She's Not Weak

His throat was burning as he sat there, as still as he could, his Byakugan activated, hoping the awful sensation would pass soon.

A glass was placed on his lips and he tasted the clear, cool, soothing water, trickling down his burning throat. His fingers finally managed to move as he brought his hands up to grab the glass that had been offered to him.

His fingers brushed against Tenten's calloused ones as he finished the entire cup and leant down, breathing heavily.

He wished there was a chance where he could brush his fingers against her worn fingers again, to feel the callouses and rough skin worn from the practice and dedication of slipping through and against cold steel.

He'd almost eat the revolting curry of life again if she'd offered him another glass of water. Just for the chance to feel her rough fingertips against his.

He and Lee both know they are running into a trap. Tenten wouldn't just fall off a cliff. Tenten is far too graceful and agile for that and he was sure any number of her weapons in her scroll would've been more than enough to catch her. He has seen Tenten fall from the peak of mountains and catch herself with grace. He's seen her soar and fly in the air while performing Shoshoryu. Tenten doesn't fall.

Tenten was certainly not a maid in distress.

He activated his Byakugan, running, hoping that whatever it was, that she was alright and cursing the fact that he wasn't there to protect her.

He's not so much surprised as he is indignant and slightly embarrassed that Tenten looks to be in better shape than him as she stands above him, telling him to gather his strength and to get up. He doesn't complain though, and he willingly allows her to feed him, opening his mouth compliantly as she spooned something into his mouth.

His hazy mind is flashed a warning, alerting him that something was wrong but he opened his mouth again when Tenten raises the spoon to his mouth again, delivering another spoonful of whatever it is to his mouth, savouring the moment. The third spoonful does him in, as he recognised the spicy sensation on his tongue and reached his hands to his throat.

He feels himself faint again and he thinks,... he'd trusted her to feed him, allowed him to feed her and this is what she feeds him…. But more disturbingly…. He'd probably eat it again if it was Tenten feeding him the accursed curry of life.

'Tenten.'

She turned after her weapons disappeared in a puff of smoke, her brown eyes locking onto his

'Hinata-sama is turning fourteen and Hiashi-sama will be leaving for a month with Hanabi-sama. Hiashi-sama has asked that I take his place and spar with Hinata-sama with one of our clan traditions of one thousand needles.'

'Ah, so you won't be coming to training for a month?'

'Yes.'

There's a pause, and then Neji understands the silent question. Will you be coming back to train after a month?

'Tenten. I expect you to be stronger when we spar afterwards. As will I be.'

Something lights up in Tenten's eyes and he inwardly bites down on the inside of his cheek at the feeling in her stomach as he turns around.

Not being able to train with Tenten for a month might've been a reason why he'd been so cold and unrelentless with Hinata the first few weeks of their training.

The second reason for Neji's frustration during the month is when he learns that Tenten has started spending more time around a certain lazy genius who'd been promoted to Chuunin.

As if it hadn't stung enough that Nara Shikarmaru of all people, his junior who did not possess at all much power or strength, had been made Chuunin before he had been, he'd know heard through the grapevine that apparently, Tenten had been seen more and more frequently by his side.

He'd expected Tenten to train with Lee and Gai… maybe even Inuzuka Kiba – why she liked the ratty pet Inuzuka had by his side all the time, he would never understand - but Tenten had decided to begin spending her time with that lazy ninja just didn't sit right for him.

Many in the Hyuuga had heard, having known Tenten through the gossip surrounding him. After all, not many females were capable of dressing down Hyuuga Neji of all people without repercussion and he knew Hyuuga Kou had seen the twin blades he'd taken out of the Hyuuga weaponry vault in Tenten's hands one night. And then of course, there'd been the fact that he'd lessened his own sparring and training time with Hiashi-sama, the clan head so that he could continue to spar with Tenten. None of these facats or actions had not gone unnoticed nor unmentioned amongst the clan.

So he stalked through the streets, searching for any signs of Tenten or the lazy genius as he fought the impulse to punch something after Lee had cheerful told him told him.

'Ah! Our beautiful flower of youth has blossomed and is generally found in the companion of Shikamaru-kun these days! Let us hope that her energy and beautiful spirit will rub off on Shikarmaru-kun so that he too will find his youthful passion and enter into the springtime of youth!'

He'd be damned if anything of Tenten's rubbed off on Shikamaru. Yamanaka Ino had indeed been taken aback when he stalked into the flowershop, demanding where her lazy teammate was before she grinned, as if understanding something.

