#tenino

Ino’s lips are pursed, and it’s clear she’s unhappy with the situation. Tenten can’t really blame her. 

She had cut off Team Gai in the process of regrouping after their run-in with Akatsuki. Snatched Tenten up right underneath her teacher’s nose. Even Neji hadn’t seen the pretty black adder until it was curving up Tenten’s exposed calf. She had gone still and Neji had, too, so had all of them. Snakes that small and dark were nothing but dangerous. One bite would kill her. The snake told them to walk away, and they did. They’d send someone for her as soon as the situation in Suna was secured; every Konoha shinobi knew one of Orochimaru’s snakes when they saw one. 

But the adder wasn’t Orochimaru’s. He had little patience for the ones small enough to fit in his hand. He preferred the ones large enough to swallow a man whole. But Ino? Where her peacock summons were hideously flashy, her snakes were neutral colored and innocuous. 

“Still,” Ino says, and there’s something eerily like tenderness when she brushes her fingertips against the curve of Tenten’s jaw, where a yellowing training bruise rests. “I want it to be believable. I don’t want to hurt you more than I have to.”

Tenten lifts an eyebrow, tests the strength of her bonds. She knows she could break out of them if she wanted to, knows Ino wouldn’t stop her. She’s only bound so she’ll have rope burn to show her superiors. 

“I’m alright,” she insists, leaning into Ino’s touch. “I know what I’m doing this for.”

Ino’s pupil-less eyes narrow. Danzou had already sniffed around Tenten when she was young and newly orphaned, a scion of Uzushio and Konoha with all the coloring of Fire Country. He had ignored her in favor of other children until her experiments with fuinjutsu gave rise to her Twin Dragon scrolls. As she progressed, his eye on her grew more focused. 

The orphan that Nonō had refused to hand over to Danzou had been Tenten at one point in time. He had demanded more than one. Tenten can clearly remember the day Kabuto stuck out his chin and decided he would go, if only to protect the rest of them. 

Kabuto had disappeared and so had Danzou. Then Tenten saw a familiar face at the Chuunin Exams, and her world turned over itself. 

“You know you don’t owe me anything,” Ino says, voice light. 

Tenten snorts. 

“I’m not doing it for you,” she replies. “I’m doing it for him.”

Kabuto had healed her scrapes as a kid. Had taught her finer control when she was teaching herself calligraphy from library books that older kids had managed to steal. And now he was so caught up, so twisted and turned inside of ROOT that Tenten couldn’t make heads or tails of him. 

Kabuto may have planted the suggestion, but Tenten was her own person. And she knew that the only person that could help her get her brother out of the mess he had buried himself in was Ino. 

Yamanaka were good with information. Orphans were good at keeping their heads down. Danzou didn’t usually take children old enough to think for themselves, but Tenten was a rare exception. All the more interesting for being kidnapped by Ino. The war hawk would want to know if she had seen Orochimaru. If she had seen Kabuto. If she had gleaned anything from the lost Yamanaka heir. 

“I know.”

Ino’s voice is a whisper. Tenten sighs. Of course she understands. She’s doing all of this for her own brother, too. 

Tenten turns and presses a light kiss to the curve of Ino’s hand. It makes her gaze soften just a touch. 

“Let one of your snakes try her milk teeth on me,” Tenten says. The impressions they’d leave would be damning. “Ruffle up my memories a little. Knock me around.”

Ino lifts an eyebrow, but she brushes her finger across Tenten’s cheekbone again before retracting her hand. She cracks her gloved knuckles, and Tenten can hear a gentle chorus of apologies from where Ino’s adders and asps and vipers gather at her ankles. 

“Be careful what you ask for,” Ino says, voice low and grim, even as she raises her fist to one of the last people on this planet that she loves. She needs a plant on the inside, and Tenten needs eyes on Kabuto. It would be a good trade even if they hadn’t had this something between them. “I wouldn’t want you messing up your hair.”

Leaves flurried around her as she darted through the trees,each powerful step pushing her several feet ahead, but, even though she’d beenrunning at almost full-speed for a few minutes now, she wasn’t at all short ofbreath.

She glanced back over her shoulder, sharp eyes spotting thethree distant figures trailing far behind her. Frowning, she stumbled on hernext step, letting her weight carry her into a forward roll – not stopping herdead, but slowing her as she rebalanced and found her rhythm once more – onelast glance back confirmed that her pursuers had taken advantage of it and madeup some of the distance.

The chase was unbelievably dull, the hardest part so far hadbeen not completely outpacing them,but, unfortunately, she couldn’t let them out of her sight and she couldn’tjust turn around and beat the living daylights out of them either.

She lazily threw a kunai back – not even bothering to look,she didn’t want to accidentally hitthem after all – letting it slice a fine line into a tree trunk as she passed.

There were now four such gashes decorating it, so she wasjust about to start her fifth lap.

