24 Month Long Break

Since Tenten didn't have any major injuries, she was back up an hour after her match with Temari and a few minutes after my match with Kankuro. She looked dejected when she saw me there, remembering how pitifully she had lost. But I didn't care about that, and I had two things clear in my mind.

To satisfy the first one, I hugged Tenten, leaving her shocked at the sudden action and at the fact that I had taken the initiative to show affection. The second thing...

"Ok, from now on you are actively going to train with me, and it's going to be hell for you"

*

Once the matches were over and those who passed to the Finals chosen, I had to come back home. The reason was the month long break between the Preliminaries and the Finals, something I had completely overlooked. Mom was very happy to see me back safely and, with her trying to pamper me like you would a baby, I could only smile wryly and surrender to her will. Karin, who was also there, laughed her heart out looking at my suffering.

The first day I took off to rest and spent it with mom, telling her about everything that happened. Of course I avoided the dangerous and more dark things, like how exactly I had beaten Kankuro up. She was fuming when I told her about Tenten, but it didn't take too much effort to appease her. Once she calmed down, the complete opposite happened and she began teasing me.

"Hoo? So my son was worried about his girlfriend?"

"Mom, she's not my girlfriend!" 'Yet'

With Karin soon joinin mom in the teasing, I just slumped my shoulders, already resigned to their antics. Those were the relaxing times that I had during the first day of break. The second one, Tenten's hell began.

*

"Exactly why are we going to the Hokage's Office, Ryota?"

"You just have to follow me, ok?"

The receptionist, who already knew me, simply told me to wait a few minutes since the Hokage was busy with a few papers. Fifteem minutes later, we were allowed to go into his office.

"Ryota-shounen and Tenten, what brings you here?"

"Hey, Hokage-sama. I wanted to ask if there was any chakra paper available? I'm training Konoha's next expert in Shurikenjutsu"

Without even answering my question, Hiruzen searched in one of his many drawers, only to pull out a piece of paper afterwards. I had had the privilege of testing my affinity before because I was from a respected clan, a privilege Tenten didn't have. Thus, I would help her achieve it.

"Ok, just pour some chakra into the paper, Tenten"

As soon as I gave her the instruction, the paper ignited and turned to ash. It was quite funny, since her main weakness, Fūton -not to be confused with Futton- was weak against Katon. If I remembered correctly, Wind was strong against Lightning, Lightning against Earth, Earth against Water, Water against Fire and Fire against Wind.

"Thank you for your time, Hokage-sama"

"No need, Ryota-shounen. You are more than welcome any time to have a chat with me"

Tenten and I bowed slightly as a sign of respect -formalities, duh- and left the area. When she asked what was the importance of her elemental affinity, I simply told her that, once she could combine her Shurikenjutsu with her Fire Release, she would become way stronger. I also told her that Fire was Wind's weakness, which seemed to work perfectly to rile her up.

Once we were back to the Inuzuka compound, we went straight to the training grounds were I usually did my training. But I had forgotten the state I had left them in the last time I was there...

"Ryo-kun, what happened here?!"

"Ah... eh... hehe... I might've overdone it with my training... a bit?"

She looked at me half in shock half in amazement, probably wondering just how strong I actually was. I only knew that if I were to spar against Kakashi, I would only do as well as Naruto and Sakura together after the three year time-skip.

"Well, nevermind that! I'll be teaching you as much as I can and I'll be your training partner. I know the handseals for a few Katon jutsus, even if I can't really perform them well, so you'll begin from there and then you'll ask Guy to get you higher level ones if possible. If not, you come to me and I go to the Sandaime"

Oh how I hated to have to say either "Sandaime-sama" or "Hokage-sama" every time I referred to him in front of others. At least I wasn't as stupid as Naruto, who called him "old man" in front of everyone.

"Ok Tenten, look carefully..."

Tenten wasn't born genius, but she covered that with her hard work. A week into her training, she was able to perform all basic Katon Jutsus with relative ease, prompting me to push her into the next stage: combining her Shurikenjutsu with her Fire Release. This was something she already was relatively able to do, since one of the basic jutsus consisted of covering a Shuriken in fire. Parting from that basis, Tenten began practicing on her own -with me overlooking, of course- while I tended to the other person who had become quite clingy with me: Karin.

Karin litereally treated me as if I was her older brother, in spite of us being the same age. Perhaps it was the way I treated her, but our relationship was very good either way. She was a very caring girl and I could only guess how she had turned out the way she did. I could only feel more and more disgusted at Orochimaru.

"Umm... Ryo-kun..."

"Yes ,Tent... I told you to tune down the Chakra output!"

And like that, I had to put out the fire she began on my personal training grounds. Guremaru, seeing my worried face and Tenten blushing while I lectured her, kept rolling on the ground as if he was laughing. Thinking about it, he also had to train a lot.

*whimper*

'Oh you don't get to escape this one...'