Baa-chan - 4

Shortly after that Tenten was in her forge, hammering away her frustrations as she mended a broken blade for Gekko Hayate after he had stopped by a few hours earlier.

Her mind was all over the place as she worked on auto-pilot repairing the splintered sword.

It was a very cathartic process, pounding hot metal back into shape. She was upset that she had let herself become weak enough so that Neji had to move on to more challenging opponents.

'It's not really a bad thing…' Tenten admitted, rubbing the sweat out of her eyes with the back of her arm, 'It'd be stupid for me to go back there and ask him to train with me. It would be more like a sympathy-spar than anything. He'd go easy on me, I bet…'

The heat of the blazing hearth was licking at her back and she grimaced, turning the blade over and began to reshape it again, 'I must be crazy. It's not a big deal. It's useless to expect him to wait on me thinking that he's sentimental about our relationship.'

Suddenly relationship didn't feel like the right word. Even friendship didn't quite describe it.

'What the heck am I supposed to call it anyway? Association? Partnership? Everything is starting to sound so goddamn tacky!'

Tenten exchanged hammers as she began to work on the front edge of the blade, wanting to make sure it was the appropriate thickness. She worked through the rough edge with practiced hands and slowly began to realize that she wasn't giving herself enough credit.

'I am valuable in lots of respects,' She affirmed, readjusting the blade and beginning to hammer away at it again, 'I'm one of the few people of this village who's in this trade! Lots of ninja depend on me!'

Tenten had nearly forgotten that she had a life existing outside of training with Neji, and she wasn't about to lose touch with it altogether.

'And just because he's never reciprocated my feelings doesn't mean I'm disposable to him, right? I can live with that. He doesn't have to go out of his way for me because my heart is big enough for the both of us…I won't let him down.'

She finished laminating the blade shortly after that and set it in a basin of water to cool. Glad that she had finished early, Tenten wiped the sweat off of her skin with a towel and changed shirts, locking the forge behind her after she left.

Tenten recalled that when she got back from her next visit she'd have to fill Sabaku no Kankuro's order.

A few minutes later she had reached the memorial stone and was glad to see Kakashi was not loitering around it as he normally did.

Her eyes skimmed down the names listed on the stone of ninja killed in action. A set of names were placed side by side near the center of the stone with no surname for either.

Takaharu and Chinatsu.

They were listed with the rest of the ANBU who had been killed on past missions and Tenten sighed to herself, wondering where to start.

"I'm sorry that I didn't bring an offering for you guys today. I was working," Tenten apologized, as if they were standing right in front of her, "You don't mind, I know."

She searched for a subject to articulate to her parents, "Hm…well, you'll be glad to hear business picked up after the invasion. Oh! And three Black-Ops bought replacement swords from me last week they were so impressed with the quality!"

Silence answered her but she was still smiling at the memory, "They said they were just like your blades, Dad."

The name Takaharu seemed to flash on the stone and her eyes dulled a bit.

"I actually came here to talk to you about something else," She admitted, her voice lowering gloomily, "You remember the boy I spoke about last time?"

She continued as if the silence was speaking to her, "Neither of us were able to achieve chunin rank in the exam, but I know we've both gotten much stronger. Next year for sure!" Tenten frowned at the stone again, "I'd like to be with him, but it's as you said. I'm a rationalist. I always think of a reason not to say anything to him. I wish you guys weren't always right all the time."

The wind blew in the trees nearby and a flock of birds soared directly over Tenten as she kept speaking.

"Neji's got the romance of a log!" She laughed as an afterthought and then fell quiet, realizing she wasn't feeling as light-hearted about the matter as she made herself appear, "Could you maybe tell me…if you know…"

The stone shone in the sun as she hesitated.

"Is it hopeless?"

The silence remained and she ignored it, proceeding to ask them for their permission to pursue him, "I want to become stronger for him and show him that I'm not a waste of time! You can understand that, right?"

