Tenten grimaced and leaned against the wall of a store selling civilian luggage with a ninja twist: bigger on the inside. It was good to see businesses like that taking off – she could definitely see the appeal of space management stuff like that – obviously she did, with how she'd spent even more on scrolls than she had on her myriad weapons. She was actually happy to see the market expanding; just might mean cheaper stuff for her later. Storage seals were popular with civilians since even they could use them if they were willing to practice and bleed a little. And really, which ninja village resident couldn't stomach at least a bit of that? A lot of ninja didn't realize it, but ninja village civilians were pretty tough.

Growing up in the Konoha shopping arcade, space/time seals had always seemed so magical. She'd wanted to learn how to do that long before she'd ever thrown a kunai.

Taking the majority of her weight off her feet helped relieve her throbbing back. She wasn't averse to pain – couldn't be with the team she was on – but that didn't mean she liked it. For the last year and change she'd upgraded her daily workouts from 'Academy standard' to 'the Maito Gai special' and frankly had no idea what to do with being told to take it easy and let the damage from her exam match heal. So she'd maybe overdone it on the walking.

Her chakra had long since recovered, and she was at that weird point that she'd come to occasionally in her training where the flesh was quite literally not keeping up with her ninja magic.

Even though it was just a thought in her head, she still reflexively looked around to make sure her teacher wasn't there with a speech ready about Youth and Willpower and Not Doubting Training For Training Will Never Betray You and other Capital Letter Topics.

It was actually easier on her to pull herself along using the kawarimi substitution jutsu than to walk across the street. Of course, the shop owners tended to get annoyed if you replaced yourself with their shop signs or ornaments just to make travel easier on yourself. And they knew where she lived. She could clean up after herself by attaching ninja wire during the switch and pulling it along afterwards – a bit like fishing, really – but people still complained.

There was just no pleasing some people, really.

Part of it was the lack of her usual workout. Her doctor had thrown around lines like 'Be grateful it's only that' and 'You're lucky you're not actually paralyzed' with a strong undertone of 'What is wrong with you.' Falling twenty feet onto a metal pole hadn't done her back any favors, who would have guessed. The forced inactivity was driving her a little crazy, hence her decision to walk all over the village for the last three hours. And part of it was that she was feeling a little left behind. Which was stupid. Rock Lee was worse off than her, stuck in the hospital with dim prospects, and he was still a font of positivity driving the nurses crazy. And she was moping around because she was forced to stay away from roof hopping or taijutsu practice? Even in her head that sounded awful.

At the core, her problem was Temari.

Which sounded bitter, and wasn't exactly right, but whatever. Tenten had trained and practiced and bettered herself until she was the best young female genin in the entire village and she'd done it without a clan and really, without a single jutsu. She did have Gai-sensei, though. Gai-sensei had told her that she could do it, and she'd believed it, lived it. Maybe she wasn't as crazy about it as Lee but she'd devoted herself to practicing those basics until they shone like diamond.

And then Temari had taken 5 minutes out of her day and taught a masterclass in how awesome jutsu could be. And how small a fish 'best young female genin in the Leaf' apparently was.

Wind was the rarest chakra nature in Konoha, so she hadn't spent much time practicing against it. She'd always thought, well, they might be able to set up a gust to block her weapons, but they were burning chakra and she wasn't. She'd never met a fuuton-user she couldn't outlast before, nor one that could so thoroughly overpowered her. Every weapon and trick in Tenten's arsenal had been literally useless. Her whole style had been useless.

It caused a creeping doubt to drag at her. How many other ninja were out there, that could negate every move she had? Genin could do it, however unusually strong that group from Sand was. She didn't want to stop at genin; how many hundreds of higher class ninja could ignore her weapons? What was the point of having honed her throwing accuracy to perfection if it could just be ignored like that?

The right thing would probably be to go to Gai-sensei with those doubts, but… would he have an answer? There always seemed to be an excuse that stopped her before she said a word; he had his hands full with Lee, he had a student in the exam finals, she shouldn't bother him...

Which was silly. Gai-sensei loved to be bothered by people. It was nothing to see him after training helping old ladies across streets and doing grocery runs for people. Which probably meant she was scared to ask him. That she didn't trust him to have an answer for her.

Argh! She ran a hand through her butt-length brown hair, out of its usual buns. Brooding so wasn't her. She took her job as the temperate balance between Lee's zaniness and Neji's cool moodiness seriously!

Well, semi-seriously. She was the only one who would drag Lee out to eat instead of training late into the night, or jolly Neji out of a funk in a way that didn't make the Hyuuga punch Lee in the face. Gai-sensei wasn't one to try and put the breaks to anything less serious than Lee with a cup of sake… which was a distressingly high bar for something to qualify as serious, when she stopped to think about it.

Given Gai's habit of teaching people dangerous techniques like Primary Lotus, she was starting to wonder about that caveat too.

