Log; complete.

[weaponed.livejournal.com]

When; Tuesday 28th, early afternoon, after this but before the earthquake.
Rating; PG13 (...srsly. Nothing too bad here, kiddies.)
Characters; Tenten weaponed and Ingram gunofdis
Summary; Irritated at him for running away on her after Hisoka showed up last time, Tenten sets an ultimatum - tell her what he's up to or she'll beat it out of him. Ingram refuses to just offer up the information, and so it's agreed it's time to coerce it out of him. In which things are said, it gets kind of awkward at one point, Tenten proves she can handle all aspects of her job, and Cobray is, uh, Cobray?
Log;

Tenten waited patiently for Ingram to arrive, an image of calm in the bright garden. She'd chosen her weapon, wrapped it up carefully in the summoning scroll tried to her side. No sense in letting him know all her moves ahead of time. It wasn't too cold, which was a good thing. She wouldn't have to waste chakra keeping herself warm.

She ran over her plan in her mind again, content it was enough. Hinamori had agreed to watch the mech for her, no one had kicked up too much of a fuss about her wanting to go and finish the fight, and he'd stupidly agreed to armed combat. All that was left was for the fight to finish.

Ingram walked down the city streets, hands in his pockets, content with himself. He looked up at the sky, wondering to himself. The things he goes through, just to prove a point. Of course this was a loss already written down in the books. A weapons master against a pilot. Of course, once he explained everything, maybe it would sink into their skulls. Ingram sighed. Oh, how adversity is the school of the soldier.

When he arrived at the gardens, he made eye contact with Tenten. "I only ask for one other rule. Once a person submits, the fight is over. No killing. This is a proper duel."

"I never had any intention of killing you in the first place. Had that been my goal, I would have done it while you were sleeping or something. Less effort, you know?" She sighed, taking stock of his stance, not giving anything away by her own relaxed one.

"Did you chose your weapon?"

"Of course. I have my own fists, and this." Ingram pulled a familiar foot long stick out of his pocket.

"What might you have, Miss Tenten?"

That again. She smiled slightly, indicating the scroll at her side. "Nothing I'll need right away." It wasn't that she wanted to settle it Lee-style, but with him off training by himself she felt her taijutsu needed some brushing up. And one or two minutes of it couldn't hurt against Ingram. "I'll even be nice and offer you three attacks."

"How generous of you. However, I don't think my own attacks will be very countable, unless of course, they fail."

Ingram began to toss the stick up and down. "I think I'll have you start today, since a certain someone proclaimed that I was the aggressor in our previous conflict."

"Oh? You took grumpy's word to heart, did you?" She had nothing against Hisoka, especially not after he saved her, but his empathic abilities still irritated her somewhat. But then again, it wasn't like he'd used it against her any time recently. "I suppose I'll pick up where I left off last time then."

Tenten allowed herself a small smirk and then she kicked off, appearing at his side in no time at all, right foot already coming around to hit him in the head.

"Reflexes of a pilot comes in handy at times, like these," Ingram said. He extended the blade on his sword instantly, and braced the flat of the blade with his left hand, blocking the kick. He pushed back hard, hoping to knock Tenten off balance.

"Not bad." She let herself drop as he pushed, using the momentum to spin and bring her leg around in an attempt to trip him.

Ingram decided to take the trip, and fall backwards. However, he resized his sword into a extremely curved scimitar and tossed it into the air. Ingram plopped on his back, and rolled to his side, not wanting to be caught under his sword when it fell.

She kicked back, using the momentum to skid a few feet out of the way, watching him as the sword landed. "Your aim is as bad as Tayuya's."

"Oh, I wasn't aiming for you. Just clearing a path so you couldn't follow up with that attack. Anyways, I guess it's my turn."

Ingram ran forward, picking up his sword along the way. But long before he could swing his sword, he vanished.

"Feh." She stood perfectly still, eyes closing in expectation of the attack. She was used to not being able to follow Lee with her eyes, but her ears had never let her down. Especially not when there was a weapon involved. Just by hearing it she could tell where it was coming from, the angle, rotation, speed. Years of training had given her a sixth sense that extend far beyond her own arsenal when it came to objects in the sharp and pointy variety, and Ingrams sword wouldn't be able to get past that. It may not be ultimate, but it was one of her forms of defense, one she was proud of. So she waited, body ready to react to the slightest disturbance in the air around her.

Ingram was falling from 30 feet in the air. His sword easily reached a length of 25 feet, far to heavy to carry, but easy enough to drop with and aim.

"Unyou no Tachi!" Ingram yelled.

