Chapter 18

They did have practice the next morning, so Tenten got up stupidly early, cooked herself breakfast and a packed lunch from those leftovers, ate, and headed towards their usual training ground. Honestly, she was just grateful she hadn't had any nightmares the previous night, or at least none she could remember. She was slowly adjusting to the killing from the invasion, but she was adjusting.

"Hey boys," Tenten called to them, waving.

Neji didn't bother acknowledging her, he must still be sulking about her defeating him in front of almost all of Konoha. Boys.

"Hello Tenten!" Lee greeted her cheerfully. "How are you! Did you know Naruto got back?"

"I saw him at the gate, so yes I did," Tenten agreed, sitting next to him. They were all early, Gai would be a bit late, probably pestering Kakashi for another challenge or something. "He brought back Tsunade."

"Yosh! He is very youthful!" Lee said, grinning. "I see you have had a wardrobe change?"

Tenten, who'd forgotten she was wearing the holster and tanto, reached up to touch it. "Oh, yeah, I was planning on getting better at the tanto and found this holster, so I figured I might as well use it. It looks cool, so I figured I'd add it."

"It does look very nice!" Lee praised, giving two thumbs up.

"Thanks Lee," Tenten agreed, pulling out the tanto to run over it for any rust and to make sure it was sharp. It was a high quality blade, it needed to be taken care of.

"That's an Uchiha style tanto," Neji said, startling Tenten slightly.

"Huh?" She asked, although she'd already figured that, since it had belonged to an Uchiha.

"The tanto. The Uchiha made tantos in a specific way, that's an Uchiha style tanto," Neji said cooly. "I'm surprised you didn't notice."

"I've also never owned an Uchiha style tanto," Tenten huffed. "And I haven't exactly tried to compare it to my other ones." Of which she had four.

She drew out the other four. It took a moment to find them, but she managed it and laid the four out with Shisui's in the middle. She'd known the four were all different styles, she'd collected them on various missions to random places. The one on the far left was a pretty badly done one, but she could still chuck it at people, so she did. If it broke then it'd just hurt whoever she threw it at more. The one next to it was Kumo style, shorter and able to channel lightning chakra. Then Shisui's, longer than both of them, but not long enough for a katana. The one after that was from the land of Iron and slightly blued, made with excellent steelwork and able to channel pure chakra through it. The one on the far right was from an unidentified place, although after learning how to check things for seals she was sure it was covered in seal work. It was longer than the Kumo one, but not by much.

"Well now I can identify something directly Uchiha style," Tenten noted, staring at the five tanto intently before turning her gaze on Neji. "But how did you know?"

Neji grimaced at Tenten like she was torturing him or something, but pointed at the handle. "There's an Uchiha crest on the handle. Barely visible, I'm not surprised you didn't notice it."

Tenten blinked in surprise and checked the handle. Sure enough, there was a barely visible Uchiha fan on the handle.

"When did you get the Uchiha tanto?" Neji asked, narrowing his eyes.

Tenten debated lying about it, then decided the boys could pick whether to believe the truth or not. "The crows gave it to me. I guess they had it stored somewhere. I had to clean and sharpen it of course, but it and the harness I'm wearing were in good shape. Probably only been there for eight or so years."

Neji just made an unamused noise, staring at the tantos. Tenten wondered exactly why he seemed so interested in it, but opted to brush it off, sealing the tantos away and resheathing the Uchiha one on her back.

Gai arrived a moment later, grinning like he'd won one of the challenges with Kakashi. "My youthful students! We have a new Hokage, if you have not already heard of the news!"

Lee and Neji obviously hadn't heard yet, based on the surprised expressions.

"This does mean that chuunin promotions can officially be handed out!" Gai added, beaming. Tenten could almost see the sun reflecting off his teeth. "Tenten! My beautiful lotus! You have bloomed so amazingly and have been promoted! Our esteemed Hokage summons you before her immediately!"

Tenten blinked, stunned. "Right now?"

"Indeed! She assures me you shall be back before training ends so you need not worry about that!"

"I wasn't particularly worried about that, but thank you sensei," Tenten said, her face falling into the amused look she knew she wore 85% of the time she was around her team.

Oh well, time to meet their Hokage properly. And for a promotion too. Who knew. Well, Genma had guessed she would be promoted, so this probably shouldn't be quite so much of a shock.

Hokage tower was across the village, and Tenten had a seal there already, so she teleported to the seal that was at the base of the tower and walked in.

Shikamaru and Shino were both there when she entered, and Tsunade was sitting at her desk with Shizune beside her.

"Now that you're all here, I'll get to the point," Tsunade said, leaning heavily on one arm. "Congrats you moved up, you get a fancy vest and more responsibility, congratulations, shoo."