Nosey kunoichi. He thought. Tenten would never waste time in such idle things as village gossip and intrigue. He stormed towards the hills. Nara's apparent favourite place to cloudgaze. Cloudgaze. Really, what decent shinobi or sparring partner would cloudgaze?

'Tenten'

Neji calls out flatly when he sees what she is doing. It takes an enormous strain of Hyuuga patience to ensure that his Byakugan is not activated and he is barely able to control the impulse the Jyuken the Nara genius to next Sunday.

Tenten rolls over onto her stomach, still lying on the grass when her eyes flutter onto him.

'Neji?'

She was supposed to be training, not cloudgazing with the stupid lazy genius.

'What are you doing?'

'Cloudgazing.'

She stated simply, raising an eyebrow.

'I thought you were training Hinata?'

'She needed a break.'

He says curtly as he analyses the situation. If she doesn't train, her sharply honed skills would surely begin to diminish if she didn't train properly.

'Why are you not training?'

'I am!'

She rebutted with an eye raised as Neji raised a delicate eyebrow and swept over the scene in front of him once again. He was not impressed.

'Well, you know, Gai-sensei was reminding me how I needed to improve both my physical and my spiritual energy in order to increase my chakra levels. And I've been going mountain climbing with Gai-sensei to improve my physical energy –'

Neji briefly nodded at the sound of that. He'd certainly welcome the idea of her continuing to train with Gai-sensei.

' –and, Shikarmaru's helping me hone my spiritual energy. I don't really enjoy meditation as well as you do but cloud gazing works just as well apparently.'

He didn't like the sound of that. And how on earth did cloud-gazing improve one's spiritual energy? It was an absurd concept to him.

Shikamaru shifts at the pulses of killing intent being sent towards him.

Troublesome.

He watched as Tenten continued to talk, while the Hyuuga simply seemed to become more and more agitated.

'-and we're playing Shougi, so I'm improving on strategic and tactical analysis as well!'

Shikamaru liked Tenten. She was one of the few girls his age in the village who didn't talk or squeal in an annoyingly high pitched voice. She didn't nag and she didn't gush over the latest cute guy in the village or gossip about the newest couples that had formed.

No, she simply made nice, ordinary conversation over their Shougi games and made an interesting, if not amusing cloud-gazing companion. Her discussions on the pros and cons of weapons, her opinions and the information she imparted to him gave them a mutual quid-pro-quo relationship whereby she increased her strategic and tactical analysis and he learned more about weapons that he could either utilise or identify in the future.

It had been a great, blossoming friendship up until the Hyuuga prodigy had decided to storm into his favourite area and began to promise him one hundred and one painful ways to die.

Glancing sidewards at his smiling, cheerful brunette companion, he sighed. He certainly didn't want to be at the end of Hyuuga's Neji rage. He could see now why partially, the lone female member of Team Gai had been so fiercely guarded by the Hyuuga.

How troublesome.

The week he returns to training with Tenten, he comes to learn that her chakra levels had indeed, improved.

He's surprised by her incorporation of time-space and summoning jutsus in the fight and jumps from the fire that she releases from her scroll rather than an arsenal of weapons.

That friday, he does something completely new and asks her if she wants to go the tea house for some tea. Later on, it becomes a ritual for them at the end of their week.

Tenten doesn't falter as they run the three days to Sunagakure, and is right behind him and Lee the entire time.

When the fight breaks out in the dining room, she's sighing as she eyes the food on the floor. Lee yells out with good intentions but is soon hit afterwards. Tenten's attentions turn to Lee, as they always do when a teammate is attacked.

There's a whistling sound and he scoffs at the slow speed of the three kunai heading Tenten's way. She's already slipped three senbon from the hem of her white sleeves in between her fingers and Tenten is ready to deflect the kunai when he steps on the table leg, flipping the table top up as the three kunai dully hit into the wooden bench.

Tenten turns to Neji, annoyance flashing in her eyes.

'Neji!'

'Wait.'

He orders her as he turns on her Byakugan.

He knows that she is more than capable of protecting herself. But he still wants to be able to do what he can. Wants to protect her, because he doesn't like seeing her hurt. He turns to focus on the fight, pushing the rest of his thoughts away for another time.

'I'm not convenient!'

Tenten hissed as Neji stared and Lee blinked.

'What's the problem?'

Lee asked and Neji gave a glance to Tenten's fading form and he shrugged.

'I don't know.'

It becomes like this the remained of the second half of the exams and Neji doesn't understand why.

