Tenten sped through the woods, a heavy bagful of scrolls on her back. After living in Konoha for years as a sleeper agent, she had finally blown her cover, and now her only goal was to get over the Fire country border and disappear into her homelands, the neighbouring Rice country, before she was caught.

Her departure from the village had been sudden and unplanned. By sheer chance, she happened to stumble upon a stack of ANBU Root documents that she simply could not leave behind. After all, they had turned out to contain the detailed plans of sabotage and bribery to overthrow the current ruler of Rice country. An extensive list of Konoha spies posted within the country was also included. ANBU Root was going to plunge her home into chaos in the near future; there was no way she could stand by and let that happen.

During her years in Konoha, Tenten had made friends and advanced through the ranks to become a chuunin. She had been assigned in the team of a genius ninja by the name of Hyuuga Neji, and a somewhat less brilliant, but quite determined taijutsu specialist called Rock Lee.

Looking back, she somewhat suspected that Neji might have been assigned to keep an eye on her, just in case. Her cover had been close to watertight, but it did not hide her being of a foreign descent. Tenten assumed it would be standard procedure to be slightly suspicious of foreign shinobi in the village, even though she had grown up there in the care of loyal civillian co-conspirators.

Wearing a innocent, cheerful face had become second nature for Tenten, and she was confident that even if Neji was paying special attention to her, he would not have noticed a thing. They had not gotten very close, so most personal topics were extremely easy to avoid. In fact, she had been emboldened enough by Neji's desire to keep a distance between himself and everyone else to even flirt with him. The electricity between them was undeniable, but he had never given in to her probing innuendos.

All that had just become meaningless, in any case. She now was a fugitive, and pursuers would follow soon. She readjusted the shoulder strap on her precious cargo, and focused on getting a move on.

Despite making good speed, she had not gotten very far from the village by the time she felt someone slowly closing in on her. When she realized who it was, she grit her teeth.

Hatake Kakashi. The laid-back, chronically tardy jounin in charge of Team 7 was gaining on her. How someone with his speed was always late from his engagements, she had no idea.

But having him on her tail at this point was bad. He would catch up to her hours before she made it to safety. She swiftly prepared a strategy for facing him, and adjusted the direction of her mad dash through the trees to pass through a slightly more open area.

Once she had reached a suitable position, Tenten hastily prepared her equipment for battle and hid the bag of documents so that she could grab it on her way forward. Mere seconds after, she felt that her masked opponent had arrived within range.

Tenten's own techniques involved a combination of long-range and close-range attacks. Besides his speed, she recalled that Kakashi was equipped with a truly nasty close-range attack capable of passing through even hardened metal. In other words, close-range combat was right out. No matter; she was quite capable of raining sharp death upon the gray-haired jounin between the sparse trees.

"Yo." Kakashi called out.

"Kakashi-sensei." Tenten's reply was brief, but courteous; they both knew what this was about, but there was no particular reason to be coarse about it.

"No chance you'd come along quietly, I guess?" Tenten smirked inwardly at the faintly hopeful tone of Kakashi's voice. The lazy...

"I'm afraid not, Kakashi-sensei." She pulled out a selection of shuriken and lobbed them his way, more to signal that she did not have time to chatter than to expect a hit. Kakashi was not serious yet either, she could tell from his stance and the fact that his other eye remained covered by his hitai-ate. It might be that she could catch him by surprise by a furious attack and then retreat in the confusion.

Thinking fondly of this possibility, she absent-mindedly dug out a few kunai, using the movement to hide her pulling on the invisible strings bound to the shuriken to turn them back towards her opponent.

To her surprise, they caught him square in the back and neck, drawing a splattering of blood and a gasp from the man.

A very surprised-looking Kakashi disappeared in a puff of smoke, to be replaced by a log via a quick kawarimi technique.

Tenten immediately tensed, extending her senses. Kakashi had disappeared; there was no knowing what direction his counterattack would come from.

She did not have to wait long for it. Kakashi leapt at her from the branches of a nearby tree, a kunai in hand. She parried it with her own kunai, and swiftly retreated from him. Kakashi was barely tall enough to be towering over her; it was not any ominous aura of his that intimidated the younger kunoichi, but she knew that at close range, she could not reliably counter his attacks.

When she turned to face Kakashi again, she felt something that made her blood turn cold. Another shinobi was quickly closing in on them. It was none other than her team-mate, Neji.

Tenten suppressed a frown. She could hope to incapacitate the lone jounin for long enough to flee from him, but against him and her team-mate she was more than just out-numbered. Like Kakashi, Neji was at his most dangerous at close range, but his Kaiten technique made him all but impervious to her long-range attacks as well. In their practice rounds, she could count with one hand's fingers the times she had landed a single blow on him. And even those few had been due to various distractions, such as a screaming Lee having been hurtled at him moments earlier by their enthusiastic team leader, Maito Gai.

She knew she could outrun Neji eventually. The few shinobi present in the village that would be able to catch her on her sprint included Kakashi, one boisterous boy from Team 7 with an incredibly powerful demon fox sealed within him, and her other team member, Lee - should he be run without the ridiculously heavy leg weights that he constantly wore. It was for the sake of exercise and a strange concept of honour, apparently.

Tenten had no particular use for glorified methods at the moment; she needed to get out fast, and was even prepared to go for solutions that might compromise her style. She pulled out two scrolls of weapon summoning, made the seals and ran up a tree to launch herself high in the air. From the peak of her trajectory, she released the twin scrolls. Within seconds, the air was gleaming with a lethal concentration of sharp, jagged blades.

As she was falling, Tenten flashed through the seals of a bunshin technique, leaving a clone of herself behind to guide the flow of metal in the air. Once on the ground, she dashed off again, barely even slowing down to grab her concealed bag along.

The distraction had proven successful, and for a while she felt she was putting a respectable gap between herself and her pursuers. And a gap she would need, as Neji's range of swiftly detecting which way she had gone was broader than Kakashi's. Of course, failing that they could look for her with the help of the latter's tracker ninken, but she was hoping that summoning the dogs and catching her scent would be a slower option.

As the surge of adrenaline from her brief battle was wearing off, despair crept up and sank its bony claws in Tenten's chest. Her home was not one of the great shinobi nations; why would Konoha turn against it, and even go through such an elaborate plot to put it to ruin? As the initial cold dread was starting to dissipate, she found herself feeling angry and appalled at the same time. And how many of the people she had called her friends in the village were in on the plan, in quiet or vocal approval of it?

Would Neji have approved something like that? She had to admit that she had no idea; despite having spent so much time physically near Neji, she never was sufficiently close to him to figure out what was really going on in his head. The pale-eyed young man was a mystery to most people, if not even himself. His subservient position as a branch member of the powerful Hyuuga clan, known for its excellent skills of observation, had schooled him well in hiding his emotions. Letting his superiors catch sight of his anger would have been a dreadfully bad survival tactic.

Sooner than she had wished, she again sensed Kakashi gaining on her. As expected, Neji has fallen behind, not being able to keep up with the older jounin's extraordinary speed. She mapped out the area again in her mind and diverted her course in preparation for another battle.

This time, she managed to reach a sizeable clearing among the trees just when she could feel Kakashi's chakra signature a stone's throw away. Once again, she set the bag down, hastily concealed by some bushes, and checked her equipment. A few quick traps for good measure, maybe?

Tenten watched Kakashi reach the edge of the clearing, and pause there. He sidestepped a bit to avoid a warm welcome she had set up, involving a handful of exploding tags she had scattered around the perimeter. When he stepped away from the shade of the trees, Kakashi's posture had changed from before; he meant business, now. His other eye was uncovered, the blood red colour of the permanently activated Sharingan clearly visible.

When she caught sight of the Sharingan, Tenten could not help but pause and wonder at the rare bloodline ability embodied in the famous copy-nin's eye. It was said that the Sharingan allowed, among other things, its wielder to learn any technique they observed even once, and that Kakashi had already learned innumerable techniques that way. The ability also made it easy to follow and even predict the movements of one's opponents.

