Byakugan provided for granted, because there was never a moment on any mission in which Neji could not be fully trusted to scope out their surroundings.

The Hyuga prodigy took up the lead, sweeping his all-seeing eyes through the dense wood, searching for any signs of other ninja. Once again, he didn't seem apprehensive at all. He approached the goal of the exam as if it were his mission.

'He treats everything like a mission...' Tenten thought with her gaze glued to the back of his head.

Lee was on her right flank, moving slightly faster. His round, piercing eyes were focused on the bramble ahead. She smirked, knowing how much the exam meant to her teammates. It had never been one of the major 'milestones' in her shinobi life. She had known she would eventually advance when she was ready to advance.

'If I move up to Chunin rank, I'll be one step closer to becoming a legendary ninja like Tsunade-sama...' That was her basic reasoning, so she had fervently agreed to participate when Gai-sensei had questioned them about the exam months earlier.

Tenten was startled when Lee dropped out of her peripheral, and for a moment she believed that they had come under attack, 'But that's impossible! Neji would've-'

Her surprise turned into relieved exasperation as she saw that Lee had only lost his footing, and tripped over an oddly-angled branch. He fell for a number of feet, before catching hold of a lower branch and agilely swung himself upward, again level with Tenten in the canopy. He laughed at himself and she sighed, wondering what triggered his clumsiness, 'He better watch his step!'

They kept moving, increasing their speed to catch up with Neji, who hadn't slowed very much for them.

Neji.

Tenten's mind was a jumbled mess these days, but the one constant had always been Neji. It was difficult to say exactly how it had started, but for the past year of training with Gai-sensei she couldn't help but feel drawn to him.

It hadn't been as early as their days at the Academy; that much was for certain. Unlike other kunoichi from her class that year Tenten disliked gossip and raving about cute boys. She most often was seated at the back of the room next to Lee (coincidentally), displaying the new knives she had forged with the utmost pride, "Look! Look! This edge is nearly 36 microns! It can cut though human bone in one stroke!"

Her tomboyish habits did tend to frighten her teachers a little, but many of the boys in her class thought she was an engaging rarity among female ninja. 'Many' meaning, excluding Neji, who sat by himself. Sometimes he spared a moment to glance over at her new, pointy creations.

Once Tenten was placed on Team 13 she had known she would be the Hyuga prodigy's sparring partner. She had nearly insisted on it so that she wouldn't have to watch Lee be thrown down time and time again.

Training with Neji was difficult, frustrating and more often than not, left her exhausted and completely bent on improving herself. There were times she nearly forgot she had a life beyond training with him. Everything about him seemed so calculated and perfect that it was hard for her to believe that she could actually put up a decent fight…until she ran out of weapons.

In turn, it spawned a second goal for her, one even direr than her dream of rivaling Tsunade. Tenten wanted to be as strong as Hyuga Neji. It was indeed a very ambitious goal.

Her admiration for his skills and ability, with time, seemed to warp and reshape itself into a flickering, fragile affection as she pieced together his fragmented family history and life. Not only did she want to be like him, but she wanted to help change his life and get him back in control of his destiny.

There were moments she subconsciously admitted that she would have more luck striving to be like Tsunade. But she always argued that Tsunade was not on her team, not relying on her and most certainly not struggling with her clan life.

So it happened automatically, with her helpless to prevent it. Tenten had unwittingly devoted herself to the aims of the young Hyuga prodigy.

Lee, upon private discussion of the subject, (and even declaring himself as her best and most trustworthy friend) had told her how sad it was that such a smart, caring person like herself would sacrifice her future for someone as detached as Neji.

She had yelled at him after that but secretly knew he was right.

Things were just far beyond her emotional control right now.

Lately, however, her constantly evolving psyche had suffered through something nearly as painful as the truth of her problem. Team 13's mission to retrieve the scroll of the 'Infallible Fire Bow', or so was its title according to Gai-sensei, had opened her eyes to many things.

Her first kill had been quite gory, much to her distaste. She knew it was an unavoidable event with her being a weapons specialist. She had accepted it with silent yet horrified grace, then acknowledging what her beloved weapons were truly for.

Even worse was that upon rejoining Gai-sensei and returning to Konoha (Neji with only a minor concussion), was that Gai-sensei had discovered the body of the slain Iwa nin, which Tenten had been too frantic at the time to dispose of. He had spoken to her about it in a surprisingly conciliatory manner, not holding her actions against her. He said he would not tell either Neji or Lee about it, and left the subject's optional discussion with her teammates up to her.

Moreover, she had even impressed the Hokage once Gai-sensei had turned in their mission report, and as conciliation for her trouble she had been given custody of the Infallible Hiyumi. Being that she had handled it with such expertise, it would 'be a shame to stow away such a magnificent weapon into the archives' when she had the full ability to wield it.

She accepted it with great humility from the Hokage that day, bade her teammates goodnight, went directly home and cried herself to sleep, wondering why she was being rewarded for killing.

Her parents had been viciously killed on one of their ANBU Black-Ops missions before she had graduated from the Academy. It seemed to her that because she was engaging in such an ugly deed she was becoming the very thing she sought to destroy.

Then again, being a shinobi was an art of the utmost ambiguity.

Tenten wouldn't call herself a hypocrite, but she did feel the guilt whenever she gazed at the scroll of her new yumi, 'All ninja will have to kill at one point in their careers...I just got an early start.'

Tenten had decided to not tell her teammates about her slaughter of the Rock chunin.

Most especially not Neji.

Neji and Lee had stopped moving. Her thoughts scattered and she halted abruptly, just in time to perch next to the Hyuga, who was staring down at the forest floor with the Byakugan in full intensity.

Below there was nothing visible, to her at least. Nothing always meant something.

'Genjutsu.' Tenten suspected, hence Neji's fierce examination of the trap.

Before he leapt down, he gave a silent motion for Lee and Tenten to wait, and Neji plummeted down. They watched as he made contact with the muddy earth, raced to the center of a clearing and with a stab of Jyukken he unearthed a hidden Rain ninja. The shinobi's pained cry was cut short when another slap of Jyukken connected with his abdomen, immediately rousing the attention of his teammates who had hidden themselves on the opposite side of the clearing.

With their trap so unexpectedly sprung, their attack was slow and confused as they abandoned their hiding place to ambush Neji, only to be ambushed themselves.

"Take this! Leaf Hurricane!" Lee was a vibrant green flash as he knocked the two Rain nin from the air with a round of relentless kicks. Their heads hit the ground first when they fell, and Tenten raised a fine eyebrow to see that it had taken them less than a half hour to get their second scroll.

She jumped down next to Lee and watched smugly as Neji took the defeated Team's Heaven scroll. He replaced it in his hip pouch.

Lee was jubilant, "Yes! Our strategy and teamwork succeeds once again!" He raised a hand to high-five Neji and the prodigy only stared at his hand, as if he didn't comprehend.

Neji's stare turned to Tenten and she gave him a weak smile, trying to show her approval of his quick thinking. He blinked slowly, something she found inanely adorable and un-Neji-like. Tenten quickly put the pattering feeling in her chest in line.

He seemed satisfied with her reaction and completely misinterpreted Lee's.

"We should keep moving," Neji decided, his voice raised over Lee's chatter, "We can gain some ground before nightfall."

Lee nodded in excited agreement. Tenten's nod was slower and more thoughtful.

Somehow she could tell their luck far exceeded that of some other teams presently.