Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. But, honestly, what sort of legal action would you really take if I did not include that one little sentence?

"Whaaat time is it?" a groggy voice grunted aloud to no one.

Tenten rubbed her tired eyes before trying to stand and get up. This proved to be a bad idea as the next thing the young kunoichi saw was the spinning room and hard wood floor of her bedroom.

"Oww!"

She leaned against the edge of her bed with her lean, athletic legs sprawled out, tangled in her sheets, rubbing the spot on her head that had just collided with ground.

A wave of dizziness hit her as she started to stand up, kicking the lilac sheets from between her feet, and quickly stumbling out into the hall towards the bathroom.

Icy water splashed against her face as she leaned against the bathroom counter for support. Almost immediately the lightheaded feeling disappeared.

"Ah, that's better, what was that about though?' she wondered, as she turned the squeaky shower handle and waited for the water to heat up, then she remembered last night.

Neji, Tenten, and Lee were sitting at a booth in a smoky bar.

"Tenten, you look—"

"What? Do I look like I'm devising the most painful way I can stab a thousand poisoned kunai into Kakashi-sensei, because if so you are completely spot on,"

"Actually, I was going to say you look thirsty, do you want me to get you some water?"

"That bastard picked this nasty place saying it was Gai-sensei's "favorite" and now he's late, that bas—"

"I'll go get you that water,"

Lee scurried off to find something to pacify his fuming teammate and left Neji to hear her continuing rants in the dark, smoky bar.

Kakashi appeared a few moments later, he didn't even get to voice one of his famous, and extremely false, excuses because Tenten immediately started informing him of her detailed plans regarding his untimely demise after that night.

"—and I'll make sure there's no evidence linking it back to me,"

"Who else would kill a man with a thousand kunai? It would be difficult not to link it back to you,"

Tenten whipped her head around towards Neji, "That is irrelevant, I'll store his body in a scroll or something, and if you like I could very well include you in this plan, too?"

"No thank you,"

"Are you sure? I could definitely fit two bodies in my scroll."

Tenten was interrupted by a sultry voice directed towards Kakashi, "What can I get you tonight, darl?"

"I'll have—" the silver haired man started.

"Gai-sensei's not even here yet! It's his birthday celebration; you will not be having anything until he gets here!"

"—my usual"

"For you two?"

Tenten's jaw dropped, and she balled her fists, she did not like to be ignored.

"I'm going to go make sure Lee has not gotten into any trouble," she said getting up and shooting a glare towards Kakashi.

The bun haired kunoichi weaved her way through the mass of people in their revealing outfits, noticing the glean of the sweat glistening on their exposed skin as they got wasted for the night.

"At least Lee's easy to spot, he's the only guy dressed in a green spandex suit, and he's the only one that's sober," she muttered to herself as she went towards the familiar green sight.

As she got closer she noticed he wasn't alone, he was standing with his back against the wall with a, well, rather promiscuous looking woman, who seemed to be trying to get him to "enjoy" the night.

The woman was holding a bottle of sake, looking like she was about to pour it into his mouth. Lee was waving his arms and yelling that he absolutely could not drink sake, but she paid him no mind. Tenten could tell Lee was at loss, he didn't want to physically injure the woman, but drinking even a sip of alcohol made him loose control, and it looked like half the bottle was going to be down poor Lee's throat within the next three seconds.

Tenten just managed to jump in between Lee and the woman. However, unfortunately for her, the bottle, and its full contents ended up inside her mouth.

Choking as the alcoholic liquid ran down her throat she grabbed Lee's hand and dragged him away from the woman, who was drunk and huffed about wasting her sake on someone "boring".

"Tenten, maybe you should sit down?" Lee offered as a quickly intoxicated Tenten stumbled as she tried to navigate the thick crowd.

"I'm fine, let's just get back to the table,"

Tenten was certainly not fine, she was in every sense of the term a light weight and by the time she and Lee got back to the table she was almost passed out and had to have an arm around his shoulder for support just to walk over.

The pair was greeted with three curious and concerned stares when they appeared. Gai had arrived and with a questioning look towards a nearly unconscious Tenten, said, "What happened?"