The red-and-black colour of the activated Sharingan was in stark contrast to the hereditary eye power of the Hyuuga clan. Neji's eyes, like those of most of his relatives, were a disturbingly pale white. Before she managed to get too distracted by comparisons of the truly fascinating eye colourings of her two pursuers, Tenten tore her own, quite regular and brown-eyed, gaze away from the mesmerizingly beautiful mismatched eyes of her present enemy.

Who knows what could have happened in a different life, at a different time. But right now, Tenten knew she had to focus if she wished to keep on living at least her current life.

She would have to release another massive weapon attack. She grimly released her large tool summoning scroll from its straps. With a few seals, she threw her scroll in the air, releasing a storm of weapons moving at extremely high speed, directed at her enemy in an unavoidable pattern. To extend the range of damage, the weapons carried tags to produce an explosion upon impact with the ground or their target. She hardly ever missed her target, but it never hurt to be sure.

Once again, she did not have any reason to stay behind and watch the carnage. Despite the immense effectiveness of the attack, she always considered the possibility that the special ops jounin would survive it and still be capable of fighting. Given that and the probability of further pursuers gaining on her should she tally, she was determined to get away from the site as quickly as possible. Grabbing her bag of Root scrolls once again, she left the clearing and ran, making a beeline for the border that would release her from this amok run.

Tenten did not feel Kakashi following her, which was a relief. She allowed herself a brief moment to regret that she would have to fight the people she had grown to like, and even admire. She had occasionally envied Team 7 - as well as some other teams - for their jounin leader, finding the leotard-clad, stubborn and extremely boisterous Gai-sensei in charge of her own team a difficult target for admiration. There was no denying his abilities, which actually had made him an enthusiastic rival of Kakashi, but his personality was sometimes quite tiring. There did not seem to be a shred of mystery about Maito Gai, unlike almost every other shinobi in the village.

In stark contrast, Hatake Kakashi, who both masked his face in dark cloth and concealed his thoughts under a cover of relaxed indifference, never failed to intrigue Tenten's inquisitive mind.

She caught herself getting distracted again. This would not do; she had to guard her thoughts more carefully or she would miss something. She focused on what her senses were telling her; apparently there still were no pursuers trailing her. She actually had a good chance of pulling this off.

After about half an hour of running, she had a feeling something was not right. True, there still was no sign of enemies, but the forest felt somehow... off. She had not been to this area for quite a while, but she distinctly recalled that she should have passed some bigger landmarks by now.

Then she spotted something that made her stomach knot and cold sweat broke in her palms.

She had seen these trees before. Several times.

She had seen these particular trees several times within the last fifteen minutes.

She was somehow running in a circle. But it was impossible; she had an excellent sense of direction, and had not been straying from her aim for the border.

Her entire body tensed as she shakily turned to look behind her.

A short way away, she could still see the clearing she had left half an hour ago, the clearing where she had left Kakashi to fend off her technique honed for utter obliteration.

She dashed into the clearing, and received an instant confirmation for her fears. Kakashi was still standing at the edge of the clearing, where he had settled before her attack. There was no sign of her summoned weapons, or craters left by explosions.

She was in a genjutsu; Kakashi must have caught her in one when she mistakenly looked at his bared Sharingan eye.

She cursed to herself as she concentrated to scramble the chakra flowing through her brain to release herself from the jutsu. She was badly out of practice; if there was a single class of techniques that team Gai hardly ever practised, it was genjutsu. Neji simply never seemed to bother; Lee was a genius of hand-to-hand combat and hopeless at pretty much everything else. And as far as she could tell, the only person Gai-sensei could mesmerize was Lee, who worshipped the ground their eccentric jounin leader walked upon.

"Kai!" As far as she recalled, she had done everything right, but nothing had changed. Kakashi was still looking at her impassively at the edge of the clearing. She was still inside the world he created.

The only way she could break free would be to distract the man who had imprisoned her. If a destructive attack had not done it, maybe she should try an opposite approach.

With newfound determination, she strode to the imaginary embodiment of Kakashi in the illusion she was trapped in. He just stood there; his eyes moved to constantly watch her, but he did not react to her proximity in any way.

Here goes nothing.

She took a hold of Kakashi's mask, pulled it down, and kissed him full on the mouth.

It certainly caught the illusory Kakashi by surprise. Smirking, Tenten deepened the kiss. It did not hurt that she had spent quite a while wondering what it would be like to kiss the man. Even if this version was really quite imaginary. She also knew that the real Kakashi was out there, in some form, seeing and experiencing this first-hand in his mind's eye. Or something.

She grabbed hold of the back of his vest and pressed her chest flush against him, quite aware of the further distraction that would provide. After an initial tensing, he relaxed and actually reciprocated the kiss, embracing her with a ferocity that momentarily broke the rhythm of her continuous attempts to rearrange the chakra flow in her head to break free of the illusion.

It did not seem to be enough. Oh well, she gathered, there was little more she could do now - and there were worse ways to go.

The kiss and the embrace went on; by now she just concentrated on enjoying the warmth radiating from him, fully expecting the scene to fall apart at any moment to release her into a far bleaker reality.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a baffled-looking Neji cautiously approach. She took a moment to marvel at the imagination of her captor to include such a vivid image of her flabbergasted team member walking in on their passionate smooching. She quite suspected Kakashi was getting a kick out of the idea; why else bother to think up such a detail?

The illusory Neji closed the distance between them and reached to touch the back of her neck with a glowing palm. Suddenly, everything went dark.

Tenten woke up in a bleak holding cell. She felt strangely groggy. Whether it was due to some precaution against inmates built into the cell or from Neji knocking her out with the Gentle Fist technique, she could not tell. The room was sparsely furnished, dimly lit, windowless except for a small, barred peep-hole on the door, and altogether not a pleasant place to be in.

The dismal atmosphere was threatening to rub on her. She had failed her sole mission in life, which would have been quite a lump to digest even in more cheery circumstances.

On the other hand, she had never been one to mull over things in the past. What was done, was done, and now she needed to think what to do next. She tried to look at the situation from a more distant perspective, now that she could not immediately affect it in any obvious way. From the bird's-eye view, she found herself wondering if this outcome hadn't been for the best of the village, after all. It felt like such a lousy rationalization, but she was willing to indulge in comforting thoughts for the moment.

Rice country was tiny. While she had no idea why Konoha would be interested in investing so much to covertly bring the country down, she had to admit that it felt a lot better than the option of an army of shinobi marching into the almost completely civilian country, butchering and pillaging as it went. War was pure nightmare, particularly for the civilians who could not do much else to change their fate than try to run or hide. Her foster parents, both non-combatants, had perished in the devastating attack of Orochimaru and the Sound ninjas some years ago. Even though her relationship with them had been more courteous than warm, she did not wish such an experience upon anyone.

If the option was to go down peacefully, in a bloodless coup even, she was not sure if she should mourn her inability to have stopped it from happening.

This line of thought did not reduce her anxiety over Konoha's motives or Rice country's future under either direct or indirect Fire country rule, but it made her feel somewhat better about her own failure.

Her musings were interrupted by the sound of footsteps on the hallway. She could not recognize the one walking in front; she concluded it must be a guard of the holding area, as they mostly kept to themselves. When she turned her attention to the chakra of the second person, on the other hand, her stomach got all tingly.

Maybe Hatake Kakashi, one of Konoha's elite trackers, had come to deliver another prisoner? The unexpected opportunity had her hesitate for a few precious seconds, before she hastily scrambled to the door to call out to him.

"Kakashi-s...-san!" As an afterthought, she hastily threw in a honorific. Using the usual "Kakashi-sensei" sounded just a little bit inappropriate, after she had all but sexually assaulted him. Yet she did not want to make the guard accompanying him unnecessarily suspicious about her informality either.

