"Naoki, is this a good idea?" her voice whispered gently, not to disturb the sleeping eighteen month baby girl in the crib. "Her mother, she-"
"Is absolutely crazy. Yes, I know, but as long as she comes here sober, she'll probably behave. Don't worry, Aiko. She won't be here for another week." Naoki said to her with a soft smile.
Aiko smiled at the baby and changed the subject. "She's beautiful. She looks like you. Same brown hair. And eyes too."
He smiled. "Her father has a crazy girlfriend though, kind of like her mother."
Aiko smirked and stood up, "Are you comparing me to her, Uzumaki?"
He chose his words carefully. "Well, as long as you'll agree to being an Uzumaki with me, then yes."
She gasped and stepped back, her blue hair swaying back, as he pulled a ring and went down on his knees, right in front of her brown-black eyes. "Aiko Nakamura, marry me."
The tears made a puddle on the floor as she whispered one word. "Yes."
...
"Hi Aiko!" Hikari smiled slightly exhaling alcohol into the other woman's face. "I'm here to see Tenny!"
Aiko frowned, and twisted the new silver band round her finger. "Naoki isn't here. Can you come back later?"
Hikari then wore an expression of frustration, and started to reply when she saw the silver on her finger. "Oh it's alright, I-" she stopped. "You, you're marrying Naoki!" she cried. Then she saw her daughter in the crib.
"Yes. I am." Aiko said slowly and carefully. "And we're going to be very happy togeth-"
"And I bet you'll think that you're her mother now?" Hikari snapped.
Aiko was shocked at the sudden change in subject. "Hikari, I'd never try to replace you, and this-"
"Bullshit." Hikari whispered. "BullSHIT. Naoki might've been with me before, but I don't care about that son of a-"
"Naoki is a great man who I intend to marry, and raise your daughter with!"
Shock registered on the woman's face, and she dropped a beer bottle that she had apparently been drinking.
"You. You'll never raise her. She's an Akiyama, like me. She'll realize you aren't her real mother. She's smart like that."
"She's an Uzumaki too. A name that I have accepted."
Hikari made an angry yell, and screamed, "YOU'LL SEE! She's my daughter, not yours. Not yours."
"Get out of my house, Hikari." Aiko said, hurt.
The woman swallowed, then put on a stronger face. "I'll kill you one day, Nakamura." And she left. But not before hissing, "I thought you were my friend."
Leaving Aiko sobbing, and the baby girl confused but very much awake.
...
Naoki returned to see Aiko's sleeping face sticky with tears and her arms around a squirming Tenten protectively.
Naoki smiled, and wiggled her arms off and around Tenten, carrying the baby and slipping a pacifier in her mouth before it chose to yell out. He rocked the child in his arms and still couldn't believe how far they've gone.
Naoki Uzumaki was talented in fuinjutsu, as like the rest of his clan in Uzushiogakure, and childhood friends with Hikari Akiyama, a student from Konohagakure, their sister-village, and Kushina Uzumaki, his cousin, before she was sent to Konoha for reasons unknown to him.
When Kushina left, Hikari and he had started getting closer and closer, up to the point of marriage. They moved to Konoha to get near her family and Kushina, the jinchuriki of Kurama, to his surprise.
But, after Tenten was born, Hikari was dealing with the loss of her brother, Ren, and got into alcohol. Naoki raised Tenten basically alone for eight months between missions before saying enough.
After they divorced, Naoki took a hiatus from being a shinobi to care for his daughter, and Hikari went to a type of alcohol therapy thing and met Aiko. There turned into great friends, up until Naoki met her at Tenten's first birthday and was absolutely in love, to hikari's dispair. She got back into the sake. But Aiko and Naoki were very happy together.
But there was impending doom, since Kushina was pregnant. And the apparent escape of the nine tails, even if Naoki didn't know it.
Naoki sighed. He knew how the seal on Kushina worked, and he knew what was going to happen. Even if Aiko doesn't. Or Tenten. He placed his child into a crib, then carried his fiancée into a bed, and sank into the mattress beside her.
...
"SHE IS MINE!"
"HIKARI, SHE IS NOT JUST YOUR CHILD!"
"NAOK-"
"AND DON'T YOU SAY THAT YOU ARE CAPABLE OF PROVIDING FOR HER, BECAUSE YOU AREN'T!"
