Chapter Text
No one would tell Tenten exactly what had happened on the night of Lee’s surgery.
The next morning, Tenten stormed up the stairs towards the Hokage’s office, boldly demanding an explanation. Shizune blocked Tenten’s path, preventing her from climbing more than halfway up the staircase. Your teammate knew the risk, Shizune explained, dead-eyed, he knew there was a fifty-fifty shot that this surgery would be fatal. We’re medical ninjas, not miracle workers.
Flip a coin, heads or tails? Lee’s body seized and collapsed from the strain. There was nothing they could’ve done differently. He had his heart set on the surgery. Better luck next time, Tenten.
Meanwhile, Neji was nowhere to be found. He’d vanished overnight, almost as if he had died alongside their other teammates.
—
A lifetime later, after the seal on his tongue evaporated into black mist, Neji would tell Tenten the series of events from his perspective: With a folded-up letter and empty words, Neji had just learned that his father chose to die for Hiashi and Hinata. Then, just days later, Neji’s Sensei…
Neji was supposed to protect the Hyuga clan as they taunted him and brushed their hateful fingertips against his tainted forehead. Neji was supposed to laugh and say that Naruto showed him the way and he could now choose to die for Hinata someday with his own free will. Neji was supposed to smile and pity the weak and love everyone who decided to die for someone else rather than live for him.
But then Danzo Shimura offered Neji a place where he no longer had to tolerate weakness. The additional curse seal didn’t deter him at all; Danzo’s seal was infinitely more lenient than the Hyuga’s curse already burning its way through his soul.
When Tenten learned about this in the future, she would be happy for Neji. If she’d been talented enough to get an offer back then, she also would’ve accepted a spot in Danzo’s Root division. But at that moment, with no knowledge and no teammates, she only felt cold and bitter that Neji had somewhere else to go.
—
And as for Gai-Sensei? Tenten did not witness Gai’s lifeless body, blood pooled around his stomach on the hospital floor. (Kakashi did.)
Tenten felt listless, untethered, and unbearably angry. She glared at the nunchucks waiting in the bloodstained pocket of Gai’s uniform, ripped green cloth sprawled out on the ground. He’d once offered to teach her how to wield them, but he never did. He was always too busy with Lee’s training.
In Shinobi culture, the dead’s assets were offered to their teammates and close friends if they had no direct relatives. That’s how Tenten found herself completely alone in a dirty backroom full of boxes. The piles of green clothes and whispering voices saying springtime of youth taunted her. So she picked up the shiny nunchucks, always perfectly polished to glimmer in the sun, and wondered if any of her Sensei’s mannerisms had been real. Or were they just an act all along?
Idly spinning the nunchucks, Tenten almost laughed. They weren’t even very hard to wield. She should’ve stolen them ages ago. She’d never needed to beg for training from delusional fools like Gai-Sensei. How did I end up like this, always sitting and waiting? I was the top kunoichi in my class once, wasn’t I? Since when did I let my life revolve around the whims of other people?
The door creaked open, a beam of light reflecting off of Tenten’s forehead protector. Tenten sat cross-legged on the floor, daring the newcomer to ask her to leave. She closed her eyes and spun the nunchucks more aggressively this time, whipping a whirlwind of dust into the sky. The Jonin didn’t say a word.
As Tenten stopped spinning the weapon, she realized that the Jonin wasn’t even looking at her. No, he was standing at a distance, eyes sweeping over Gai’s things, and he was furious. She pushed down a vindictive curl of a smile. I’m right after all. We all hate you, Gai-Sensei, now that the illusion’s been broken once and for all.
Her spirit lifted out of spite, Tenten got up and approached the boxes to rummage through for more weapons. She’d take everything sharp and silver first before Gai’s teammates showed up and started making demands. Without remorse, she overturned each of the boxes, dumping piles of useless trinkets on the floor to uncover the valuable weapons underneath.
The Jonin was still standing by the door as Tenten passed by carrying a scroll full of carefully polished silver. His grey eye turned towards her. “Excuse me,” Tenten said politely as she slipped past and then broke into a run before he could try to lay claim to any of her new weapons.
Tenten did not attend the funeral. To be more accurate, there wasn’t a funeral service. Casualties from surgery and suicide were not to be honored in a ninja village. Only those dying in battle or martyrdom would be remembered. Even if there was a service, she wouldn’t have gone.
Still restless, she trained with her new nunchucks until the heavy metal could smash through tree trunks and solid rock. She learned how to spin the air into a flurry, a tornado of wind cutting the sky in front of her. If only she’d had this weapon when she fought the sand girl, Tenten lamented.
It was only a matter of time before they reassigned her elsewhere. Admittedly, she’d completely ducked out on all the rebuilding efforts that were still going on. No one was looking for her, so no one noted her absence. She refused to waste her time on useless chores.
Early one morning, that lazy kid from the Chunin exams passed by while she was in the middle of pulverizing a training ground. He called out to her halfheartedly, “Hey, you want a mission? I need one more and you’re awake already.”
A mission? You know what? “Sure,” Tenten sheathed the naginata she’d been training with and followed the boy to the village gates.