She heard the footsteps pause, then resume, as the two men located the direction of her voice and walked up to her cell door. Kakashi shifted to peek in through the bars in a fluid movement, catching her face a mere breath away from his before she had time to back away. She quickly thought of cold showers and other un-heated things in an attempt to stop herself from blushing pink.

"Oh, you're awake already? How's your head?" Also backing to a more conversational distance, Kakashi flashed her a cheerful grin. Due to the mask covering his face, the expression was mostly conveyed by his uncovered eye, which was crinkled in amusement.

Tenten strongly suspected that the lackadaisical attitude he projected had to be a product of years of training, but it melted her heart nevertheless. He was consciously putting her at ease, despite her being a despicable traitor and all. Being in the receiving end of even such small kindnesses in her situation made her throat constrict. She barely managed to loudly whisper, "Uh, could I ask you something?"

Kakashi, catching her intention, smoothly turned to the guard to tell him he'd be right after. Once the other shinobi was out of earshot, he turned back to her.

She summoned up her courage to produce the briefest fragment of the question churning in her head: "Er. About that genjutsu...?"

Kakashi crinkled his visible eye at her, and innocently queried: "Yes?"

How the same smile could be a lifesaver at one moment and fully infuriating behaviour moments later, she could hardly understand. It made her envious of the capability, however. And it was not going to stop her from pushing for the answer. "Was I actually still out of it by the time... Neji showed up?" As euphemisms for their steamy smooching scene went, a memory of Neji's mortified look was luckily among the least blush-inducing.

Kakashi feigned to consider the matter carefully. "Would it be easiest for you if you were?" His look was a flawless imitation of innocent concern.

Tenten leaned her forehead at the cool bars of the door, letting out a sigh of exasperation. "Oh dear."

Kakashi winked at her. "Don't worry, I can tell Neji-kun to play along either way. It's completely up to you!"

She could not help but giggle at his incorrigibility. "Oh, just leave me to meditate on my embarrassment in peace then, you fiend."

"Such coldness!" Kakashi dramatically lifted a hand to his heart, as if mortally wounded. Then he touched the side of his nose and glanced at her conspiratorially. "Surely it must be the headache talking. I should ask Neji to not be so rough in the future!"

She rolled her eyes at him, but then sobered up a bit. "I'm sorry, though. About the rest," she added, hopefully not too hastily.

Kakashi waved her off. "You'll have a chance to say your piece soon enough." He paused and locked her in his one-eyed gaze, suddenly serious. "We're all shinobi here. It's nothing personal."

She blinked when his posture shifted slightly to indicate the moment of bafflingly sensible behaviour had passed. Only a long-time ANBU member could shrug off the conflict between personal ties and orders that lightly, she surmised. His membership in the black ops was of course all speculation on her part, all operatives working fully masked and under code names, but then it would be madness to not hire a shinobi as talented as Hatake Kakashi for such an organization. "Thanks," she exhaled, then pulled away from the door.

She saw Kakashi raise his hand to wave her bye, and listened to his footsteps grow more distant. She was suddenly saddened again. If Kakashi was indeed in ANBU, was he in on the planned destruction of her home village as well? Was that why he wouldn't take her betrayal personally, in return to his own? Because he knew Konoha was already betraying her home?

She caught herself. Did he know it was her home, though? Then, maybe he had concluded it to be the most likely reason for her to run with the scrolls. But did that mean he had checked what the scrolls were all about before returning them, or was he in on what she had taken even without that?

There simply were too many unanswered questions, and her head was starting to throb again. She opted to rest her eyes for just a moment instead, and fell asleep out of sheer mental exhaustion within moments.

Once her deep sleep had taken the edge out of her exhaustion, Tenten's dreams turned... distracting. They featured Kakashi, sometimes Neji as well, in situations sufficiently enthralling to make even a world-wise kunoichi's cheeks redden upon remembering them. When she woke up, disoriented and covered in a fine sheen of sweat, Tenten wished very, very empathetically that she had not been talking in her sleep.

She got up and did what she could to bring her somewhat dishevelled appearance under control. She suspected that since she had already been seen awake, she would indeed be interrogated soon.

While reorganizing her dark hair into twin buns, Tenten meditated on whether she should just divulge all her information or try to hold something back. It wasn't like she knew a whole lot that would have much weight either way; it was one of the upsides of being a sleeper agent with no contact to Rice country for years.

Some time after a guard had dropped off some bland but digestible food for her, her expectations were indeed fulfilled. Neji showed up with a guard to take her to be interrogated, in a room down the long hallway of holding cells. She could not catch any sign of the earlier shock on his face to confirm her suspicions about Kakashi's genjutsu, but then again he had had plenty of time to get over it by now. Neji's control over any post-traumatic twitching would of course be superb, along with every other aspect of his self-discipline.

Tenten, on the other hand, could not muster up enough of the same to ask him about it directly. In any case, it was theoretically possible that he could actually decide to conspire with Kakashi on the topic, as the latter had earlier proclaimed.

One half-lost in her musings and the other being his typical, stoic self, the two former team members walked down the hallway in silence.

In the interrogation room, Morino Ibiki awaited. His appearance demanded respect, if even a little bit of fear. With scars criss-crossing over his face, the torture expert of Konoha looked nothing if not experienced in his chosen line of work. He was seated behind a large table, and motioned for Tenten to take a seat across him.

As Tenten followed his instructions, she spotted Kakashi standing in the corner of the room, pretending to be deeply engrossed in an Icha Icha book. Despite this, he cast her a quick acknowledging glance when she looked at him, before returning to his deep literary endeavours. Sitting down at the side of the table, Neji seemed likewise prepared for passive observation; judging by his equipment, he would be taking notes of what happened.

So, Ibiki would lead the interrogation; this was not entirely surprising, but the ominous aura constantly surrounding the man did nothing to reduce Tenten's nervousness. She focused on collecting her resolve and clenched her hands into fists under the table, to stop them from shaking.

"So. Do you know why you are here?" Ibiki's tone was, for the time being, rather conversational. Tenten did not take it as any kind of reliable indication of how the rest of the interrogation would go, but appreciated the calm start for all it was worth. She nodded.

"Sir. I assume I am here for breaking into the ANBU Root archive, appropriating a bagful of classified scrolls detailing a large-scale mission in Rice country, disobeying a superior and attacking two Konoha jounin as they came after me."

Ibiki returned her nod. Neji was scribbling something down, no emotion evident on his face.

"And what prompted this kind of behaviour?"

Tenten, all but determined by now that she should just come clean, but afraid of what she did not yet know of the classified operation, hesitated. She glanced at Neji and Kakashi, in an attempt to remind herself of the time when she trusted Konoha to be fair and wanting most of all to retain peace. She also considered that the extent of her own mission must have been quite apparent already, given her earlier actions.

"Sir. I've been planted in Konoha as a Rice country sleeper agent." There, she got the worst part out, openly admitting to holding another country's allegiance. When Ibiki did not as much as raise is eyebrows at this, she was emboldened to continue. "I've been like this since I was a child, and I was raised to the task by my late foster parents. My recent actions have been the first time that I came across information so critical that it was necessary to break my cover in an attempt to deliver it back to Rice." Tenten squeezed her fingernails against her palms, the memory of her shock and dismay upon finding the documents jolting through her.

She caught Ibiki's gaze and held it. "I always assumed that peace would go on forever between the two countries, and I was almost certain the only reason I had been sent here was that there was no way to train me as a shinobi and weapon master at home." Her clan had gone extinct, but for her. "I still cannot understand why Konoha would invest to much into covertly taking over Rice. Surely the small country cannot pose a threat of any kind to Fire country!"

Her look had turned pleading, but Ibiki remained impassive. "We are not here to discuss Konoha operations." After a short pause, giving it time to sink in, he continued: "Do you maintain that this was the first time you acted against Konoha or Fire country?"

Tenten was briefly taken aback by the question, then vigorously nodded. "Yes, sir. Up until now, I have been nothing but loyal to Konoha - as far as that can be said of one assigned as a foreign covert agent."