Maybe a dip in the hot springs would perk her up. The medicinal benefits were marginal, but her doctor had recommended it to loosen the muscles. And she kind of loved baths anyway so it worked out well.

"... You're going to have to explain that to me again," Tenten said slowly.

"Well, y'know, it all makes sense if you think about it for a second," Naruto said, scratching his head.

Tenten inched deeper in the water. "Do tell."

"Well, I'm learning water walking, right? And the pervert sage said hot springs were a good way to learn…"

Pervert sage? Tenten shook her head.

"I'm with you so far."

Gai-sensei had them practice on a river for much the same reason. The number of times they'd had to fish Lee out of the water downstream had been staggering.

"And he spends a lot of time he should be training me watching the girls' onsen! So I wanted him to pay attention to me, and..."

Tenten inched lower, so that only her head was sticking out of the water. It wasn't a perfect solution since the water was, well, water, but it made her feel better.

"But it's okay, because I was a girl at the time!" Naruto hastened to reassure her.

He had, in fact, been a girl in an eye-searing orange bikini. Until he'd lost control of the jutsu, fallen into the hot water with barely a splash, and transformed back into the boy in swim trunks that now stood chest-deep in the water before her. So now it was just the two of them sharing a hot springs with an older woman that Tenten assumed was a civilian, on the grounds that she was studiously ignoring the 'ninja magic' going on at the other end of the pool.

"So you guys do this… regularly?" she asked dubiously. Maybe she'd stop coming by the public onsen after training so often.

"What, the girl thing? Yeah, I gotta be a girl while the pervert sage is training me. It's not so bad."

That sounded … creepy. She guessed even perverts who snuck into the ladies' baths had their own circumstances.

"Hey, Naruto, right? Let's get out of the water, but," She pointed to the side. "Look over there, okay?"

Naruto glanced that way. "What? It's just a wall."

"Right. Keep looking for a minute."

"There's nothing there!"

He started to turn back, only for Tenten to grip his head and forcefully turn him back.

"Keep looking, or I'll get mad," she insisted. Then she went back to toweling off as quickly as she could.

"Uh, okay. So I'm just gonna… keep staring at the wall?"

The civilian had closed her eyes and leaned back against the rocks, like she was embarrassed for them or something.

Her sleeveless shirt was easy to slip into, but the moisture on her legs were making her pants hard to put on. She had to hop on one foot and drag them up her legs one at a time, causing her to quietly hiss at a shooting pain. The hot water had loosened her muscles a little but she'd definitely had to cut her bath short because of this idiot.

"Hey nee-chan, you okay? You sound kinda– oops," Naruto's concerned comment was cut off halfway as he turned around to see her doing up her pants, breasts on full display.

"Well, they.. look.. nice?" Naruto offered lamely, cheeks a little red.

Spending her days with Gai and Lee had done a lot to inure her to embarrassment, but this was a bit much. Naruto's face was introduced to the wall with a palm strike, Tenten freezing in place with her hand mushing his cheek to the cheap bamboo divider as her muscles locked up on her.

"Owwww…" she whimpered quietly.

"'Ou 'on' 'oun' 'o 'goo, nee-'an," Naruto mumbled into her palm.

"Just… just be quiet for a second," she whimpered, waiting for the pain to die down. She bowed her head apologetically as the probably-civilian hurried for the changing room.

"'Ow 'oo you 'ow me 'yway?" Naruto wanted to know.

"How could I not?" she asked rhetorically, slowly easing back an inch at a time. "You were kind of noticeable during the first exam."

"You were in the chuunin exam, nee-chan?" Naruto said excitedly, straining against her restraining hand like an excitable puppy.

"Tenten, I'm Tenten," she groaned, finally righting herself. She took a few deep breaths before she tried to shimmy back into her shirt with a minimum of pain. "And face the wall again, please."

"Uh, right," he agreed. "Tenten, huh? Do I know… oh yeah, wait, you're her? Wow your hair is crazy," he added admiringly.

"Sure, that's me," she said, annoyed, flicking her wet hair out of her shirt and letting it waterfall down her back with a moist, vaguely unpleasant slap. ...Her shirt and pants were both gonna be wet and clingy, too. Ugh.

"Right! So, I'm just gonna get back to training, okay?" Naruto said, forming the seal for his technique again. With a pop and a puff of smoke, he'd resumed the shape of the blonde in the bikini. He tensed to leap back on top of the hot spring again, only to get held in place by Tenten's grip on his upper arm. Thankfully between her upper body strength and that she'd caught him before he put all his weight behind the motion, she didn't get her back re-jarred for her trouble. Silver lining.

This boy was giving her such a headache.

"How about not?" she suggested. "Practicing on moving water is at least as hard, and isn't going to end up with you getting beaten up by a bunch of outraged girls."

"I guess so," Naruto said, looking like he thought he was doing her a big favor.

She sighed. "Let's just… let's just go."

