(Chapter 1 – Secret Keeper)

"Tenten!" a female's voice said, "Get out of the train now!"

"But Mother, I can't leave without you!"

"Here, I'll entrust you these papers." The woman said to her only child, Tenten, "You can't attend your operation today, I'm sorry, my child. But right now, in spite of your illness, you have to save your life. Me and your father are very proud of you."

"Mother…" Tenten cried, "What's going to happen to you? To Father?"

"Tenten, get out of the train and head back to Konoha now, hurry!" a man said, alongside of the woman.

The woman hugged Tenten and pushed her away, "Tenten, go!"

Tenten obeyed and as she got away from the immobile train, as soon as she got away in a fair distance, the train exploded.

"MOTHER, FATHER!"

…

Tenten woke up all of a sudden. It was just a dream, but it was true… Tenten was now a jounin, she lives alone in her mansion.

"Is there a problem, Madame?" her nanny, Anya asked.

"N-none." Tenten said, wiping off the sweat from her forehead with the back of her hands, "J-just a n-nightmare. Please, I'm fine thank you, Anya."

"Go back to sleep, Madame." Anya said, closing Tenten's bedroom door.

It was just a nightmare; it's true. But it was also an inevitable experience, because that nightmare has been repeating after the real thing.

Tenten was a daughter of a rich ninja couple who bought a mansion. Her parents hired Anya as Tenten's nanny since she was just an infant. But a tragic thing happened to Tenten when she reached 5.

Before going to a ninja kindergarten, Tenten has to undergo an operation.

Here's the whole story:

When Tenten turned 5, she and her parents went to a funfair. After the circus show, her parents didn't notice she was already missing. So, they searched all over the place and found her in an isolated part of the funfair.

She was lying on a jutsu seal drawn on the sand. Afterwards, she choked out blood and was turning pale. The ninjas from the Sound kidnapped her and cursed her with such an incurable disease.

Her parents tried to fight off the Sound ninjas but they got away quickly. Her parents took her to the Tsunade but she said, only one person can cure her out of such a jutsu – the oldest advisor of the leader of the Sand.

So, they took a train to go to the village of the Sand. But then, while on the go, the train operator was killed by another Sound ninja. Afterwards, the train stopped and the ninja planted a bomb in one of the train's compartments.

Hopeless, Tenten's parents gave her the family's important documents and told her that she has to go back to Konoha, and that her treatment will be cancelled.

Tenten got away, but that's when the train exploded. When she finished kindergarten, she was very thrifty about money; even if her parents left her a lot of money, still, she wants to make sure she won't use them for useless things. And before she found her teammates and her sensei, she discovered that her mother's precious black pearl was stolen by a ninja. That black pearl was handed down in her mother's family generation after generation; it was enchanted, perhaps, that's why the Sound ninja cursed Tenten, and detonated the train she was on.

No one in Konoha knew about Tenten's tragic past, not even her teammates, her sensei, the jounins and everyone else in Konoha – the only people who knew about her dreadful experience were Anya, the Hokages and the Tsunade.

Tenten didn't mind, although her curse was getting worse as she grows, she didn't mind, because she wanted a happy life. But the only times she can be happy was being with her teammates.

"I'm going, Anya!" Tenten said, leaving the mansion – there was a team practice today.

"Take care, Madame!" Anya bade.

"You, too! Make sure you lock the doors! Don't worry, I have a key to the house!"

When she arrived in the venue…

"You're quite disturbing me." A cold voice said – Neji.

Neji was practicing his skills as always. In a team practice or meeting, he was always first, then Tenten, then Gai, and then, Lee…

"Am I?" Tenten asked, raising an eyebrow, "Sorry to bother you."

She walked out of the place but then; a kunai was hurled on the ground in front of her.

"Are you trying to kill me!" Tenten asked Neji who was approaching her.

"C'mon, you're not leaving for real, are you?"

"What if I did?" she said, "Who would give a damn?"

"I will." Neji replied, "Don't go. I was just irritated because of that Uchiha."

"What's up?" she asked.

"He's boasting about his soon marriage to Haruno. Telling me that he's much of a man because he's getting married to HER. And I don't have a GIRLFRIEND."

Tenten laughed, "That's it? It's no big deal!"

Neji's eyebrows furrowed, "I LIKED SAKURA, OKAY! I WOULD DO ANYTHING FOR HER!"

Tenten frowned a bit; it crushed her heart. She liked Neji and their friendship grew stronger quite a while when they became teammates.

"H-hey!" she forcibly smiled, "T-there are other girls around you!"

"Not like her." Neji answered, "She is unique above the others."

Tenten comforted, "You'll get through this, I know."

"Uchiha knows that I liked his fiancée." Neji replied, blushing, "But…"

"Take it easy!" she told him, "I'm pretty sure that you won't grow old without a wife!"

Neji placed his hand over her mouth, looked away from her and said; "Don't tell this to anyone, okay?"

She gently removed his hand from her mouth and giggled, "I promise!"

"PROMISE ME!" he seriously said, holding her hand tight.

She stared at his and her hand together and said, "You got my word. I'll keep your secret and I promise you that."

Just then, Lee appeared and the two parted their hands.

"Holding hands?" Lee teased.

"No." Neji answered, "Shut up, thick-eyebrows."

"We were just arm wrestling, pervert!" Tenten yelled.

Neji smirked because of her believable excuse, "You heard her, monkey."