Lee walked a drunken Tenten back to her house after explaining what exactly occurred to the three jounin. Tenten did manage to slur something meant to sound like "Happy Birthday, Guy-sensei."

"I had better get working on that plan," she chuckled to herself, realizing she was just a teensy bit hung over as she hopped into the steamy shower.

Then she saw the time. It was eleven-thirty in the morning. She usually got up around six-thirty.

"Shit, I really over slept. Lee and Neji are going to kill me for missing our usual training session,"

She threw on a pair of shorts and a tee-shirt and attempted to put her hair into her usually neat buns as she raced down the stairs to her kitchen, they ended up being quite messy.

"Mom, why didn't you wake me up!?" she shouted at her mother, who was preparing lunch.

"You seemed tired lately so I thought I would let you sleep," she said sweetly smiling at her only child, unfazed by Tenten's rude tone.

The young kunoichi stomped out the door, "Ugh, I'm going to try to find Lee and Neji to explain why I missed practice,"

"You should really eat something before you go, you look a little pale, honey" was the last thing Tenten heard as she headed towards the training fields.

Before she got very far she heard a voice calling her name, it was Izumo Kamizuki, her neighbor and a family friend.

"Hey! Tenten-chan, Tsunade-sama is looking for you, I think she has a mission for you and team Guy. 'Tsunade is going to be pissed that I'm late. This is entirely your fault mother…'

"Thanks, Izumo, I'll head right over,"

As Tenten's retreating figure headed toward the Hokage Mansion, Izumo raised an eyebrow at the younger girl's disheveled appearance, which was rather uncommon for her. Especially, since Izumo who had known her since childhood, being that their families live next door to one another, had never seen her so discomposed.

Tenten, seventeen and pretty content with her life, she had two parents who loved and cared for her and Team Guy, who even with all their antics, she loved like family. She may not have fulfilled her earlier goal of becoming just like Tsunade, but she continues to strive for her new goal, to be an amazing kunoichi.

She arrived and hastily knocked on the door of Hokage's office.

A resounding, "Enter!" was the only response

She scurried over to where she saw the other members of Team Guy were standing, which included the ever youthful Guy-sensei, his mini me, Rock Lee, and Neji Hyuuga. Shizune was in the background looking, rather flustered, as usual.

"Well, now that everyone has finally arrived, I can fully brief you on your next mission," said Tsunade, stressing the "everyone" part and staring down Tenten, she appeared to be in a bad mood. Tenten's cheeks burned with embarrassment at the dig from the Hokage and she lowered her head to look at the floor. 'Looks like Shizune has been restraining Tsunade from indulging in her beloved stock pile of sake.'

"You will be escorting a relative of the Daimyo to the Tea Country, she is getting married there and the Daimyo has ordered an escort due to her royal lineage."

"Shizune!"

"Hai"

"Give them the mission documents and then see them out,"

"Hai, Tsunade-sama"

"Okay, my youthful comrades, meet at the front gate in an hour" said Guy in his usual intense voice with that particular delighted tone reserved for when the word "youth" is even vaguely mentioned.

"Hai, Sensei!" responded Lee, immediately, in a disturbingly similar voice.

Neji just nodded his assent and started off in another direction.

Tenten was left standing there shaking her head, as Guy and Lee rambled about how they were going to do their standard youthful, pre mission warm up, composed of a lowly four hundred push ups and a run around all of Konoha in three minutes flat.

She headed home to prepare herself for the long mission. It would take about a week and a half to travel on foot to the Land of Tea. The girl they were escorting was an easy target for attackers who would ransom the Daimyo in exchange for her life or kill her to scare him, so they had to travel through the forest to keep the woman safe and away from too many onlookers.

'This was not exactly the exciting mission I was hoping for,' she internally groaned, as she stuffed her backpack with essentials for the mission. She had just recently stopped by the supply store so her scrolls were full of a multitude of weapons, which she was revered for her great skill. She was the girl never known to miss her target.