How much longer was this going to last? She couldn’t evenclaim it was good training because Gai-sensei going easy on them – not that theman knew what ‘going easy’ even meant – was more intense than this.

Her dark eyes skittered to the right, hoping that maybeshe’d catch a glimpse of the enemy stronghold-

Ah.

Tenten smirked briefly, perfect.

One last glace back, she slowed her steps a little, justenough that they were within fifteen feet of her, before she charged forwards,directly into a thick tree trunk. One foot pressed into it, she launchedherself up, letting her momentum and chakra-coated feet carry her almosthalfway up, before making a neat one-eighty-degree spin and pulling a tinyscroll out of her pack in a single, fluid movement.

They hadn’t even managed to adjust for the suddenverticality of their chase when she let loose a wide net, iron weights slamminginto the soil with a dull thud, one had just managed to escape it, but hedidn’t escape the green-glowing hand that gently tapped at the back of hisneck.

Grinning wide, Tenten let herself slide back down to solidground, watching her partner as she methodically performed the same jutsu tothe six ninja still struggling with iron-strong wire.

Only when every man and woman was unconscious did Inofinally turn to look at her. “Tenten, what the hell took you so long?!”

Her blue eyes were blazing and her fingers were tappingagainst crossed arms in the way that always signalled that she was ready tothrow down, but she didn’t have a single scratch on her and not one golden hairwas out of place. Tenten felt a tension she hadn’t even been aware of meltaway. “Hey, not my fault these guys are so slow, if I’d gone full speed theywould’ve lost me. Take it your side went well?”

Ino scoffed, opening her hip-pouch just enough for Tenten tocatch a glimpse of the scrolls stashed inside. “Of course it did!”

“Man, this mission was a joke,B-rank my ass…” she muttered, gathering up her net now that its occupantsweren’t going to struggle anymore; tutting at a few lightly frayed cords.

She squealed at the cold hand suddenly brushing against herarm, Ino grabbed it before she could instinctively jerk away, holding her stillas healing fingers sewed together a tiny cut that she hadn’t even noticedbefore now.

Ino didn’t look up at her, even when it was completely gone,only a light scar that would fade in a few days left. “You were supposed to becareful, idiot.”

“I was careful,they didn’t even touch me, I probably just ran into a sharp branch orsomething-”

“That’s not the point!” Ino snapped, head finally snappingup to look her in the eye, looking furious and dangerous and distressingly gorgeous. “You weren’tsupposed to get too far away, the plan was stay within two-thousand feet at alltimes, so I’d always be able to sense your location.”

She frowned at that, did she seriously think she needed tobe babied like this? “What’s the problem? It’s me, I was always gonna be fine, even if these guys weren’t useless.”

Hands clamped against shoulders and she was shaken lightlyas Ino spoke, “Not. The. Point!”

“I-” her words were stalled for a few seconds as she wasjerked back and forth a few more times, just to get Ino’s message across, but shewas eventually allowed to stand still; the hands stayed firmly in place however.“Wait… Ino, were you just worriedabout me?”

“Of course I was worried! Why wouldn’t I be worried?!”

She probably shouldn’t be laughing, Ino certainly didn’tlook like she appreciated it, but she just couldn’t help herself. “Oh, baby-”

Ino slapped a hand across her mouth. “Don’t ‘oh baby’ mewhen I’m trying to be mad at you!”

There was a brief struggle for control of her mouth –quickly won once she decided to just lick across her girlfriend’s palm,resulting in a frankly hilariousexpression that Tenten wished she had to opportunity to document – hershoulders still shaking the entire time, but she quickly managed to pull Inointo an awkward half-hug half-wrestle and snicker into her neck.

“Hey, c’mon, I’m safe, you know I can handle myself; we’veboth gone on way more dangerous missions than this.”

She could still feel a little resistance, but her girlfrienddid relent enough to wrap the arm that wasn’t trapped uncomfortably betweentheir bodies around her. “Yeah, but I’m not usually there for that, it’s different when I know you should be nearbybut I can’t feel you.”

Ah, shit.

Pulling back now that she knew Ino wasn’t going to try andrun – or punch her – she brushed a hand carefully through slightly messed blondelocks. “Ok, sorry, I didn’t really think of that, but you don’t need to keeptabs on me all the time, I mean if you were thinking about me then you wereprobably a little distracted from the mission, right? What if someone hadcaught you off-guard?”

Ino’s soft expression immediately dropped into one ofirritation.

She snickered, stopping her idle stroking to instead poke atthe crease between her brows. “Exactly! Look, you know how good I am and I knowhow good you are, let’s just both trust that we’ve always got each other’sbacks, huh?”

Her finger was slapped away. “Ugh, fine, but you’d better let me fuss over any injuries you get andscold you when it’s because you did something stupid!”

Tenten leaned forwards to press their grinning lips togetherbriefly. “Deal, now how about we sort out these goons before they wake up, hmm?I’m not about to play chase with a bunch of toddlers a second time.”