Tenten snorted as she caught Shizune rolling her eyes exasperatedly.

"Great," Shikamaru groaned, but fetched his vest and left. Shino inclined his head politely and followed suit.

"Jiraiya should be with your sensei at training ground 18," Tsunade told Tenten. "Gai knows this, so you're fine to go."

Tenten inclined her head and reached for the marker closest to training ground 18 after grabbing her new vest. She walked the rest of the way, and found Genma and Jiraiya hunched over a table that definitely hadn't been in this training ground last Tenten was here.

"I'm here," she said, dodging the automatic senbon that flew at her arm. A thing she was very used to.

"Oh, Tenten, hello," Genma sighed, rubbing a hand over his face. "This is Jiraiya, but I guess you've already met him."

"I have," Tenten agreed, joining them at the table.

"Alright, I assume I don't have to impress on you how dangerous the fact that other nations now know that you have Hiraishin, right?" Jiraiya started with.

"I got the gist," Tenten agreed, remembering the talk with Shizune.

"Good," Jiraiya said. "It's a problem for both of you, but mostly for you. You're barely a chuunin, and you've been a shinobi for what, a year?"

Tenten nodded. "A year and a few months."

"Right, whatever. Genma's been a special jounin for years, and trained with Minato before hand, ontop of having his own specialization. He's strong enough to stand on his own, even with everyone gunning for him since he has the Hiraishin at his disposal. You don't have any of that. What do you have anyway?"

"Weapons," Tenten said franky. "I'm skilled in a vast number of them, and passable in even more. I can use any weapon you give me with some degree of proficiency. My aim is better then Genma's last we checked, I have a summoning contract with the crows, and I'm relatively good at fuuinjutsu."

"Yeah great, whatever, but that won't get you very far." Jiraiya replied, brutally. "Genma agrees with me, we need you stronger and quick before we let you out of the village. Suna's going to have you in their bingo book as fast as possible and that will put every bounty hunter on your tail."

"And all the other villages will be trying to hunt both of us down," Genma added. "I was in the bingo book before, but you weren't. You're coming out of nowhere, and everyone's going to be lining up to try and kill you."

"Great, I get that," Tenten snapped back. "So what are we doing about it."

"We're hijacking you from Gai," Jiraiya said. "I'm heading back out with Naruto again in a couple of months. I'm going to stuff you full of everything I know about Uzushio and their sealing style, as well as everything I can teach you about seals."

"Shizune and I will also help you in matters of poisons," Genma added. "And Kurenai's offered to teach you some genjutsu that'll help you with your weapons. Genjutsu that move with you and will confuse everyone. Kakashi and Yuugao have offered to teach you more tanto and katana respectively as well."

"How did you get the crow summoning contract anyway?" Jiraiya asked suspiciously.

"The crows gave it to me," Tenten said, dipping her head. "They aren't a usual summoning contract, they don't have a realm in the summoning lands."

Jiraiya frowned. "They live around Konoha?"

"They're the murder near the Naka river," Tenten agreed. "I guess they deemed me worthy of their contract."

"Are you the first person to have a contract with them?" Jiraiya asked, narrowing his eyes.

"No. Uchiha Shisui and Uchiha Itachi both have signed it." Tenten tapped a finger against her leg. "I can't find out who Shisui is though, it's like he never existed."

"I can't tell you a lot," Genma spoke up hesitantly. "But Shisui wasn't a person to be taken lightly. And he wasn't someone who disappears quietly. If you can't find anything about him, that's not a good sign."

"Forces are always at work inside the village," Jiraiya replied cryptically. "Alright kid, what's your schedule look like. And how much can we overload it before it's too much."

"Since I'm a chuunin and you said you aren't letting Gai keep me any more, I guess I don't really have a schedule," Tenten replied, shrugging.

"You're an orphan right?" Genma guessed. At her nod, he continued. "How many D-ranks do you need to complete in a week to keep rent paid and yourself fed."

Tenten considered it. "It depends on the D-rank, but I have a fair amount saved up as a last resort. I could use that instead of continuing with missions."

"No, keep that," Genma said, shaking his head. "I'll see what I can do to convince someone to let me take you on a couple bigger missions some time."

"Better sooner rather than later," Jiraiya warned. "Get to work on a schedule, I have research to do…" He grinned lecherously, and Tenten made a mental note not to go near public bathing houses while he was in town. And warn what women she could as well.

"If you do anything even remotely unsavory in any direction anywhere near Tenten I will be making sure you cannot have children," Genma threatened calmly. Jiraiya's hands shot to his crotch, and Tenten suppressed a giggle.

"I won't!" Jiraiya said, with a very unmanly squeak.

———

Honestly in my opinion I say do it anyway. ~LeViAcKeRmAnN