Tenten grabbed something to eat from the kitchen, where her mother stood, a familiar red and white checked apron around her waist, as she headed out. "Bye, Mom, I'm off on a mission and I should be back in a few weeks or so, love you"

"Bye honey, be careful," responded her mother, Hanako, pulling her into a motherly hug that Tenten was trying to squirm out of in a very teenager like way.

Tenten ran out of the house with a large scroll attached to her back and a backpack in tow. Her dark brown hair was in its usual twin buns and she wore a white blouse with red trim and red hakama-like pants. Her forehead protector was secured around her forehead and her bangs were hanging over it. She was ready for this mission, no matter how boring it would probably end up being.

This time Tenten made a point of being the first member of Team Guy to arrive at the meeting place. She was about ten minutes early. She was lazily leaning against the gate, swinging a kunai around her finger when Neji walked over and stood next to her. His sudden arrival drew her out of her thoughts and she dropped the kunai.

"Tenten, why were you late this morning?" he asked in his usual somewhat serious tone.

"Oh, hi Neji, you startled me," she explained as she bent down to pick up the fallen weapon, "And I was so late because I overslept, possibly because of the events of—er, last night, and my wonderful mother decided not to wake me up, out of 'motherly' concern."

Before Neji could respond, a new voice came into the mix.

"I thought you were supposed to be highly skilled ninja, my uncle is the daimyo of the Land of Fire, demanded that I be guarded by expert ninja" complained an annoying voice, "You just dropped your own kuno that you were just lazily swinging around"

"Oh, I'm sor-" started Tenten

"But, you—you look promising," she cooed looking over Neji and batting her eyelashes at him, and in the process cutting off Tenten who was attempting to apologize for upsetting her and explain that she was indeed competent.

"And it's a kunai not a kuno, baka" muttered Tenten.

The new girl barely noticed, only slightly stopping to shoot a quick icy glare, as she was too busy coming onto a very uninterested Neji Hyuuga.

Tenten immediately felt better after being slighted by the rude girl, when she saw the girls eyes widen at the two figures who were running full speed toward them; two very unforgettable figures, clad in green spandex.

"Tho—those aren't the other two assigned to guard me, are they?" she stammered her wide eyes still glued to the approaching figures of Guy and Lee.

"Actually, they are" said Neji in his calm voice but he was looking Tenten's way and she could see the pleasure he had at taking this girl down a notch shown in his eyes, the same feeling was displayed by the huge smirk on Tenten's face and the laughter that she just couldn't seem to suppress.

"I win again Lee, but if you keep practicing and trying you will one day beat me," said Guy who had apparently just won their race.

"Hai, Sensei, of course the power of my youth will drive me" responded Lee who was not at all down after losing the race, after hearing advice from his idol, Guy.

"Hello, young flower of youth, you must be Masayuki-sama" said Guy in his passionate tone.

Lee added with almost equal passion, "We swear to protect you from any outside threat as expert ninja!"

Tenten was still recovering from her earlier laughing fit, Neji tried his best to ignore them, and Masayuki looked like she was ready to run and face the kidnappers by herself rather than deal with the intensity of Konoha's green spandex duo.

"So, I see you have already met Neji and Tenten."

Masayuki, attempting to recover from her initial shock started to babble about her high breeding and relation to the daimyo. Tenten tuned this out and looked over the obnoxious girl in front of her. She looked every bit like the niece of a daimyo. She was wearing a very expensive looking silky, pink kimono with a white obi that tied in a giant bow at her back. She had long blonde hair that went down her back and bangs that framed her face.

In the background Tenten could see the unlucky person who was tasked with being Masayuki's escort around Konoha. The poor guy looked terrified primarily of his bossy charge and then of Guy and Lee. 'Now the lucky bastard gets to leave her behind with us.'

'This is going to be a very long mission,' was the only thing going through Tenten's head as the team departed from Konoha in the direction of the Land of Tea.

Note:

Hi so this is the first thing that I've written in a while. I took down my other writing cos I dunno I didn't think they were really up to par anymore. This is really the first serious thing I've written. What do you think of it? I don't think I did a good job on Lee, or Guy, or Neji, or… Am I a complete failure?