Speed was something like breathing to everyone on team Gai, and Tenten was no different, pushing off to the side and forcing herself into a skid again in a flash of pink, blue, and the metal of her headband as she opened her eyes again, once more a few feet away. "One attack down." It was still too soon to use her weapon, finding no reason to do much more than dodge for the time being. Her hands slipped into familiar seals, reading to perform kawarimi with the next attack he threw at her.

"I disagree," Ingram said calmly. He vanished only to appear behind her.

"I'm not through yet." He swung the massive sword horizontally, which still had momentum from the fall.

"Heh." The last seal formed and the sword hit wood as she appeared behind him, bringing her left foot up to kick him into the air as her hands went down to the ground to brace her, ready to follow through with another kick once the first connected or to push herself out of the way if it missed. She got the impression he just wanted to see what weapon she'd chosen for herself, but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of that just yet.

Ingram had the reflexes, but he just didn't have the speed. He never trained for something like this. However, he did see one option available to him. He would take the kick, however, it would come at a price. For he kept his sword swinging, but he let gravity take hold. It dropped and dragged across the ground. The massive sword cut around behind his back, and would cut off Tenten's arms if she continued.

She frowned, twisting on her hands to land the other kick in quick succession but pushing him to the side instead of up again, quick to use kawarimi again, this time to gain distance than get in close. Her fingers brushed against the scroll as a few drops of blood ran down her right arm, disappearing into the black glove she wore. "Hn." Her eyes narrowed as she waited, still patient.

The sword flew out of Ingram's hand as he was kicked twice and he fell over. He slowly got back on his feet and he cracked his back. Holding his hand out, he called the sword back to him, which had reverted into the stick.

"You know, this is quite ironic. I'm about to use the weapon that one of my enemies used against me," he said with a silly smile. He held the stick in both hands and snapped it in half. The two pieces bent and curved around forming a pair on tonfas. Instead of a blunt end, they had a blade running down them.

"'The ultimate skill! Blade Tonfas!' he used to say. Seems kind of puny on me, don't they?" Ingram asked.

"Every weapon has a strength and a weakness, Ingram. Not that I'd expect you to understand that." Tenten really didn't care for the irony of the situation, thinking instead that she was glad she'd brought what she had. A good choice indeed.

But she still wasn't ready to show him that yet. "It's your move."

"Feh. I can't believe I got goaded into this," Ingram said, already tired of being played around with. "This should have ended right when it started. I guess you are getting your revenge, no? Well, I will cut that short."

Ingram combined his weapons and dropped the stick on the ground. "I forfiet. You win. Now, what do you want to hear first?"

She blinked, watching him carefully as she moved to bandage up the small cut. "...All of it," the brunette muttered, waving at him dismissivly. She didn't mind too much, since she was being given both the information and the chance she needed with Cobray - although she wanted to strangle the stupid empath for suggesting one of the ways for handling that - but still. She hadn't expected him to just give up. So the kunoichi glared at him, fingers still playing with the edge of the scroll.

"Well, I agreed to talk about what I was going to do with you, no? I'm not revealing my whole plan..," Ingram quieted down and took a couple steps toward Tenten. He began to whisper quietly, "I won't reveal my whole plan or else Orochimaru and Aizen will be after me also." He spoke back up again. "However, what I planned on doing with you is inserting a command line into your brain. Nothing special. All it does is when a certain action takes place, you get the extreme urge to kill the person who is physically the closest to you. But I will drop that, according to my deal I have created with you."

"How reassuring." She kept her gaze and voice level as he moved closer, not moving an inch in response. It occured to her that he could have done that to someone already, but she filed that away as one of those questions to ask later, if she had time. "And I'm not surprised you're all using each other." She would have rolled her eyes if she had felt he wouldn't take it the wrong way, so she finished up. "Is that it? No particular reason why? You just wanted someone to manipulate to prove you could?"

"Don't you notice. Out of everyone I know, you are always around someone. Whether you are helping or training, you are a very social person. You'd have the most propability of killing someone who was unsuspecting."

She'd figured that part out, amazingly enough, and couldn't help the small note of irritation that creapt into her voice. "...I meant why in general, genius. No matter, no matter. So you're secretly trying to kill everyone in the City but you'd rather have someone else do it for you, and you're trying to get in with the evil crowd but stab them in the back too. That about sum up your career here, or is there something I'm missing?"

"You have my intentions all wrong. I'm not going to inform you of them, but I will give you a hint. Adversity is the school of the soldier."

"Hn." She shrugged it off, but kept the words in mind. "You done then? You owe me half an hour, after all." The brunette let a sly smile slip, adding, for his benefit, in a hushed tone "and you'd better not spy~"

Ingram held his head in his hand and muttered to himself, "I lost to this?"

"You didn't lose, you chose to give up. It's your own fault." Tenten shot back, letting the smile turn into a pout and crossing her arms. "We could have kept going."

Ingram sighed. "Whatever. I'll be sure to humiliate you at a later date."

