Naruto AU One Shots!

The Cursed Moon (PJO/HoO) (Nejiten)

The Cursed Moon 

A kind of bittersweet Camp Half-Blood AU. This was a request by @AriSkye066. Thank you so much for this awesome idea! I had so much fun writing it :). I want to keep writing more of these AUs, kind of like I've been doing with the Hogwarts ones. I might do some others with another ship, or even another with Nejiten (like how they got together or something). Let me know if you have any suggestions! I always love to hear them.

Disclaimer: Wholesome content!!!!!!!

AU: Camp Half-Blood! Demigods! Whoop!

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Apollo has long removed the Sun from the sky, and instead, the full moon now shines brightly in its absence, lighting up the trees with its beauty, while still allowing the stars to shine.

Only two campers remain in the training field. From several meters away, voices can be heard, one deep baritone of a teenage boy, and the sonorous and bubbly sound of the girl he loves.

"Oh come on Hyuga, show me what your mother gave you!" The girl taunts, expertly twiddling her battle ax.

Neji sighs as he scores another hit. "I'd really rather not, you know."

Tenten's rich laughter is enough to draw the Hyuga boy from his foul mood, at least for now. She clicks one of the many buttons on her homemade weapon and it then becomes a bow, her favored form of combat.

Neji instinctively steps back from the girl and into his famed martial stance. Although he is a son of Aphrodite (a fact that Tenten likes to ridicule him for frequently), every demigod at Camp Half-Blood learned never let the boy's beauty and sophistication deceive them, lest they be taken for a beating.

Tenten grinned widely in anticipation as she shot a sticky, nonfatal arrow at Neji's face. The design of her newest projectile was inspired by the plunger that Ino threw at Shikamaru when he wouldn't exit Cabin 15.

In lieu of his new (and pretty unexpected) handicap of a plunger to the face, Neji hesitates, lending Tenten the victory when she rushes him with her weapon, which has now transformed into a small knife.

"I gotcha!" She exclaims excitedly, pinning him to the ground.

Neji groans, and painstakingly removes the sticky projectile from his skin. "This new tool of yours is very interesting." He notes thoughtfully, and then adds, "Also, please tell me it's clean."

Tenten snorts. "Cabin Ten's made you into a sissy. This plunger is fine! At least I think....."

"Figures a child of Hephaestus would use such revolting weaponry." Neji mutters while desperately trying to remove any germs from his face that may have approached him via plunger.

Tenten just shrugs her shoulders nonchalantly and leans onto the grassy hill, tinkering with her little baby, the weapon full of secrets that only she can handle properly. She begins to think about the new adventure that awaits her, one of monsters, arrows, and the goddess she has always admired the most.

"So you're really going?" Neji asks solemnly, noting the vacant look in her eyes that means she's dreaming of the hunt again.

"Yeah, I think so." She answers wistfully. "I think this is something I was always meant to do."

Neji watches longingly as the moonlight dances through her irises, and involuntarily understands that this is her calling. He curses the fates in his head, and the melancholy tapestry that those three hags have woven for him. On a dangerous quest, that's one thing. Death even, that's another. But Tenten will be entering the one place where he can never follow her.

"You'll come by, right?" He asks softly, before mentally chastising himself for sounding like an ignorant child.

Tenten's smile softens as her machine clicks steadily in her hands. "Yeah. For the rest of your life, if you'll let me."

Neji leans back into the grass, breathing in her scent, her air, her everything, thinking that maybe one last kiss would be enough to make her stay. One last confession, or even one last embrace maybe.

But they've done enough of those.

And he knows that when the hunters leave in the morning, she will too.

By tomorrow, Tenten will officially be a Hunter of Artemis, and Neji will be here.

He stares up at the moon, cursing its enticing and eternal beauty, the kind which will lure her away forever.

At the very least he knows they will never forget each other. Not for the rest of her immortal life.