Disclaimer: I totally own Naruto, don't you all know that?! Don't you just hate it when people don't believe you when you say something? ...Only when they're right.

Thank you to all my reviewers for last chapter! AMB11 loves you all: yazaru116, team orihime, and Chisa Chispa.

This will be the final chapter of Inner Turmoil!

Inner Turmoil Chapter 3

"They need to come out."

Tenten was suddenly torn from her day dreaming by the bizarre statement. She looked up awkwardly and red-faced to the two girls towering over her. She tried to hunch down a little tighter in her seat on the short wooden stool, but any attempt to hide was futile.

"Your hair buns, they need to come out so we can see what we've got to work with." Sakura explained, already attempting to find the pins holding the brunettes hair in place.

"But... I've only ever worn my hair like this. Why on earth would I change it?" She cringed when there was a sharp tug to the left bun. Tenten smacked Ino's hands away from her hair, swiftly undid both her buns, and slid the brown hair ties onto each wrist.

"Huh, never woulda guessed it'd be that long. She's got you beat Pig." Sakura said slowly, still a little shocked by the long, wavy hair she and the blonde had just discovered beneath the typical hairstyle of their older friend.

"I've never cut it. Never thought I had to since it was always put up." Tenten suddenly flinched when she felt the first tug of a hair brush being pulled through her hair, the bristles instantly getting caught in the tangles built up from the day. Even as she felt her head getting yanked off by Sakura, Tenten smiled. 'Wonder if Neji got my surprise yet.'

. . . . .

"I can't keep this up, I'm going crazy!" Neji was pacing his living room, digging a rut into the carpeting in front of the couch from his unceasing worry. "I swore to myself I'd never get a fan club. But no, I just have to love Tenten enough to go through with all of this just to get her to realize a point! Or maybe it's because I'm possessive. Oh, who cares." He sat down on the small two-seat couch and lay his head back so that his hair wouldn't be in his face. He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly, his first attempt to meditate since his training session earlier that morning.

She'd looked so angry, so upset, and yet he still thought that she was the prettiest girl there, even if she had been wearing an old t-shirt of his and sweatpants that really weren't even worthy to be worn to the market. And that's saying something, since he'd seen ninjas wearing battle worn and bloodied clothes to buy apples. The second she'd turned those big brown eyes on him, he'd melted away and almost blown his whole charade out of the water. "If only she'd just admit it to everyone... If only she weren't ashamed to tell..."

There was a sudden knock at the door, and Neji spun around so fast that if anyone had seen, they'd have sworn he'd just given himself whiplash. He crept up to the door, made sure the chain was in place, and slid the door open an inch. There was a simple white card sitting on top of his mail on his welcome mat. He almost felt like slapping himself at his caution over getting his mail.

"None of those girls has figured out where I live yet. Thank God it wasn't them."Neji muttered to himself. He unbolted the door, then stepped outside onto his porch. Neji picked up the plain white index and flipped it over, reading it as he shut the door behind him to stand under the awning over his front door.

~'With love, Tenten.'~

. . . . .

"What the-?" Neji ran from his house so fast, that even with his Byakugan, he just barely avoided the horde of screaming girls on his heels.

. . . . .

"I feel like crap." Tenten was staring at her reflection in the window of the some random shop, the patrons inside staring at her awkwardly. 'At least they vetoed a dress, I think I'd have tried to kill one of them. She turned to the side, giving herself a once-over and pulled on a strand of her hair. She sighed before turning to face the other girls, both of whom had the most annoying expression of unfathomable joy she'd ever seen on their faces.

"I like this look on you Tenten. It's insane what just changing a few things can do." Ino smiled widely at the petite girl before locking elbows with her and all but marching her down the street. Tenten almost tripped on the end of her pants, which must have been at least two sizes too big for her. So much for borrowing clothing from friends. 'It only works when you're the same size. I hate being so dang short.' She pulled the adjustable belt around her hips a little tighter with her free hand to keep the baggy cargo pants above her knees and jogged a bit to keep up with Sakura and Ino, who seemed much more eager about the 'Get Neji for Tenten' plan than she was. She scoffed lightly to herself. 'It's because I already have him.'