He closed his eyes and concentrated. His build became slimmer and his hair shorter. His hair color lightened up to a silvery-grey. Astranagun began changing back into Dis Astranagun, probably to the surprise of the shinigami on watch. When he opened his eyes, he was Cobray.

Cobray quickly stepped over and hugged Tenten.

"I don't know how to repay you for all the pain and suffering I've caused..." his voice drowned out by a quiet sob.

Like she'd give him the chance, and she would have retorted as much, but she wasn't going to complain since it was Cobray she was now faced with. "Let's start with not having him come back, huh?" The kunoichi let him hug her, making sure to keep the cut out of his way.

Cobray let go and took a step back, his eyes tinged with red. "I don't know, other than the options I already gave to you. Do you have any ideas?"

"None I'm feeling particularly fond of. How are you feeling?" Half an hour was going to pass by far too quickly for her liking, but she'd just have to do her best. Tenten sat down on the ground, playing with the cuffs of her gloves as she stretched her legs out, waiting on his answer.

"Stretched out. It is very cramped inside my own subconscious. And it is quite boring," Cobray said, describing the inner workings of the mind.

"I...I know about all the stuff Ingram did. Is anyone angry...at me?"

"Not at you, at him. There's a difference." She motioned for him to come closer, content he wasn't about to run her through or anything. "Can you tell if he's paying attention right now?"

Cobray walked over and sat down beside her. He closed his eyes.

"He is aware of his surroundings, but is more concerned about his own thoughts."

It would do. "Why doesn't thinking of Mokoto work anymore?"

Cobray turned his head down.

"She has abandoned me....for Greed. She probably didn't care in the first place. I guess I just suckered myself into that."

She couldn't hold back a laugh at that as she let herself fall back, staring up at the clouds. "I don't see how people can stand him for extended periods of time. His brain is sorely lacking. But whatever." Tenten wasn't about to argue Mokoto's feelings, anyway. Without Hisoka, she had no way of knowing how someone else felt, and she highly doubted the socially inept boy would lend a hand, either.

Cobray stared at Tenten while she laughed, bemusement curling across his face.

"Did I make some sort of joke?"

"No, not really." The clouds weren't being very helpful, although one of them did oddly resemble Gai's 'nice guy' pose, so she closed her eyes with a small sigh. "I can't really think of anything else to turn to."

"Can any of your shinigami friends cleave spirits without cutting flesh?"

She glanced over at him before looking at the clouds again. "Not that I'm aware of, but I can't say I've asked. I wouldn't have thought so." Tenten sat up again, keeping her gaze on the grass. "...I could ask one of the deities, but I'm not sure I can pay thier prices. It was hard enough getting information out of them, but to actually ask them to do something... Nn. I don't know. I was kind of hoping when I had to ask them for something, it would be to the effect of keeping Orochimaru away from us or something."

"Well, the only option left is to either kill Ingram now or to find something so energizing and rejuvenating that I can force myself to be in control."

"When Hinamori told you she didn't care, that you could use Aizen, why didn't you?" She didn't mean to ignore what he said, but she couldn't think of anything to say in response, short of agreeing. And while she'd gladly offer to kill Ingram, she knew that wasn't a real option. Not here.

Cobray flopped onto his back and covered his face. "The guilt. And the fact that when I look back, I was pretty self serving back then."

"Then... we need to find something that will keep you in control. Something that won't get taken away or discarded." She frowned, finding absolutly nothing helpful in the grass or the clouds, not to mention the variety of plantlife around. Neji might have been able to suggest something... But she hadn't seen him him a while. "Any ideas?"

"What about those new people in the city. The one that blew up the train station. Is he a shinigami?"

"Arrancar. And from the sounds of thing, one Hinamori wants to deal with. But there's another vice captain and captain here. Both on our side."

"Arrancar. Are they of the living or the dead?"

The frown deepend, and she kept her gaze away from him. "Dead. But if you're thinking of taking power from them, you might as well take it from Aizen too."

Cobray thought. Suddenly a light bulb ticked in his head. "Orochimaru. I've heard he steals other people's bodies. Is this true?"

"Yes, but that's all I know. It's a forbidden jutsu. For a reason, I might add." She closed her eyes again, feeling frustrated. There had to be something she knew.

Cobray cheered up. "Problem solved. His body contains the dead souls of everyone he has stolen a body from. I could use that."

"...Are you sure?" She tilted her head to the side, looking at him sceptically. "What if the souls moved on?"

"If the body does not die, the souls are still bound to it. If the soul is not bound to the body, the body will die. This has happened to me once before. The fact that Orochimaru is still alive inherently shows that the souls are still linked to the body," Cobray explained.

