Epilogue

She was mostly out of other options, so she supposed it was time to ask Itachi.

Tenten wrote a letter for the crows to take, slowly and over several days while she stressed about the fact that she was, in fact, contacting a known murderer and village missing ninja.

Genma seemed almost concerned about her probably obvious stress, although of course, Lee and Neji didn't notice a thing.

She loved her boys, but they wouldn't notice a bug if it flew in front of their faces. A thing she'd seen happen several times. You'd think they'd have better spatial awareness, they were ninja after all. And Neji was a Hyuuga.

Either way, her dumb boys.

Once the letter was off and the entire matter was out of her hands, she relaxed slightly. The ball was in Itachi's court for now. Nothing she could do.

Since she was a chuunin, and expected to reach jounin within a year or two, maybe less, she had more access to missions like sorting through old files to see which ones could be thrown away, or which ones needed to be written down somewhere else.

It was pretty rare someone actually wanted to do those tasks, so once she offered to do it once, most of the missions were funneled toward her. She didn't mind, most of the mission reports were absolutely hilarious, and the ones she wasn't allowed by clearance to read had already all been weeded out before the files got locked away in the storage room.

Plus the pay was good, so that was definitely a bonus.

And it kept her busy enough to keep her mind off the letter that had definitely reached Itachi by now.

While going through another box, this one of A-rank missions, mostly some assassinations and the occasional hilarious sounding destruction mission, she found a dark file. ANBU. The fact that it wasn't in with the other ANBU files in another room was suspicious all on its own. It should have been weeded out, the system to check these before they went in was meticulous.

She, despite maybe her better judgment, opened the file and sat down to read it.

The first sentence, the mission summary, already had her blood running cold.

Itachi Uchiha and Shisui Uchiha, assigned to spy on the Uchiha clan and report back with any plans and possible strategies to counter them or stop the massacre.

Tenten quickly sealed the file away into the seal that also held the note from Itachi. Later. She'd have to read that later.

She finished that box, having sorted them mostly into the trash pile, since all missions were recorded also in the big mission books that kept track of all the missions and who did them. The files were really just the mission reports of who did the missions, which rarely were actually needed. So into the trash they went, to be recycled into new paper.

And since they were getting recycled anyway, then well, no one cared if Tenten took some of the funnier reports to read again later. She was starting to amass a collection for when she needed a pick me up. Or entertainment when she was stuck in bed for whatever reason, be it that Kakashi had accidentally almost impaled her while they sparred again, or trying to build up a poison immunity with Genma put her out of commision and stuck in bed recovering for a few days. Or she accidentally used too much chakra and was stuck in bed for a day by Tsunade who refused to let her pull a Kakashi and work through chakra exhaustion.

Since Tenten had the sole Konoha brain cell, she listened to Tsunade because she was a doctor and not just because she was the Hokage.

Once the box was done and stacked with the other finished ones, a crow puffed into being by her feet. A letter was held securely in its beak.

Tenten swallowed hard, resisting the urge to hiraishin as far away as she could get. Which was really just across the village since she didn't really have many markers out of the village.

The crow waited patiently for her to take the letter.

She took it, noting the elegant script her name on the front was written in. Itachi had been the Uchiha heir, it made sense he had good handwriting.

She was stalling. She pulled out a senbon to carefully open the letter. Like a makeshift letter opener, a trick she'd seen Genma use a few times.

[Tenten

I cannot express how happy I am that Shisui's tanto and harness have passed to someone who will put them to good use. He enjoyed ridiculous tricks with weapons and perhaps knew too many for comfort.

I'm afraid that this is not a fun story, and while I would rather not burden you with it, it's important that someone besides me knows about it. I will be in a village four days from Konoha, due East, for two weeks. If you cannot make it, send another letter and I will arrange another time and place.

Thank you for caring enough to find out about this, but be careful, Konoha is not safe. Eyes hide in the shadows, and as the roots grow ever stronger the tree withers away.

Itachi]

Tenten tried to decide whether she wanted to know what that was a metaphor for. Probably not, but she'd find out soon enough it seemed.