Ibiki tapped his fingers together, as if giving this careful consideration. "If you were to learn that Konoha was about to mobilize against Rice country in order to keep the peace, what would you do?"

"Sir?" Tenten asked, puzzled.

"Humour me."

She considered this. "Although I find the concept hard to imagine, if I were convinced that Konoha was trying to prevent a war, I would support Fire country in any way I could."

"Even if it meant betraying your home country?" Ibiki's gaze pierced through her.

"I feel that unleashing a war, particularly one that could be avoided, upon the civilian population would be the ultimate betrayal of my country, sir."

She thought she heard Kakashi mumble something about the "Will of Fire" in the background, but when she glanced at him sharply, he showed no sign of having ever moved his focus from his most enthralling book.

Ibiki reeled in her wandering attention. "Now, if Konoha were to plan a bloodless coup in Rice country, do you not think that interfering upon it would most likely lead to war?"

Tenten's cheeks burned. Had Ibiki been reading her thoughts? "It occurred to me afterwards, sir. But at the time, I did not stop and think; I knew I had to make a choice there and then, and it escalated quite fast. To be honest, the shock of a large country mobilizing against a small one, without any provocation that I knew of, made me doubt everything I knew about Konoha."

"But not what you knew of Rice country." Ibiki was relentless, despite maintaining a conversational tone.

"All I know of Rice country, really, is that it hardly seems a threat from any point of view," Tenten conceded.

"You have not been there for the last decade, however."

"True. But I've taken the bold assumption that if Rice turned from a civilian, neutral country to a military power, I would have heard something about it by now. Things like that do not happen overnight. In any case, Konoha has more power to treat international matters through diplomatic means rather than resorting to dirty tactics or a full-blown military operation."

The empathetic declaration seemed to amuse her interrogator. Tenten cringed inwardly; had she spoken out of line?

"Very well, one final question for the day: If Konoha were to ally with Rice country to wage war on a third civilian country for reasons you did not know, what would you do?"

Tenten buried her face in her hands. This was beginning to feel like an overall judgement of her values and beliefs rather than an interrogation. "Agonize over it for days to start with, I guess. As a shinobi I'm supposed to be a tool for my home country, but even then I am a human first." She sighed. "I'm not sure if I would have the courage to become a missing-nin to protect a small country against a huge army. I'm not particularly suicidal. But assuming that I couldn't change the situation from within Konoha, and was eventually sent out to kill civilians myself, I wouldn't be able to follow my orders in any case. I... would probably betray both countries, sir."

Ibiki nodded and straightened up. "I see. You are dismissed." He turned to the pale-eyed Hyuuga secretary, who had just finished his notes. "Neji, would you escort her back to her cell?"

Tenten followed Neji out of the room, baffled. This had not been at all the kind of interrogation she had assumed it would be. Once she got back into the bleak cell, she lay down on the bed and simply boggled at the situation. She spent a good while turning all that had been said in her head before she finally fell asleep.

That night, Tenten dreamed of Orochimaru's attack on Konoha during the chuunin exams, and how she had felt powerless to help the innocent bystanders from getting hurt in the onslaught. It was not particularly uplifting.

She had woken up and was staring at the ceiling in silent contemplation, when Neji showed up and called out to her. It was early in the morning. She had not even been given any breakfast yet, but she shuffled out of the bed and followed him out without comment. After all, if Morino Ibiki was going to finally get serious, it might be just as well that she had nothing in her stomach.

The moments between her cell and the interrogation room passed in silence, once again. She was honing a theory she had come up with during the long hours of the night, juggling it around in her mind to see if she could spot any obvious holes.

Once she had sat down in a setting exactly like yesterday's, Ibiki once again asked her, "Do you know why you are here?"

It was all the confirmation she needed. She leaned forward, and tried to pierce through the shroud that concealed his true intentions with her gaze. "Sir, if you allow me, I have a theory."

Ibiki raised his eyebrows slightly. "Go ahead."

"There is no infiltration of Rice country. The scrolls I 'found' were actually planted in the archive for me to discover, probably to see what I would do. Important parts of them were simply, even casually decipherable without tools and time, which would be amazingly sloppy of Root. Yesterday's questioning was nothing like an interrogation, it felt more like an elaborate academy test.

"I've suspected for a while now that I was set up in the same team with Neji-kun in order for him to keep an eye on me, and the main reason to use a jounin like him as a secretary for a case like mine would probably be to have him cross-check my words against what he has learned of me through prolonged observation."

She had to pause to inhale, but did not dare to tally longer, lest her forward momentum be lost. "Why Kakashi-sensei would be involved boggled me for a while, but I'd assume he is the ANBU contact to make this work out. While Neji-kun seems like definite ANBU material, he has not been jounin for long and is therefore not likely to have the appropriate connections to set up something like this. Hatake Kakashi, on the other hand, has probably been in ANBU for years already. Not to mention that he is one of the few shinobi present who I could not outrun, making him perfect for the job of reeling me in once I did take the bait."

She did not have the gall to hold Ibiki's gaze longer, and broke eye contact. "What I have not figured out is why go through all this just to confirm that I'm a spy, and why now, and not when I was a genin if the suspicion were there already."

When she did dare a fresh glance in Ibiki's direction, she saw he was smiling, why, like an academy teacher about to tell you that you passed your exam.

"Your theory is quite laudable. There is one piece of information that you do not have access to, which explains your confusion."

Tenten blinked. She was right? Of course she was expecting to be right, she would not have spilled it out if she wasn't, but was it really that simple to crack?

"You see," Ibiki continued, "Rice country has indeed been under some pressure lately, but from Water, not us. Rice got thoroughly tired of getting stomped on and started secret negotiations with Fire to join us, as an autonomic area. We'd benefit from trading their goods and the produce of their extremely fertile lands, and in exchange they could trust to be effectively protected by a larger country with a hidden village. The Water daimyo would not cross us to get at Rice.

"As a sign of goodwill, the leaders of Rice recently gave our representatives access to their classified archives, including the handful of agents they have placed outside the country borders."

Tenten tensed slightly at this, but Ibiki waved her worries off dismissively.

"You are right, we suspected you for a long time already, but were content to keep an eye on you, and to stop you from climbing in ranks to get too dangerous. After we had confirmation of you working for Rice, we knew that there was a small window of time during which we could take advantage of this information without you knowing that we knew."

Tenten shook her head in disbelief. "So, you took advantage of it by setting out to watch me run off with forged documents?" She still could not see the point in going through with something this elaborate to confirm her as a traitor.

Ibiki chuckled drily. "It was an opportunity to test whether you had held on to old loyalties, or forgot about them after spending so much time making new friends at your assigned location."

Tenten's face shifted between shock, bogglement and finally comprehension. "So, my running off with the documents..."

"Yes. It was the correct answer. You passed your academy exam, congratulations!" Ibiki was struggling to control his obvious amusement.

Tenten glanced around again, and found Kakashi watching her with evident curiosity, while Neji seemed, strangely enough, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Tenten, on the other hand, had a hard time doing anything but gape. "So... what now?"

Ibiki's smile broadened until he was beaming in a way that was not only completely unforeseen of the man, but also reminded her disturbingly of a feeling she had not realized she had been missing after her departure from the academy and the violent death of her foster parents. The psychology expert of Konoha, or the ANBU head sadist, depending on whom you asked, had played a little afternoon game with her and seemed to be pleased with what he had seen.

"Why, we let you advance in ranks beyond mere chuunin, of course. You've been delayed for long enough. And once you're a jounin, I expect we'll have another chat with some more... formality."

She blinked and glanced at Neji, who seemed unperturbed by the implication. Ibiki was one of the high-ranking officers of ANBU, and was quite probably referring to recruiting her. Yet to say something like that in front of Neji and Kakashi all but confirmed that they knew this already, and therefore probably were ANBU. Then again, she wasn't, not yet at least.