Because everytime convenient is mentioned, Tenten hisses like a cat at water and he doesn't understand, why she moves away from him when he moves in front to protect her and take on the opposing genins. Determined and he can't stop her when she goes to take on the purple-haired opponent as she Tenten calls out in an angry voice.

'You're not the only who can use space-time jutsus'

He's never seen her so fierce or angry.

Neji notices before anyone else when Tenten falters in the water sphere. He knows she's at her limit

And the thing is, Tenten thrives when she's pushed to her limit. She always overcomes them. He watches as her hand reaches into her weapons holster. He catches a glimpse of an exploding tag and he knows what she plans to do.

He'd yell at her if she could hear him, the stupid, reckless girl who's going to try and break their water prisons with an explosion tag. He activates his Byakugan. eyes flickering everywhere as he searched for a weak point. He finds it in record time. He breaks Lee's prison first before he turns to Tenten's prison, letting Lee deal with the clone while he catches her and holds onto her.

'Are you ok, Tenten?'

He murmurs as she leans on him, wrapping an arm around her waist to keep her steady.

'Emmmm.'

She murmurs as she nods and thanks him.

His byakugan is still activated and he has to concentrate really hard at her face to make sure that his eyes don't lower, that he doesn't stare ant her now translucent white shirt that is sticking onto her skin.

He really doesn't want to let her go when she stands up. She's something else entirely to him and he doesn't want to ever let her go.

He's not happy at the idea of being separated from Tenten when she's placed in Kitsuchi's Unit 2 while she's placed in Darui's Unit. He's glad he can watch over Hinata but he'd rather have worked with Tenten. He frowns at their assignments because everyone knows how well the two of them work together.

'Watch over her.'

He tells his uncle, who raises a questioning brow.

'You do not think she can protect herself?'

'No, I…'

But Hiashi understands, as he watches Neji's gaze on Tenten as he watches his teammate since his genin days.

'I doubt she will need help but I will keep an eye on her.'

Hiashi sagely acquiesces as he heads off. Neji nods and then turns to farewell Tenten. He tells her to be careful as they leave and then raises a hand of acknowledgement as she turns to follow her Unit.

'I know, I know, you better survive this too, Hyuuga Neji!'

The words are light-hearted but there's also an underlying tone of sincerity and of warning. That if he doesn't come back alive, she'd either resurrect him for her own satisfaction of killing him or that she'd follow him to the depths of hell to torture him for all eternity. Because that is the sort of person Tenten is. Unrelentingly strong and determined.

He gets brief, sparse moments with Tenten, none enough for either to really say anything of substance and then, in the middle of the battle, he sees Hinata resolutely turn her back as she stretches her arms out and he knows he can't just stand there and watch as his baby cousin – even if she is all grown up – become impaled by wood so he throws himself in between and falls, graceless onto the ground.

He'd never thought that he'd ever be impaled on anything but the cold steel of Tenten's weapons but as Naruto lies there, holding onto him and screaming for a medic, he already knows it's too late.

Tenten He thinks and berates himself for all the time they'd had and lost. All the gestures made yet words unspoken.

Tenten's going to be pissed beyond words when she realises. He think as he glances sideward to catch his cousin's watery eyes, she knows nothing else can be done. In fact, dying might be a better fate to face than Tenten's rage and the wrathful bo-staff she would be wielding when she finds out, he thinks sardonically.

He's grateful, he realises that he's had the freedom to choose to die to protect his friends and his village. He's grateful, he think selfishly, that he won't have to see Tenten die, impaled because he has taken this burden rather than allowing her, or Hinata, or Naruto to die.

He's grateful he could die in their place, so that they could live. He can't see Tenten, he knows that she's around somewhere in this battlefield alive. Because Tenten is strong like that and has the will of fire.

'You hold… more than one life in your hands.'

He whispers to Naruto as he thinks of Hinata, of his clan, his family, his team, Tenten

He thinks of what could've been and doesn't want to leave her behind. But then it'd be exactly the opposite of what he wanted if he took her along with him now.

He knows her feelings. Knows them as well as his own and curses all the times where he thought there'd be more time, where there'd be more tomorrows. For a shinobi, he was utterly pathetic when it came to her. He knows that this will hurt her. And he's never wanted to hurt her, only protect her because she was important to him.

Lee will look after her, he tells himself as he thinks of her chocolate eyes and her chestnut locks as his vision darkens and he feels the cursed seal on his forehead warm. Lee and Gai-sensei will look after her and Tenten will recover. Tenten would be alright.

Because Tenten wasn't weak. She'd never been weak.

Author's Note:

The end... or is it?