There was actually a map hanging up on the wall of this room, although there was in most rooms, and Tenten checked what village Itachi was probably talking about.

It wasn't one she'd been to before, but the name looked familiar.

She checked the files she'd just gone over, and realized that there were three different demolition missions all in that same area. Plus she'd never been to that village.

She did need more markers outside of the village, and she did kind of want to see the demolition sites, so the desk ninja would probably accept that if she asked for a mission in or around that village.

Mind made up, she sealed away the letter, put the box back, and wandered up to the mission desk. It had been the last box in the chunk of the room she'd been doing for this mission(since the rooms were so dense they were high C-rank four hour missions) so she went up both to collect her pay and for a mission.

"Hello Tenten," Ringo was on the desk today, Iruka next to her. "How goes it?"

"I finished, there were a lot of really funny demolition missions in the boxes. I got them sorted out from the assassination missions and got them sorted as to which ones can go and which ones are important."

"Nice. I'll see you tomorrow again then?"

"Actually, I was hoping you had a mission around this area?" Tenten pointed to the right village on the map. "There were three demolition sites there and I've never seen one. Plus I've never been there."

"It's a wonderful little village," Iruka said, nodding. "We should have something around there."

"Yeah probably," Ringo agreed, shuffling through the papers. "It's pretty far away though, maybe that's why you haven't been there."

"I had Gai as my jounin-sensei," Tenten pointed out. "I've been to farther places as a training trip. Also I figured I could leave hiraishin markers in the villages along the way, since I don't have many outside of Konoha."

"That's a good idea," Iruka praised in his 'teacher voice'. "Will you try and take more missions outside of the village?"

"Well since my schedule is slowing down, maybe," Tenten agreed, smiling. She probably should start trying to take more missions out of the village. Other than the times she went on the occasional lower C-rank with Team Gai.

"Here! A nice easy delivery mission for that village. A good mission for your first solo one, unless you want some teammates."

"I'm sure I can survive doing that by myself. And it's probably better I do my first few solo missions while I'm still a chuunin."

"Always good to get used to stuff now while the world isn't out to kill you!" Ringo chirped, offering the scroll. "You can pick up the thing tomorrow and then leave. I wouldn't start tonight, it's pretty late already."

Tenten looked out the window at the sunset streaked sky. "Huh, it is. Yeah, tomorrow then."

"Good luck," Iruka said, smiling kindly.

"Thanks for the mission," Tenten replied, tucking the scroll away and waving.

She walked away like a normal person because she wasn't a heathen that went out windows.

Genma clapped her on the back and told her good luck when she informed him, Shizune made her double check her poisons and antidotes, and Kakashi probably didn't even hear her.

Since that was taken care of, Tenten made dinner with the remnants in her fridge, left enough to make a breakfast, and went to sleep.

Morning brought breakfast and picking up the delivery, which was a set of decorative weapons that weren't actually usable in battle. They were pretty anyway so Tenten admired them for a bit before sealing them up.

A goodbye to the weaponsmith, and Tenten was on her way.

While she did have to run the entire way, it wasn't too strenuous since she had sealed all her supplies up and also she trained with Gai. A little run at a relatively sedate pace wasn't going to kill her. Not like loops around the village at top speed, which would knock anyone out.

The village was small, so Tenten left a marker at the edges just in case, and headed in. The delivery was dropped off, and Tenten was left to look for Itachi.

Itachi was pretty inconspicuous, but the seven foot blue shark man was not, so she found them pretty easily in a dango shop. She summoned one of the crows to sit on her shoulder and slid off her headband, tying it around her waist and under her shirt. She didn't know how much the shark guy knew, or if he'd be friendly and not try to kill her if she was obviously associated with Konoha. She could get away, maybe hold him off for a bit with some poison, but she still felt safer without her headband on display.

She approached them calmly, the crow preening its feathers on her shoulder. "Itachi Uchiha?"

"Who's asking?" The shark man grunted.