But after all that had happened in the last two days, she suddenly realized she had just passed what had to be the strangest job interview ever.

As she was walking out of the prison compound of Konoha, flanked by Kakashi and Neji, she could feel the spring returning to her step. She actually felt like she had come out of this episode with more confidence in her abilities than before, and to top it off, it seemed that her bonds with Konoha had become both stronger and less complicated.

And speaking of bonds, the way Neji was looking at her right now was drastically less guarded than before - if not downright hungry. She glanced to her other side, where Kakashi was looking inexcusably smug on top of his usual sleek nonchalance.

She stopped, suddenly, and pulled the two jounin into a double bear hug by their necks. "You know what, guys, getting out of jail calls for celebration. My treat." Kakashi seemed to perk up at the notion immediately, while Neji's reaction was more carefully schooled. "But before that..."

She released her arm from around Kakashi's neck, took hold of Neji's with both hands, and gave him a deep kiss that left him gasping for air.

Actually, left both him and Kakashi gasping. She was quite pleased at how well a single visible eye could convey an expression of acute shock so effectively.

Now it was her turn to smile smugly at the two. She concluded that when it came to her bonds with Konoha, it wouldn't do to let them get too simple.

"So, how's sushi sound? Or should we go to that new place that just opened? We can of course hit Ichiraku's too if you insist," Tenten happily chattered away, as if the sudden kiss mere seconds ago were nothing but a pat on the back of her teammate.

At the mention of the ramen stall where Kakashi's student, Naruto, was often sighted, she paused to glance at the two men to see if they were getting over their initial shock. They were not.

Neji, looking wild-eyed, stammered an excuse on why he was required elsewhere, and hastily left the scene. Kakashi raised an eyebrow at the departing Hyuuga, and raised his hand to stroke the short hairs at the back of his neck.

"Maa, maa... your treat, eh?" A treat indeed. He was fighting back a sudden intriguing mix of jealousy and arousal. "While the offer is attractive, I'm afraid I'm also expected to report at the Hokage's office... hm, a while ago, in fact. Rain check?" He flashed her the most stunning apologetic smile in his repertoire, hoping she would be sufficiently distracted to not call his bluff.

Tenten was probably aware of the need to regroup that had surfaced in both men at her little surprise assault. Mercifully, she was ready to grant them that without protest.

Or maybe she just honestly could not predict what kind of a reaction her actions would create, Kakashi mused. She did sometimes appear blissfully unconscious of the effect she could have on the opposite sex, which was something that simply made her even more attractive.

The two parted ways, Tenten pointedly declaring that she would opt for the next most urgent thing on her action list, namely to have a long, hot shower.

The thought made Kakashi's step falter ever so slightly as he took off towards the Hokage's office.

-ooo-

Once she had reached her apartment, Tenten found herself humming a cheerful tune. The prospect of washing off the stuffiness of the holding cell, and any other psychological residue with it, was definitely lightening her mood. She suspected that in the end, it was just as well that Kakashi and Neji had turned down her offer for a celebratory lunch.

There was no harm in being happy about how things turned out, in any case. Tenten opened a window to replace the stale air in her small but precious refuge. She then shrugged off her gear to pile them on a chair, and headed for the bathroom. One of the joys of having an apartment all to yourself was the freedom to waltz around it in the buff.

When she was done freeing up her waist-length dark hair from her trademark twin buns, she got the water running and waited, with her hand under the shower, for the cooled-down water to get out of the pipes before jumping in herself.

Only it never did. The water stayed cool.

She turned off the tap for a moment and let out an exasperated groan. Of all the times...! They were out of warm water again. She would have to have a lengthy talk with the landlord about this. For being a village filled with near-omnipotently powerful ninjas, Konoha really suffered from a disturbingly uneven availability of technical infrastructure. Excepting the almost excessively well-equipped hospitals, of course, but that could be explained by their heavy use by the aforementioned elite citizens.

There was no helping it, though. She wanted a shower too badly to be picky, so she turned on the water again and dived under it, quickly cleaning herself.

When she stepped out and grabbed a towel to dry herself, she felt a presence in the apartment beyond the bathroom. Whoever it was, they were masking their chakra, but at this distance, the slightest signs were enough to prick her senses.

She was vigorously rubbing her hair dry and making various sounds of unpreparedness, all the while equipping herself with a few odd bladed weapons hidden in various stashes around the bathroom. After wrapping herself and her hair in a pair of large towels, she stepped close to the door to listen for anyone immediately outside it.

Satisfied that the intruder was probably further in, she quickly snuck out through the door and pressed against the short corridor wall. She spotted someone sitting in a chair with their back towards her, in the main room.

With a few feline strides, she was behind the unsuspecting figure and pressed a kunai against the trespasser's neck.

It barely registered to her that the neck seemed familiar. Then, in the blink of an eye, it was gone in a puff of smoke. She instinctively turned around and swung her blade, only to have her wrist grabbed before the knife could strike home.

Her conscious mind was halfway into cursing the fact that she had been caught with a decoy, like some rank amateur, but her combat training ignored such deliberations as irrelevant. Her free hand pulled a strong needle-like blade from the towel around her hair, even while her feet were already moving in an attempt to wrench her wrist free by the application of unexpected torque backed by her body weight.

A surprised hiss sounded from her assailant when she managed to plant her needle roughly into the back of the gloved hand holding on to her wrist. She was released, and rolled into a crouch.

When her mind was finished processing the backlog of stimulus from the fight and preparing to produce contingency strategies from it, it started to tick off interesting details for her, like the protective slab of metal on the fingerless glove her needle strike had to circumvent, or the Konoha leaf on the headband of her opponent, a mask and a mess of silver hair...

"Kakashi?" She blurted in sudden realization.

The identified jounin was examining the damage to his hand. "Eh, that needle of yours, it didn't happen to be poisoned, by any chance?"

She straightened from her defensive posture, adjusted the towel around her and headed for the medicine cabinet. "Of course it was! Why do you think I stabbed it in your hand and not somewhere efficient, like your eye?"

He offered a faint "General mercifulness is out of the question there, I guess?" and carefully went to sit down in the nearest chair, which happened to be the same one his clone had originally occupied.

She came back with an antidote, in a vial labelled "tranquillizer". Kakashi raised an eyebrow at it. "You sure you have the right bottle?"

"What, you think I'd keep around poisoned weapons in case of intruders and then welcome said intruders to freely peruse my antidote collection afterwards?" She handed him the vial.

"I'm at your mercy in any case, I'm afraid," Kakashi noted submissively, and took a swig from the vial before handing it back.

Tenten returned the vial to its place, then returned to fix Kakashi with an inquisitive stare. "Now, how about you explain what the hell you are doing in my apartment."

Kakashi spent a moment in meditation, trying to sense if he was, in fact, about to be knocked unconscious by either the original poison or the claimed antidote. When he mostly felt fine except for a slight dull ache in his hand, he leaned back on the chair, seeking to recover some of his aura of suaveness that was lost in the unexpectedly ferocious struggle.

"You left your window open." He cast a puppy-eyed glance, dripping with sugar-coated innocence, at her.

She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head, unimpressed. "The last I checked, that's not exactly an invitation for a friendly little break-in. And what's with the ambush? I could have stabbed you in the eye, you know."

He was struggling to recreate an air of laid-back ease while not wanting to quite provoke a burst of aggression. "You wouldn't believe that I was just planning to go 'Boo!' at you?"

It was mostly true, after all. He had also been curious to see how she'd react to the situation. Kakashi had prepared for some resistance, even attempts to throw him around, but it was just slightly too embarrassing to admit out loud that he had all but dismissed the possibility that Tenten would emerge from the shower, in her own home, armed to the teeth.

He made a mental note to lay his plans more carefully before following up on sudden bright ideas, at least when they concerned a certain kunoichi. "In any case, I wasn't expecting you to be done so quickly. Didn't you say you were preparing for a long and steamy bathroom scene?"

