are we growing up, or just going down?
it's just a matter of time until we're all found out

- fall out boy

* * *

“This is,” Neji said decidedly, “the stupidest mission we’ve ever done.”

Tenten, not looking up from the manga she was perusing with the avid eyes of a researcher, replied, “Oh, I don’t know, Neji. Remember that D-class we had to do over at the sheep-farms? The one with the blatting ewes? I…” She flipped a page and her entire expression changed. “Never mind. You’re right. This is the stupidest mission ever…”

Automatically, both of them turned to look at the last genin of their little cell, ready for his enthusiastic denial of their gloomy predictions, but even Rock Lee could not be excited about this mission – not yet, at least. Tenten was sure that somehow Gai-sensei would be able to describe it in terms to make it seem like the best and most thrilling adventure ever. At the moment, the most Lee could summon was a confused expression on his face as he stared at his own high-school romance shoujo manga.

Team Gai had been assigned as bodyguards for the young son of a rich mercantile family, until his doting mother had got their armsmen trained to what she believed an acceptable level. In the meantime, the most battle-experienced genin team – chuunin and jounin, despite the mother’s shrill screams, could not be spared for such a long-term mission – had been hired as a stopgap measure.

Initially, Tenten had been pleased by the assignment, regarding it correctly as a testament to her cell’s superior teamwork and combat aptitude. Then she had found out the exact conditions of the mission, and her pleasure had been greatly dampened.

Going undercover as high school students had not been in her plans.

“But…but we’re ninjas!” Tenten had protested. “We’re not even infiltration or intelligence, we’re combat specialists! We don’t know anything about being…being high school students!”

The Hokage’s reply had been a large stack of sports and shoujo romance novels, all set in high school, and the order to read through them as a mission-prep.

* * *    

“Neji?”

“Mm?”

That was a change from his usual ‘hn’. “Do we have to do this?”

“If we’re his classmates, we can guard him better, easier. We’d have a cover, attackers wouldn’t know what we were until it was too late. It’s a tactical advantage. It makes it easier.” Neji spoke quickly, carelessly, more like someone parroting the briefing than someone who believed – or even heard – what he was really saying.

He was also right. “I know, but…” She tugged at her skirt, that gods-damned skirt that was less a garment than a scrap of pleated fabric, and cursed its propensity to ride up. She’d think it was designed by Jiraiya-sama, that hentai, except that Tsunade-sama had been the one to explain it to her. She gave up and whined, “Do we have to wear these things?”

“It was the outfit prescribed by the mission details,” Neji reminded her, his voice still oddly distracted.

“You mean the manga,” Tenten said, her voice flat. She turned away as Lee bounded up to his teammates, dressed in a wild assortment of sports gear, waving a baseball bat, a tennis racket and a lacrosse stick at them. Tenten sighed and went to him, taking out a scroll so she could seal his things into it.

She didn’t notice Neji using the new cellphone he – like his teammates – had been issued as part of their ‘cover’ to take a surreptitious picture of his teammate in her new outfit. He studied the result on the screen and smiled to himself before slipping the cellphone into his pocket.

He was going to enjoy himself during this mission. Even if he did have to take home economics.

* * *

cause i swear, i'd burn the city down to show you the lights

-fall out boy

* * *