She could almost hear her mother telling her that she was far too devoted to being a kunoichi and had to loosen up a little. Tenten supplied an automatic response to the non-existent nagging, "Come on! The statistic still stands that for someone in my position there's over a 90 percent chance I'll die before sex or marriage, you know! So don't argue…I…I won't complain anymore."

They still tried to, it seemed.

She sighed, accepting the fact she was talking to a slab of polished rock.

"I have to get back to work now. It was nice talking to you," Tenten concluded, feeling her spirit lighten a bit, "Do me a favor and look after Neji while he trains today, because…I can't."

*

Naruto had time to train by himself as Jiraiya returned to the town to investigate and see if he could make Tsunade reconsider her rejection of the title of Godaime.

A small grove beside a river was conveniently located outside of the village, and Naruto decided it was a secluded enough area for him to train undisturbed.

He was resolute on the promise he made to master and to improve what Jiraiya called the Bunshin Daibakuha, or Great Clone Explosion. Once he had found a reasonable spot to train in he reflected on what Jiraiya had told him, 'So he said it was a tightly-packed reservoir of chakra that's got to be inside of the clones chakra coils. Hm. I guess I better figure out how much chakra one clone can take…'

Naruto calmed his thoughts and began to focus his chakra. He determined that it would be better to experiment with his clones from a distance should he be successful in his endeavor.

As instructed he made one clone to start with, forming the hand seal almost reflexively. He felt his chakra reserves drain the necessary chakra for the jutsu and then became aware of the sensation of excess chakra filtering into the technique. He had noted such an occurrence before, not at all on purpose, he recalled.

After first learning the shadow clone technique there had been times when he overshot the amount of chakra he really needed to use. Being he was currently so seasoned with chakra control, it was only second nature to him to use only the amount needed, and that earlier on he had only been wasting his energy.

What he then realized was that it wouldn't have been a waste of chakra at all had he known something could actually come of a clone created by way of surplus chakra.

Naruto donated a generous amount more to the jutsu and watched a shadow clone take shape near the river's edge…and violently combust a moment later, sending stones and rubble flying.

He ducked, shielding his head from the debris raining down, 'O-kay, that was way too much…but I sort of got it right. Maybe if I just cut back on the amount of chakra I use it won't explode.'

Naruto stood up again and brushed himself off, trying it again, and halved the amount of chakra he had used before. The clone it produced appeared stable enough and Naruto ordered it to transform, curious to see how jutsu and explosions were connected.

The clone, perhaps to anger him, used his infamous Sexy Jutsu against him and the blonde face-planted on the ground, 'WHAT? How did that not work? I didn't use too much chakra and there was definitely enough in that one to make something happen, but…it could still use a jutsu!'

He destroyed the impudent kage bunshin and then made note that he had not been concentrating as he had while creating the first clone, 'Yeah…Ero-sensei said the chakra has to be packed tightly in the coils so when it does try to do something it's like…it's like a trip wire for the explosion.'

It began to make more sense to him.

"Alright! This shit is complicated and hard to do but I am not giving up!" Naruto howled, unwilling to give in

Nearly an hour of experimenting with molding chakra and carefully adding excess chakra into an individual clone at last produced a positive result. After pounding the conditions into his head until he did it without much thought, he was able to create a clone that met the requirements and detonated properly.

He didn't let his success feed his ego just then.

Another hour of practice and he found he could command his clones to ignite silently, and even create two clones at a time that were capable of blowing up at different intervals.

His chakra reserves were running low as evening hastened, and Naruto collapsed to the ground to rest, running strategies through his head on how to incorporate his new ability into his fighting style.

The blonde boy also knew that just because he had been successful didn't mean he had mastered the technique. In a fight he knew he wouldn't have the time to stop and balance out excess chakra and mold it for a clone. It had to be an instantaneous skill that he could use without thinking about it.

He was still far from that point but he smiled as he stared up at the sunset, 'Hey, I've got all week! I'll keep at this until I can blow Ero-sensei's head off without trying!'