She lowered her head a little when she felt the tears prickle her eyes. 'At least I think I still do.' She swallowed the lump that was growing in her throat and shuffled across the street to the small, yet well known, restaurant her friends were meeting at. She pushed the glass door open and held it for the girls and an elderly woman that went inside. She stood off to the side of the entryway while Sakura talked to the hostess about either reserving a table or assistance in finding the table that may already hold a few of the company that was expected to come.

She saw Ino start laughing hysterically beside them both, then Sakura turning bright red, then a finger pointed at her, and a very confused hostess. Tenten decided to just brush it off as the stupidity of her company, then swiftly followed after the waitress that had offered to show the group of three to the table that apparently was already inhabited by a few 'good looking' young men, as the waitress was kind enough to point out. She spotted Neji from across the room, but it seemed as if he was too busy with a young woman seated at the table behind him to pay her any notice; the man sitting across from her didn't seem too happy.

Ino skipped over to the empty chair between Shikamaru and Choji, whereas Sakura slumped over to the seat beside Hinata, who'd already claimed the chair immediately next to Naruto with a silent threat of death in the air around her that was meant for anyone who dared to try to get her to move; all with a smile on her face. Tenten wanted to clap her on the backbone she seemed to have gotten since Naruto had finally learned that she didn't have a fainting disorder or a constant fever; she saw him take her hand under the table. 'Proud of you girl.' She wandered over to the table, which she noticed was comprised of three tables all shoved together under a really long table cloth. She didn't think twice before sitting next to Neji and immediately shoving the heel of her boot into his foot.

Neji spun around, about to chew out whoever had just crushed his foot under the table, when he realized that he didn't recognize who she was. He ran his eyes from the baggy, yet form fitting around her hips, cargo pants, the black tank that stopped just above mid-torso, but had bandages covering what it missed, and long brown hair. His eyes finally met hers, and he immediately wanted to slap himself; 'God, I was just staring.' He just couldn't help it, seeing this young woman that had such a natural beauty to her. It reminded him of Tenten. His eyes met hers, and he saw that he wasn't the only person that wanted to slap himself.

'He looks like he's never seen me before! What the heck's his problem?' She pulled the kunai that was tucked into the belt of her pants and stabbed it into the table before fixing Neji with a condescending look. "What's your problem, pretty boy? Run out of conditioner this morning?" She shot him a knowing look, inwardly feeling smug at his schooled blank look. His eyes hardened slightly while he crossed his arms across his chest and turned to face Shikamaru, who was seated across from him.

"Miss? The manager wishes you to not bring your weapons out while inside the establishment." The waitress looked like she was going to keel over, and Tenten's glare obviously didn't help the poor civilian. Tenten wrenched the ninja tool from the table and spun it on her finger expertly while she thought it over, before nodding slightly to the waitress, who scuttled off immediately.

"Do you always do this sort of thing in public?" Neji asked her with a hint of humor in his voice. He slid his hand onto her knee and rubbed his thumb in gentle circles flirtatiously. She crossed her arms across her chest and then poked his hand with the throwing knife.

"Want to lose this?" She raised her brow at him, and watched as the gears turned in his head. 'Where have I-? Oh crap.'

~Flashback~

Neji flew across the field, lighter on his feet than a feather in your hand. He spun to the side, skid a few feet on his hands in a flip to avoid the weapons hurled at him, before continuing on towards his target without losing a second. He raced to the wooden post as fast as his feet could carry him. Then he saw her. Tenten flew at him from the tree line, expertly throwing just about every kind of weapon in her arsenal at him in strategic points. He dodged, desperately wanting to activate his Byakugan for assistance, but holding back his desires for fear of breaking the rules. A single senbon needle buried itself in his shoulder, deep enough to hurt, but not deep enough to cause serious damage. 'Her control is getting better.' Neji thought as he raised his hands above his head in surrender.

Tenten landed a few feet to his right and sauntered over to him, laughing the whole way. "And that's why no one likes to play tag with me. You were close too. No one ever gets that close to home base without at least getting scratched by something." She clapped him on the back, before slowly pulling the senbon from his shoulder. He didn't even wince.