Tenten smirked amusedly, before the joke made her remember she was cold and wet despite the unexpected exercise. "The hot water's not working. No steaminess was achieved." She pouted at him, off-handedly fishing for sympathy.

Kakashi looked appropriately sympathy-struck, at least. He made a quick tsking sound before pausing to consider this for a moment. "Why, that's simply unacceptable. You've more than deserved your hot water, after all." He scanned her facial expressions to gauge her reactions, then continued, "Actually, how would you feel about a hot bath? I happen to have an ofuro in my place that you could borrow."

She blinked, taken by surprise. "A hot tub?" She looked at him suspiciously. "You don't strike me as the type to go for such luxury."

Kakashi smiled disarmingly at her. "I wouldn't, normally, but it just so happens that one of the thousand techniques I've copied is just perfect for heating up a tubful of water." He shrugged. "Besides, I have to say that adding a botched ambush to your cold shower leaves me suffering from a guilty conscience. You'd do me a huge favour to accept."

Tenten's eyebrow twitched, but she tried to keep a straight face. "Just to clear your conscience, eh? And not for the opportunities for peeking?"

Kakashi raised his hands in surrender, palms forward. "While I cannot say I wouldn't dream of it, you can trust me to steer clear while you bathe. I'd rather not get more needles sticking out of me when you don't have the antidotes nearby."

Tenten smiled sweetly. "Why, it is settled, then. Let me just get dressed."

Kakashi cleared his throat. "Yes. I'll, ah, wait outside." With that, he slipped out of the open window and disappeared from sight.

Tenten closed the window, rolling her eyes, and moved to collect a fresh change of clothes. She decided her hair might as well be loose for the brief trek to Kakashi's place. Drying it out for increased controllability just to get it wet again moments later was definitely not an appealing thought.

When she got down, Kakashi was waiting for her at the door, poised as the perfect gentleman escort. He offered to carry her bag, and she smoothly declined the offer, "lest her private things get misplaced".

As they walked, Kakashi noted the girl's loose hair as an unexpected bonus. After all, she had hidden it in a towel earlier and was not generally sighted in public without her usual, no-nonsense twin buns. It was wetting her clothes around her lower back; he considered whether bringing this up would be sufficiently pragmatic as a discussion topic to balance for the inevitable "oh, and this came to me while I was checking out your rear" effect.

He concluded that it might be best to play it safe for now. He would not want Tenten to grow too self-conscious, or pervert-conscious, for that matter. She was the one with the long hair, surely she came prepared for any trouble it might try to stir up when set free like that.

The two strode on in a comfortable silence. Before long, they reached Kakashi's apartment.

Once Kakashi had opened the door, Tenten peeked in eagerly. It was... surprisingly clean. She had definitely not imagined Kakashi to be the neat-freak type. The place was maybe a room larger than hers, but not particularly luxurious. A small bookshelf held what was no doubt well-read smut literature, and a single potted plant stood in the corner. The table, chairs and sofa were practical rather than decorative. Tenten fully approved of this.

The overview gained, she quickly moved to examine what was hidden behind the closed doors, under the pretence of looking for the bathroom. Unfortunately, she lost the excuse by finding her target on the first try. Tenten's eyes jumped to the ofuro tub by the wall. She stepped back out of the bathroom to catch Kakashi's attention as he was wandering towards the living room.

"Kakashi. That ofuro... it doesn't look like it was carved, or nailed together." It was a magnificent tub that looked like it was made of living wood, and it fit the bathroom perfectly. This was not a mere run-of-the-mill furo tub, this was something much greater, a definite o-furo.

Kakashi waved his hand in amused dismissal. "Oh, you noticed? You're right, it's not. A friend of mine who can do wood element techniques grew it for me."

Tenten's eyes gleamed. "It's awesome. Who do I have to kill to get one too?"

"Well, given that you were getting a fine start with me already..." He rubbed his stabbed hand in mock agony.

Tenten seemed to consider this. "No, I need you to heat my bath water, otherwise it would go unused." With that in mind, she popped back into the bathroom to start the water running.

While Tenten was waiting for the tub to fill up, Kakashi gravitated into the bathroom as well. After all, he should be available to act his part as the highly efficient water heater. He smirked at the prospect.

It was all going very smoothly according to plan. The moment he had decided to follow Tenten home and leave his reporting excuse for later, he had sent out a clone to clean up his place so it would be prepared for entertaining a female guest, yet not going overboard with rose petals or anything that might make Tenten suspicious. He himself had then headed for Tenten's house, swiftly located the tank storing hot water for the building, and applied a dose of elaborate sabotage before sneaking into her apartment through the conveniently open window.

It was all in good-natured fun, of course. The heater would re-heat the water soon enough, and no one would be the wiser. Tenten would get a relaxing bath, and in it Kakashi had the perfect bait set up to lure the little vixen into his den.

As Kakashi was silently congratulating himself on his successful plot, Tenten turned off the water. The tub was full. Brought out of his musings, Kakashi made a few hand seals, concentrated his chakra, and the previously cold water soon started to steam. Tenten clapped her hands in girlish excitement. Kakashi responded by making an elaborate bow and presented with a hand wave her prepared bath.

"I guess I will leave you to it, then. If there's anything you need, just holler." With that, Kakashi left the bathroom and closed the door behind him.

Tenten proceeded to get rid of her damp clothes and fold them into her bag. She then quickly but carefully showered, this time with regular warm water, to clean herself before getting into the tub. The water in the ofuro, distinctly warmer than body temperature, was not meant for shedding grime, but for the warmth and relaxation. For the same reason, she was careful to get any soap off her body beforehand, to not introduce unwanted bubbles into the meditative bath.

She first tipped in her foot, bracing herself for the heat. It was just right; she was impressed with Kakashi's fluency in a technique which she until then had assumed was mostly invented for show. Slowly, she eased herself into the tub, pulled her legs close to herself and leaned back. As tension started to seep out of her warming muscles, she closed her eyes and sighed happily.

Outside the bathroom, Kakashi kept himself busy by preparing some late lunch that wouldn't look too planned. It consisted of various sorts of finger food, rice balls and bread.

While his hands were working away on the rice balls, his mind stubbornly refused to get out of the gutter. He tried to not to imagine too vividly the naked kunoichi on the other side of the wall, but was repeatedly failing at distracting himself by mundane tasks. The dark, flowing hair was probably covering most of her from sight, anyway. It wouldn't do to get too excited, or he wouldn't be able to look her in the eye once she got out.

After the food was set up, all too soon, he decided he needed a better distraction and sat down at the ready-made table to read an Icha Icha book. Surely enough, his favourite literature was considerably more efficient at getting his mind off the nubile little naiad, although even the somewhat colliding topic could not entirely keep his mind from wandering.

Tenten had lost track of time while in the bath, but when she started to feel like she might be drifting off to sleep, she decided she had relaxed enough. As she set out to leave the bath, she noticed her stomach was growling as well. Maybe she could pilfer some food from Kakashi before heading home; she hadn't eaten anything since yesterday. She prepared to doe-eye him into submission as she slipped into the more comfortable change of clothes that she had packed with her. Her towel served once more to collect her wet hair within itself.

As she peeked out through the bathroom door, she saw Kakashi sitting with his back towards her. Grinning mischievously, she snuck up on him. Instead of threatening him with a kunai this time, however, she lightly grabbed his shoulders, leaned close to his ear and breathed, "Boo."

Kakashi masked a sudden shiver of pleasure by feigning horrified surprise. He stowed away his book while standing up to present the culinary sacrificial offering to the fickle water spirit that had snuck up on him. Tenten's eyes widened at the sight, and she swallowed to not drool all over the floor.

As Kakashi held the chair he had previously occupied to Tenten, she was already setting up assault plans for the meal before her. As Tenten filled her plate, Kakashi pulled a chair for himself and followed suit.