"Hey brat!" a tall, solidly built man with the head of white hair met up with them shortly after they left. "It looks like you made a friend."

The eyebrow waggle and facial gesticulations on the word 'friend' were vaguely disgusting.

But… holy crap. That was...

"I'm kind of amazed that worked, I was sure you were going to get– uh?" Jiraiya was briefly thrown off his game when the pretty girl the brat had come out with grabbed Naruto around the neck in a headlock and spun them both around, putting their heads together with their backs to the sannin.

"What 'pervert sage', that's Jiraiya-sama!" she hissed into his ear like a drawn kunai.

"Yyyyeah? That's his name," Naruto said, confused.

Tenten squinched her eyes shut. Jiraiya; Toad Sage, Sannin, hero of the Third War. Student of the Third Hokage, and teacher of the Fourth, and probably a dozen titles besides! There were all kinds of stories about what Jiraiya and Tsunade were up to when they'd been gone for so long. Spying, sabotage, holding back some terrible threat alone… there was no way to sort the outlandish from the ridiculous, not when it came to a Sannin. That was Jiraiya. Also – apparently – a pervert who liked looking at naked ladies without their permission. Well. That was… that was fine. He was still a legitimate hero and icon of how powerful a ninja can become! He was just... a little greasier than she'd expected.

Right. She nodded.

She spun around and bowed, hands properly placed in front of her. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Jiraiya-sama."

Then she froze in pain again, head down. Why did she keep doing this to herself?

"Always happy to meet pretty girls," the sannin chortled. "See, brat? That's the kind of respect you should give to someone of my station! Oh, but you don't need to show that much respect, kid, I'm not really that formal of a guy."

He seemed to have taken her over-long bow for respect, rather than being half-crippled. Good.

"Right," she whimpered, forcing herself upright again after she smoothed out her expression. She didn't want him thinking a stray grimace was caused by disgust. It was, a little bit, but he was still the Toad Sage! She certainly respected him enough to not show it.

"Tenten," Naruto looked at her oddly, like she was disappointing him. "Do you like his pervy books or something?"

"Jiraiya writes books?!" Tenten asked, side-tracked. "Why haven't I heard about– wait, you said 'pervy books'?"

"I am indeed a writer!" Jiraiya said proudly, fishing around in his jacket and emerging with an orange cover titled 'Make-out Make-out Paradise'.

"Oh." Right, if a Sannin had written a book about sealing techniques or jutsu or something, of course she would have heard about it. Jiraiya, instead, appeared to spend his off-time writing smut.

"Why do you look disappointed, getting to meet your idol?!" Jiraiya cried.

"It's nothing," she demurred, waving a hand to dismiss the troublesome topic. She sighed deeply, burying the disappointment. "So you're actually training this guy, Jiraiya-sama?"

"Yeah, more or less," Jiraiya nodded in a 'pity me' kind of way. "His talent's not bad even if there's nothing between his ears except shouting."

Tenten fidgeted. "Would you–"

"Nah," Jiraiya said winningly.

She started to get annoyed, "I just wanted to–"

"Nope! I ended up training this knucklehead because I'm so magnanimous, but I'm not going to have a whole train of brats following me around like goldfish poop."

"Would you at least let me f–"

"Why should I?"

So annoying.

She grabbed Naruto, who was longingly edging towards the river to get his training started again. "What do you have on him?" she asked him quietly.

Naruto's sensei was Gai-sensei's rival Kakashi, who had been the student of the Fourth, who had been Jiraiya's student. He could have called in favors, or given how many vices Jiraiya apparently had, maybe…

"Have on...?" Naruto looked at her in blank incomprehension.

...Did he seriously just luck into training with Jiraiya the Sannin? No, that was stupid. He probably just didn't know. Ninja didn't do things for no reason.

Well. Gai-sensei didn't raise quitters.

A grin split her lips. She'd come into some free time lately… what better way to spend it than by stalking– following, she meant following, a legend? She even had her very own bright orange canary to help point her in the right direction. Sannin or no, that sounded doable.

"No problem, haha, sorry for bothering you," she said aloud. "I'll just be on my way then!"

Jiraiya looked at her suspiciously, but waved her off.

"Bye nee-chan," Naruto said absently, clearly thinking about something else. "I mean, Tenten!"

She held up a hand in farewell, unsure if she should be happy Naruto finally seemed to remember her name or not. Since she was planning on seeing more of Naruto mostly just to get at the S-class ninja puttering around him, it would be good to be on friendly terms with the orange ninja. It wasn't exploitation, it was just being friendly! She wasn't just rationalizing!

"Come find me in the shopping arcade," she suggested. "I'll treat you to lunch."

And pick your brain about Jiraiya, she didn't say.

"Wow, really?! You're the best!"

He really was embarrassingly simple.

"I'll be seeing you guys again," she informed them.

"Did that sound ominous to you, brat?" Jiraiya asked Naruto.

"What? It sounds great!" he replied.