"Tenten. The current other holder of the crow contract." The crow on her shoulder cawed like it was trying to show off.

"Kisame. I'll meet up with you later. Leave us be."

The shark man, Kisame apparently, grunted, but got up and left, his massive sword that Tenten now realized was the Samehada the chakra sucking probably sentient Kiri sword. That was awesome.

Tenten tentatively took the seat Kisame left behind, the crow hopping off her shoulder to pester Itachi for treats. He moved the dango so it couldn't get it, then offered the crow a bit of dried fruit from inside his cloak.

"I found the mission for you and Shisui for the spying on the Uchiha clan. It was tucked into a box of A-rank demolition missions," Tenten said, trying to prompt the conversation into starting. She didn't have all day.

Itachi scoffed lightly. "Sloppy work." He paused, looking almost hesitant. "Did you bring it with you?"

Tenten, who always had it on her with the seal because she didn't trust it to lay around somewhere, even in her own house, pulled it out of her shirt in response.

Itachi took it gently, opening it and sliding one of Shisui's reports free.

"He has awful handwriting," Tenten said, gesturing to Shisui's report. "Did he ever do any handwriting practice?"

Itachi didn't seem to have any real outward reaction, although it was really just from working with Neji at all times of the day that let her catch the almost sad look he gave the paper. "He- He had better handwriting when he was trying. He was just so tired of the mission that he turned in reports with increasingly bad handwriting as a subtle protest. He thought it was hilarious."

Itachi's head bowed, and he placed the paper back in the folder. "He was so bright and then he was gone. Blown out like a candle in wind."

Of all the things she had expected today, having to restrain herself from trying to comfort a missing ninja who'd famously killed his own family and was definitely S-class, wasn't one of them. She did suppose that he'd had to leave so soon after Shisui died, so he probably didn't have much time to mourn.

He straightened after a moment, a blank slate once again. He pushed the folder to her, and she took it, sealing it away again. "What do you want to know?"

"Everything."

In the end they had settled on writing down all of the important information in a series of letters aimed at no one for Tenten to say the crows brought her. She would bring them to Shizune, who would hopefully help her bring them to Tsunade without getting tossed to T&I.

When she did enter Shizune's office it was to find her kissing Genma. Or rather, making out with him.

Tenten turned her gaze to literally anywhere but them, resisting the urge to turn around. She shuffled her feet, hoping they'd stop and notice her, but it didn't seem to be in the cards.

Tenten coughed lightly, drawing their attention. They both jumped, having apparently been so wrapped up in each other that they hadn't noticed her at all.

"Tenten!" Shizune said, coughing a couple of times and trying to straighten her hair and clothes. "What brings you here?"

"Well the crows brought me some very concerning things after I got back and turned in the mission report." She held out the seal Itachi had oh so carefully drawn. A basic storage seal, copied from one he actually had on him. It wouldn't be traced back to Tenten. "Letters. From the other holder of the contract."

Genma and Shizune paled slightly, but Genma reached forward to take the seal anyway. "What are they about?"

"The Uchiha Massacre."

Genma frowned slightly, but opened the seal, picking one of the letters at random. It was one of the ones detailing Danzo. "Why would he-oh. Oh." He'd started reading it.

Shizune peeked over his shoulder. "Oh indeed. I'll bring this to Lady Tsunade. She'll have to hear about it."

"I knew Minato didn't like Danzo," Genma muttered, "but this…"

Tenten didn't even have to try to look sad and angry that an elder of the village would do this. She was anyway. He wasn't helping the village anymore, this was killing it.

"Come on, we need to get these to Lady Tsunade," Shizune said, gently pulling the letter from Genma's hands. "She'll bring him to justice."

"She may want to gather the clan heads, so he can't escape," Tenten advised.

"Make the suggestion to her yourself," Shizune advised. "Come."

Tenten followed, breathing a silent sigh of relief. This was out of her hands now. Now the Hokage would handle it.

—————

Maybe not the ending anyone would've expected, but I think it works. Tsunade will handle it now and I think you guys will be too. See ya. ~Leviackrmann