For a while, they mostly focused on the food. Or Tenten did, in any case. She was into her third rice ball before she broke off long enough to produce coherent verbal output. "This is delicious. You're a life-saver." That said, she proceeded to fill her mouth again.

Kakashi smirked at her amusedly. "I knew I simply could not pass on the opportunity of dazzling a starved damsel with my average, but aptly timed cooking."

Tenten flashed him a grateful smile and helped herself to some grapes. As she was popping them into her mouth in more of a pragmatic yet sensual way, she suddenly remembered why she was here. "Oh yeah, Kakashi, I couldn't find a lid so I left the ofuro uncovered. Are you going to go in later on?"

Kakashi waved her a hand in dismissal. "Don't worry about it. It's easy enough to re-heat just right when I get around to it." He winked at her, making the hand sign commonly used for concentrating chakra. In all honesty, he had not given the bath a second thought; his plan revolved around actively performing as the resourceful host for his prey, not in more mundane pleasures.

Granted, though, it might be an interesting aspect to consider. He noticed she was wearing comfortable clothes for indoors, a change that no doubt was warranted by her previous set still being cold and damp. If he could get her to stay for long enough, maybe he could turn this into a pyjama party.

He felt his blood warming up at the thought. Luckily, Tenten took just that moment to be distracted by the sound of raindrops hitting the window. "Oh man, it's started raining." She tensed her shoulders at the prospect of getting wet and cold again soon.

Following her gaze, Kakashi was ready to whoop with joy. Everything was going better than he had expected. He reined in his satisfied grin, though, and turned it into a concerned frown before turning to look at the girl. "Tenten, I didn't haul you over here for warming up just to send you back home cold and wet. There's no point in going out just now; just wait here until the rain passes." At Tenten's minuscule hesitation, he added, "Besides, you haven't seen dessert yet."

At that point, she was definitely sold. "There's dessert?"

He strode into the kitchen and came back with a tray of anpan buns. "I just got these from the lady next door for saving her cat for the tenth time, and there's no way I'll manage to destroy them all myself in time."

Tenten leapt up from her chair and captured Kakashi in an enthusiastic hug. "It's official, you're my favourite tub-warmer!"

Kakashi managed to free up an arm to return the embrace while setting down the tray with his other hand. "I think they're filled with red bean paste, although I haven't tried them out yet. Don't thank me before you've tried one," he admonished with false seriousness.

Tenten reached for a bun and bit into it, then closed her eyes and made tiny sounds of delight. As Kakashi had returned to his seat, she gave him a kiss on the cheek before sitting down herself. "They're just perfect."

Kakashi basked in her excitement for a while before reaching for a bun himself. After sampling it, he decided she wasn't just faking it. The buns were good. Granted, his preparatory clone had actually gotten lucky to run into the lady and tip her off about his plans to have visitors, and she had happened to have her oven ready... but the countless times he had saved his neighbour's cat, at the peril of being late from some meeting or the other, were definitely paying off.

He wiggled the bun at her. "You should be more careful with your kisses, though, you know. Never know whose heart you'll end up breaking."

Tenten glanced at him, her eyes glinting with amusement even though she was not certain what he was getting at. "What, are you saying I should refrain from molesting you now that we're not enemies any more?" She blew him a kiss with a wink.

Kakashi made a show of catching the flying kiss and putting it in his pocket for safekeeping. "Nah, I'm old and jaded, I can handle it." He leaned forward conspiratorially. "But you shouldn't play with poor Neji's feelings, you know. It could crush him."

Tenten rolled her eyes at him, then leaned back and crossed her arms, peering at him questioningly. "And how do you know if I'm just toying with him, hmm?"

Kakashi, unfazed, held her gaze with his visible eye, and lowered his voice to a husky tone. "Oh, I don't know. Do you, right now, meditate on what it was like to be kissing him, or might you have been comparing it to kissing me?"

Tenten could have sworn his eye changed into a deeper colour from the intensity of his gaze. She swallowed and averted her eyes, a blush creeping up to her cheeks.

Before she could recover enough to compose a witty comeback, Kakashi mercifully broke the tension and stood up. "In a completely unrelated note, are you feeling tired? I know I tend to get drowsy after a hot bath."

Tenten couldn't be sure if his intonation on the word "hot" was entirely innocent, but decided it was safe enough to take the comment at face value. Especially since it made her remember how she was almost falling asleep in the tub. She stretched lazily and found that indeed, sleep was not far away. But it was still raining out, so... "Well, I'm not sure what you've drugged me with, sir, but I might indeed be inclined to take a beauty nap."

Kakashi grinned at her through his mask, his eye gleaming in wicked delight that made the pit of Tenten's stomach tingle, before he assumed a more sombre look. "You can feel free to crash on my bed. I promise I won't take advantage of you in your sleep." He paused for effect. "That is, unless you want me to."

Tenten remembered her sweet bun and wiggled the uneaten half at him. "Yeah yeah, I bet you tell that to all the girls you knock out with your hot... bath." She bit into the delicious pastry once more, then used a finger to wipe some of the sugary filling off the corner of her mouth and licked it clean teasingly.

This time it was Kakashi's turn to look away hastily. "Give me a moment to get you a spare comforter." He disappeared into a side room, presumably the bedroom.

Tenten finished the anpan and followed Kakashi. She was constructing a lewd pun concerning comforters, but lost her train of thought at the sight of the bed.

There was a dolphin plush toy on it. Tenten let out an involuntary titter, and a boggled Kakashi turned to look at her. When he followed her look, he made an indignant noise, then picked the plush up to strike a pose with it.

"It's a gift. I'm told I look fabulously good together with my fluffy Iruka-kun." He stroked the dolphin a few times, then set it back on the bed. "Of course, what these fans may be failing to realize is that I look fabulously good with anything."

Tenten erupted in near-hysterical giggles at his antics. The fact that Umino Iruka-sensei, a teacher at the academy, was a namesake of Kakashi's plush toy gave her all kinds of ideas of delicious rumours begging to be started.

Once she had calmed down somewhat, she grabbed the dolphin herself and cuddled it snugly. "You won't be jealous if I sleep with Iruka-kun, now will you?" She glanced at him slyly over the plush toy.

Kakashi smirked. "Nah, I'm not so worried about competition. You two knock yourself out." He waved his hand and retreated out of the bedroom, leaving Tenten to test out the springs on the bed. She soon settled on the bed, pulled the spare comforter over herself and fell asleep.

While Kakashi cleaned up the remains of lunch, he was listening intently for sounds of Tenten's breathing settling down to indicate she was asleep. After being reasonably convinced that the girl was knocked out, he still waited a while longer, just in case. A hot bath, followed by some food and sweetmeats, could be expected to work exactly like this, but he did not want to get caught peeking. That would be amateurish, after all.

Once he determined that the risk of the wily kunoichi feigning sleep was reasonably low, he snuck soundlessly to the bedroom door to peek in. The girl looked unfathomably cute when asleep, with her face relaxed and a contented smile on her lips. He caught himself holding his breath, lest she hear him breathe, wake up and break the illusion.

His curiosity satisfied, and his allotment for cuteness filled for the week, Kakashi retreated back to the living room and settled down to read a book.

Half an hour later, Tenten woke up and sauntered out of the bedroom, stretching herself. Kakashi was enjoying some tea while reading in his favourite chair, and lifted his mug in greeting at her. "Want some tea?"

Tenten grinned mischievously. "I'm good, thanks. Say, Kakashi," she continued innocently as he sipped from his mug, "are any of those thousand techniques you've copied good for freezing up the hot water tank for an entire building?"

Kakashi choked on his tea, spluttering.

"I was just wondering, you know." Tenten winked at him, then went to check up on her change of clothes. It was dried by now, so she changed into the more outdoorsy set, bid Kakashi farewell with thanks "for everything", and headed back home.