She wiped the blood from the needle with a rag before putting both items back in her pouch. Neji gave her a disapproving look, but she just rolled her eyes at him. "I'll clean it properly later, okay? I always do." She turned around and started picking up her discarded gear, that is, until she felt a hand on her waist. She stood up, stiff as a board, a pink blush lighting her face up like the neon sign at the Bar-B-Q restaurant. "Neji?"

"Hmm?" She heard him mumble into her hair as he held her.

"You're kind of close to my... ummm..." She stumbled over her words. This was the most embarrassing moment of her life, and it was all because he was so much taller than she was. She took a deep breath and exhaled slowly through her nose. "C-could you lower your hand a little bit? You're a bit close to, my, uhh, chest..." Tenten wanted to hide, or at least crawl under a rock for a few days.

She heard him chuckle into her hair, before she felt his fingers slide up, just a little more. She squeaked out a loud 'eep!' before she bit her lip. "I know where my hand is Tenten." Oh, she was going to get him! That sly little pervert!

She shoved the tip of the kunai she'd retrieved from the ground into his hand, puncturing the skin just in front of his wrist, and watched the steady flow of blood drip from the wound. She wanted to laugh so badly. "Want to lose this?" She pushed the kunai in just a little farther and actually did laugh when she felt his whole body stiffen. His hand raced down to a more respectable place.

"Feisty for such a small person, aren't you?" Tenten just kept on laughing.

~End Flashback~

"Te-Tenten?!" All he got for a response was a sly smile from the girl beside him. The others at the table finally ceased their whispering about the 'new girl', the topic of which had Sakura and Ino almost in a hysterical fit for the past few minutes, and turned in surprise. Tenten patted Neji on the shoulder before turning her eyes to the menu. Everyone returned to their conversations.

Neji leaned in closer to her. "You know, I didn't appreciate your little surprise earlier."

"Oh? And here I was, thinking you'd love the attention." She bit back dangerously at him. She turned the page of the menu, while she calculated the next move of her plan.

Neji sighed. "You haven't figured it out yet have you?" He felt the kunai dig into his hand under the table.

"You're mine Hyuga. You know that, and I know that. I don't see why you had to play this whole game just to get me to realize something I already know." She paused, but when Neji tried to speak, she stopped him with a twist to the kunai; Neji barely batted an eye, despite the pain she could see in his gaze. "But, then I realized you didn't want me to realize that we were together." Tenten smiled gently at him, and pushed the blade a little deeper into the sensitive skin. Neji bit his lip when he saw a few drops of blood splatter to the ground under his chair. "You wanted the other guys and girls that held interest to realize it." She withdrew the blade from his hand, wiped it on the table cloth, and returned it to her belt loop. Neji sighed a breath of relief and smiled at her with his eyes.

"Finally." He whispered. Neji dipped one of the cloth napkins on the table into a glass of water and dabbed at the wound.

Naruto stood up, knocking over his chair in the process, and yelled so loudly that people outside the restaurant cringed. "Woah man! What the heck did you do to your hand?"

"Am I not allowed to accidentally injure myself, even though you seem to do it enough for all of us. There was a nail under the table and I cut myself." Neji lied so smoothly that had Tenten not inflicted the wound itself, she would've believed him too. Sakura took his hand from across the table, healed it quickly, then gave Tenten a knowing look, while Neji 'looked' for the 'nail' under the table.

'Make your move.' Sakura mouthed to her, Ino confirming it a few seconds later with the slightest hint of a nod. Tenten smiled at them. 'It's good to have support.' Neji straightened in his seat and smoothed out his shirt.

The waitress came by to clear a few of the dishes from the table, but everyone seated at the table saw her slip her phone number under Neji's drink. Neji caught a glimpse of Tenten, who looked about ready to explode, just to his right. He mentally prepared himself for the worst. Tenten suddenly stood, yanked the slip of paper from under the cup, shoved it into the drink itself, then dragged Neji up by the front of his shirt to stand, slightly crouched so that she could look him in eye, then let out a hot puff of air. She kicked his chair over and slapped him across the face.

"That is enough, playboy! You're off the market, and just because people don't know it, you think it's alright to hit on every girl you see? I bet you'd even go after Sasuke if he was here!"