"Well, it's worth a shot." The kunoichi returned to staring at the clouds, thinking it over. If it worked and Ingram could be contained indefinatly, that was all fine and well. But she still had to entertain the possibility that it wouldn't.

"If Orochimaru finds out, I will be destined to have a fight with him. So please, if you inform your friends, don't let it get out to him or his allies."

Cobray closed his eyes.

"Ingram is angry now. He thought you were going to do something...different. Of course, with a comment like, 'This will be the best 30 minutes ever for him', I can't possibly derive what he was thinking." Cobray said, actually being serious.

Oh, she had to laugh at that too, slipping back into that sly grin. "If he wants me to do something different, I suppose I could. It's really not my style though. I skipped those classes for a reason~"

"Do what differently?" Cobray's face was very blank and not understanding.

"Hm~" If it would irritate Ingram, then she didn't really mind. She couldn't help but keep grinning as she motioned for him to move closer. "You've got to understand of course, that this is in no way a reflection of my actual feelings."

Cobray leaned in closer, curious on what she was talking about.

Honestly, she wanted to pull back there and then and just laugh, but somehow she managed to edge that little bit closer, placing her hands just so and murmuring in his ear "I had contemplated just doing this in the first place, but we decided it probably wasn't a very good plan." She giggled slightly, glad that her teammates were elsewhere. If they ever heard about this she'd have to sell them to Dorian.

"I understand now," Cobray said. He pulled back and stood up, his face red nonetheless. "However, you said that it was no reflection upon your actual feelings. It's in my personal belief that such an invasion of personal space should only be attempted by those who do have a romantic relationship. No offense of course."

"None taken. There's a reason we didn't go with it." She continued smiling but fell back to the ground, closing her eyes. "I always hated watching everyone learn that stuff. You either know it or you don't, really. And most of the time it's just easier to beat the guy up."

"I've actually fallen in love. Twice before. However, the first one was already in a relationship, and the second one is never allowed to be viewed by the public. So you could say things haven't been going to well for me in that area."

Cobray turned around. "But if I was to enter into another failed relationship at sometime, and it was with you, I wouldn't mind since you have put your life on the line on me. I do thank you for everything, but I must head back now. I think Greed will want to beat on me for a little bit. If the man by the name of Basara ever shows up like I said, then he will solve our problem permanately, but for right now, a temporary solution like this is best."

"...Heh." She clambered to her feet, catching his hand. "Greed's not allowed."

Cobray turned, his face bent in surprise. "And why is that?"

"Because I said so. Do you really need a better reason than that?" Tenten shrugged half heartedly, not really wanting to go into her reasons for not liking the Homonculus at the moment. "Besides, you run the risk of Ingram forcing his way through if you take too much of a beating. So it's not allowed," she added after a moments silence.

Cobray laughed. "That shouldn't be to much of a problem. Besides, I probably deserve it. I did punch him through a wormhole plenty of times before."

"So? I hope it made him dizzy. If he wants a fight he can take it up with me. That's twice I've been denied a proper one, you know. Ingram-" she took a deep breath, pouted, "'sucks." And that was her childish moment out of the way. She'd take her frustration out on a tree in the forest later if she needed to. The brunette sighed, keeping her eye on Cobray. "You're not allowed, so that means you're really not allowed."

"Hahaha, and how do you plan on stopping me?"

Before she answered, Cobray opened his mouth again. "You know, I've recently been getting into practical jokes. I know Greed is carbon based. So maybe if I used Astranagun to make some of that carbon into sulfer, add some broken down salt, hydrogen, and oxygen, he would have a piece of him as Sodium. Then we could pour some water on him. Do you think he'd appreciate that?"

"Probably not. Let's save it for Christmas." Tenten let go of his hand, starting to walk back towards the gardens entrance. But she couldn't resist adding "and I think it's already been proven how I could stop you~" as she did so, smirking.

Cobray frowned and thought for a second. He put on his happiest face and said, "Well then, I'm glad we're comrades!"

She laughed and kept walking, waving with her left hand for him to catch up. "Just hurry up. You're not leaving my sight until I'm positive Ingram's not coming back for a while."

Cobray jogged to catch up with her. "I'll be fine, I promise!"

"I'll be the judge of that." She glanced over, alowing herself a content smile. Mission complete, and all that, with a minimum of effort. "So Ingram must really hate me now, huh?"

"Yes, he does. However..." Cobray stopped. He put a hand on her shoulder and said, "I'll never allow him to harm you again. I promise."

"Ah, you're going to have to get in line. After today I promised everyone else I held back could have thier go if he showed up again." Tenten laughed it off, continuing her walk.

"But really, don't worry about it. Because you're going to stay in control from today on."

Cobray put his hands in his pocket, smiled, and continued to walk on. He felt confident that from this day forth, he would fight against his own fate and win.