Returning home, Tenten meditated on the silver-haired jounin who had gone through surprising lengths to treat her to a hot, luxurious bath, a tasty lunch and a nap. She knew that Kakashi was a man of no meagre means, despite - or perhaps because of - his relatively spartan lifestyle. It was titillating to be the target of his mischievous pursuit.

On the other hand, ever since she had woken up nuzzling Kakashi's plush dolphin, she had felt... not quite be as immune to falling for the old game as she had assumed. True to his skills as a tracker, Kakashi struck her as the sort of guy to pursue his prey through thicket and marshland, only to stop and leave the kill for others once he caught up with it. He'd most likely lose interest altogether the moment she showed signs of softening up.

No, Tenten ruminated, she would not fall for Kakashi. She wanted to enjoy the chase together with him as long as possible, and then retreat gracefully before her emotions got tangled into it. There was no way a guy like him would manage to remain single all this while without setting up a serious barrier between himself and any lady folk swooning around him.

Or could it be that he actually had the hots for Iruka-sensei? Maybe he obsessed over the slightly younger Academy teacher at night, while inappropriately fondling his plush dolphin? That would explain a few things...

By the time she reached her door, Tenten was grinning to herself over rampant yaoi fantasies. She got in, unloaded her things and prepared to settle for a nice, quiet evening by herself. Of course, there was no such luck: she spotted a note on the floor, requesting her presence at the Hokage's office at her earliest convenience. In other words, she was expected there hours ago, if only she had not conveniently been misplaced. She straightened herself up, including an attempt to forcefully yank her mind out of the gutter, and got out again.

-ooo-

One swift mission briefing later, Tenten settled into a comfortable chair in the bottom floor of the Hokage tower to read the background information file she had received. She was to set out tomorrow morning, in a three-person cell led by Neji, with their third teammate Rock Lee accompanying them. The mission itself was a straightforward patrol round; someone had sighted bandits stalking on a trade route and they would check out the area.

The timing was perfect. Ever since Tenten was turned loose after the interrogation, she had been planning to spend some time re-figuring out her Hyuuga prodigy teammate of old. She suspected that interesting things could be happening between them. After all, they had recently done away with the inconvenient strain created by his earlier assignment to keep an eye on her in case she should decide to betray Konoha at some point.

She had some packing to do before meeting her teammates around dawn. The upcoming mission, despite its somewhat routine outlook, started up a familiar tingle in her stomach. This time, however, it was mixed with some additional butterflies of an entirely different colour.

-ooo-

The mission was mostly uneventful; if there had been bandits about, they must have left well in time to miss the Konoha cleanup crew. The team spent a night camping out, and the quest for a comfortable camping spot turned out to be the most exhilarating experience on the mission.

This was probably just as well, as Tenten felt slightly distracted throughout the mission. She and Neji were cooperating as smoothly as ever, but the shared secret of her past kept materializing into meaningful glances, sly smiles and the strangest excuses for passing touches. Lee, who treated the quiet mission as the perfect opportunity to train random skills, managed to remain completely oblivious to his teammates' strange behaviour. Tenten decided there was no reason to snap him out of his comfortable bubble, either.

When the trio returned to the village, Lee suddenly offered to fill out the mission report and dashed off towards the Hokage tower. Tenten cast Neji a quizzical look at this outburst of bureaucratic enthusiasm, and he explained amusedly that he might have suggested their energetic friend that paperwork provided an excellent type of motivational exercise. Which was not that far from truth, in any case. Lee, who their sensei had aptly titled a genius at hard work, would not waste such an excellent opportunity on strengthening his capacity at self-motivation.

Tenten was not one to waste opportunities, either. "An exemplary plot like this calls for a celebration. How about coming over to my place for some tea?" While the Hyuuga compound was located in the opposite end of the village, her apartment was conveniently located nearby. She was not particularly surprised when Neji accepted the offer.

It was not the first time Neji was at her apartment, either. Like an old couple, they split the tasks at hand - Tenten would set out to unload any moist gear from their packs to dry in the bathroom, while Neji went to the kitchen to heat the water. The division of labour was mainly determined through upholding Tenten's privacy, which her teammates had always been somewhat more worried about than she was. The guys could handle each other's underwear and their own just fine, but when it was suggested that they should rummage around in Tenten's pack for some reason or the other, they would become acutely awkward in a way that suggested it was not any stowed sharp objects they were worried about. Such strangeness, Tenten had decided, did not warrant deeper delving into, as long as they took care of a balanced share of other tasks in return.

Tenten got into the kitchen just in time to find Neji foraging the cupboards for her selection of teas. After a brief, nonverbal negotiation, they settled on trying out a fresh batch of ama-cha, a tea made from hydrangea leaves. Tenten had equipped her cupboard with some of it after finding out, to her considerable amusement, that most hydrangea species were poisonous, and picking the right plant for making tea required expert care. She had fondly called it blowfish tea ever since.

They sat down for the tea, and exchanged the occasional banal observations to settle into the intimacy of just sitting beside each other, with no physical activity to hide behind. Tenten finally broached the comfort zone. "So, when did you get assigned to keep an eye on me?"

Neji looked at his teacup intently. "From the beginning; when the teams were set up."

Baffled, Tenten blurted out, "But we were barely even teenagers then!"

Neji smirked at her, amused. "Your threat rating was not considered too much for me to handle at that point."

Tenten giggled at his smug expression, and countered with a shrewd grin. "Is that so? How about now?" She bent forward slightly and moved to set her hand on his thigh under the table.

She was rewarded with a delightful stiffening of muscle under her hand, although Neji's facial expression remained carefully deadpan. "You've been cleared by the Hokage." Back in control of himself, Neji confessed, "I can't really say that makes you any less dangerous, though. It merely changes the scale."

Tenten flashed him a victorious smile, then felt a threatening blush warming up her cheeks. She got up to refill her cup in order to hide it.

It took her two steps to reach the pot, which had strategically been left behind under a hood to keep the tea inside warm. She lifted the hood and was about to pick up the pot when she suddenly sensed that Neji had moved to stand right behind her.

As a small hitch in her breathing revealed that he had been noticed, he placed his hands on the edge of the counter, on both her sides. Tenten barely suppressed a yelp, and quickly moved her hands away from the pot to not spill tea all over herself. Her legs were swiftly turning to jelly. Could this really be happening?

Neji's voice was strained, as if he had trouble controlling himself. "Tenten, I..." Tenten could feel his breath on her bare neck. "I... do not know what to do." His scent in her nostrils, the timbre of his voice, so near, feeling like it vibrated all through her... Oh yes, Tenten could feel the sexual tension that had built up between them for years, and it was like the block of concrete holding it in had suddenly disappeared. All it took was a reassigned threat level.

Tenten squirmed to turn around and face Neji. "If I've understood correctly, you are now free to do... this." She gently grabbed hold of his shirt and pulled him into a kiss.

The moment their lips met, something clicked to place in Tenten's mind. This was right; this was how things were meant to be. She let go of all restraint and dived into the kiss, pulling Neji closer all the while he moved his own hands to her back and gathered her into a possessive embrace. Their first kiss had been a planned sneak attack on Tenten's part; this one had snuck up on them by itself.

When they paused for air, Neji looked into Tenten's eyes, as if checking for a cue. Tenten thought she felt his hands tremble slightly where he held her, from all the not-doing - not letting them roam around her body, not moving her to a more convenient location, not ripping off her clothes. He had spent his life controlling himself, and this was the closest Tenten had seen him to throwing all the don'ts, mustn'ts and can'ts out the window.

Tenten grabbed him by the collar and pulled him close enough that their noses touched. "Look, from what I gather, we've had this coming for years now. There's no escape; we might as well get it out of our systems to not spend the next few months too distracted and horny to function." She moved slightly to nibble on his earlobe. "Now let your inner animal loose, and take me for one of those heavenly spins that you're so famous for."

Neji chuckled, let out a sultry "Rawr," and lifted Tenten onto his shoulder to haul her into the bedroom.

It was exactly as good as Tenten had suspected it might be.

The second time was even better.