He stormed out of her house, and slammed the door. Hikari was in emotional dysfunction and frustration. She still loved Naoki. And Tenten for sure. But, even she knew that it was best for the two of them to be a family with Aiko. It hurt on the inside. But as long as they were happy, she was too. Sometimes she wished Ren was with her still. So she wasn't so alone.
So lonely...
...
"They need help fighting the Kyuubi!" Naoki said, brown eyes serious. "I have to go!"
"No, Naoki, you might die!" Her eyes were full of tears.
"I'd rather have my child know that her father died a hero than a coward." he said, brushing a stray strand of blue behind her ear.
"Bu-"
"Aiko, I love you. And goodbye, maybe for forever." he chastely kissed his new bride on her pink lips.
And he left. And never came back.
"DAMN YOU!" Hikari yelled outside her home, a few days later. "DAMN YOU, WOMAN, DAMN YOU!"
Aiko was sobbing by the window, knees curled up to her chest, Tenten playing in the living room.
Hikari was sobbing out her words too, in a slight rage. "D-damn you." she whispered. "You let him go. You let him die!"
Hikari finally found the courage to march into her house, and say, "I WANT MY BABY BACK!"
Aiko hiccuped and quieted. "Wh-what?"
Grabbing the blue-black hair of the woman, and pulling her to her knees, she leaned down, and said sourly, tears streaming down her face, "I want Tenten."
Aiko stared blankly at the fiery green eyes of her husband's child's mother. True mother. Blood mother.
"No. She's all of Naoki-"
"She's mine too. And you're the one who lost Naoki. Not me. I don't want you to lose my baby too." she cried bitterly.
They were both silent for a moment, before Hikari let go of Aiko's hair to carry her baby. "I'm leaving."
When they got to the door, Aiko cried, "Wait!"
Silence.
"What?" she snapped.
"Stay here. Me, you, and Tenten. Naoki wouldn't want you alone anymore. Well, I'm here, to be your sister, and your friend." She opened her arms. "I'm still here, Hikari."
Hikari considered it. She started to cry out, "You killed the man I loved. I can't. But Aiko," she turned, red hair slightly moving in its elastic, "I'm sorry. For everything."
She pulled out a kunai and stabbed herself in the heart, ending her sorrow. But not before, Hikari whispered, "I love you, and your father, Tenten Uzumaki. Let's meet again someday, my precious baby girl."
Aiko was shocked. Tenten started to cry in her now dead mother's arms, and hugged her mother with two chubby little arms. "Ha-aoya!"
After pulling the baby out of Hikari's lifeless arms, Aiko pulled Tenten to her heart and wept once again. For Hikari and Naoki. And for Tenten too.
...
She fell ill. But even ill, she brightened up the four year old's world. Aiko's world was falling apart slowly. And so was Tenten's.
According to the doctor, Tenten's supposed godmother was diagnosed with something called cancer. Tenten didn't understand though, Aiko was okay, wasn't she? Wasn't she?
She had a tumor on the left side of her brain, if that's correct. It wasn't going away. They're going to do therapy and see what they can try to do. But Tenten's scared. Aiko-sama looks calm but she knows her better than that. She's frightened as well. She could see it in her dark eyes.
But Aiko was more scared for Tenten. She remembered the feeling of when Naoki died. Loneliness and fear. She didn't want that for Tenten. That's why she was going to sign Tenten up for the ninja academy.
If this tumor takes her, she thought then Tenten will be with other children her own age and will have friends to cheer her on. If she doesn't make it. But she has to make it! She has to for Tenten! For Tenten.
She fell into a coma when she was in the middle of filling out the form for the academy. She used her last waking breaths thinking about Tenten's future.
She was worried. She had written everything but Tenten's last name, unsure if she should write "Uzumaki", "Akiyama", or "Nakamura". Maybe this will make her unpopular. Maybe an outcast. And she didn't know how she was going to provide for herself. How she was going to survive in a home. If she wants to be in a home. She was worried for everything.
But what she didn't know was that Tenten was going to grow up fine. Smart, talented, always hitting the mark. She's going to have a team, with a crazy kid decked out in green and an egotistical jerk that makes her want to scream. They'll be not just her teammates, but her friends. And best friends. And maybe more.
She's going to marry that jerk one day, and earn another last name, "Hyuuga". Just add that to the list of surnames that she's been fitted with her whole life.
But no matter the last name, no matter what, she's Tenten. Just Tenten. Daughter of Naoki Uzumaki and Hikari Akiyama. Placed in the care of Aiko Nakamura.
Tenten.