"Well, he is rich and does seem kind of gay." His voice was laced with sarcasm. She fought to keep the angry expression on her face after his comment, and despite the glare, her eyes still held a twinkle of amusement. She yanked him down, kissed him roughly, then pushed him so hard that he fell to the ground, trying to catch his breath. Then, at that moment, the Great Neji Hyuga blushed brighter than Hinata ever had. "You're mine, Hyuga!" And with that, Tenten stomped out of the restaurant, mainly to avoid the catcalls and whistles from Ino and Sakura and possible fees for property damage from the restaurant owner.

Shikamaru leaned over the table to look at Neji, who was lying red-faced on the ground. "You're girlfriend's a feisty one for being so small."

Neji felt like laughing, but instead, he just let the corner of his lips flip up into a tiny smile. "Don't I know it."

Naruto whistled at Neji when he pushed himself off of the ground. "I don't think you're the only one that does." If it was possible, Neji's face turned even redder.

. . . . .

Tenten's smile was permanently screwed onto her face for the rest of the day. She was sitting, her back up against the tree in her team's training field, relaxing under the shade, Neji's head laying on her lap while she ran her fingers through his hair. She looked down at him with a mischievous grin and a spark in her eyes. "Have you ever considered a haircut Neji?" She ran a kunai along the hair she held loosely in her fingers. Neji's eyes widened, and he swallowed nervously. 'Messing with Tenten's mind? Worst. Freakin'. Idea. Ever.' Neji almost felt like crying.

. . . . .

The end!

. . . . .

1. Alright, whew! Decent length chapter, and it'd better get me a few more readers, because, I actually like this one. It does jump around a little bit, but it's easy to follow, and overall, I think it's funny.

2. So, relationship stabilized, but... mwahahah... Neji is in a bit of debt. Poor guy. All he wanted was love!

3. Well, his game finally came to a close, but I'm not exactly sure who won in the end. I mean, Neji did get Tenten to 'admit' to everyone that they were both unavailable so he could focus his love on her (sickeningly sweet moment... okay it's over now, continue) but she did humiliate him in the process.

4. Well, I hope you enjoyed the final chapter to Inner Turmoil! Check out my other stuff if you liked this.

5. For anyone who's interested, I have a brand new story I'm working on, and hope to have up by the end of this week. It's a NaruHina, rated T, and will, hopefully if I'm doing a good job, make you cry your guts out. For all of you that stuck with me through this story, here's your reward. A sneak preview of: Speak.

6. There were lights. Bright, bright lights shining on her face. And shadows, that hovered around her. Hinata closed her eyes, and the tears in her eyes fell down her cheeks, silently sliding into her ears. She was crying. Why? Why was she here? What had happened? She tried to turn her head, but it hurt. She tried to sit up, but her body wouldn't move. She tried to ignore the screams of all of the people around her, but closing her eyes made her head throb. Why did everything hurt? She let a few more tears roll down her face before opening her eyes and trying to figure out what was going on. It was like lightening and thunder. The bright flash of light, only this particular light was blue, and then the loud rumble that followed, except this sound was getting closer every second. She felt miserable and weak. A shadow moved closer to her, making too much noise for her sensitive ears, and she tried to tell it to stop being so annoying, but her lips wouldn't part for the words. She coughed, a deep, wet sounding cough, and she felt bile rise in her throat at the coppery tang of blood on her tongue. Why was she bleeding? Why couldn't she remember? Why... She was lifted up, then dropped gently on something soft and quickly rushed towards the blue light, but even the pillow her head was on tore even harder at her splitting headache. She couldn't understand, she couldn't see, and she couldn't speak, so she did what she could. She waited. She waited for things to make sense, for someone to explain it to her, for her mouth to be filled the questions that someone would answer. She'd get her questions, but she'd never be able to ask them, and she somehow knew this. So Hinata screamed, her eyes clenched shut, tears rolling like twin rivers down her cheeks to the bed of the gurney, blood trickling from her lips, looking just like an angel would if it were cast down to Hell. Why did everything hurt in the end...

7. ...Enjoy, and I hope this'll get you excited to read it when it comes out. Just so you as readers know, that a lot of what Hinata goes through is actually written from my own experiences. You'll understand when you get there. Thanks!

R & R, because every little penny... I mean review! counts. Love, AMB11.