Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.
The Art of Stepping Aside
It was in the storeroom for weapons that she found it - the first kunai she had ever thrown. She picked it up gingerly with one hand and ran a finger along its edge; a pinch of rust came off in her palm. It was a beautiful blade.
The storeroom was warm and dry and there was a muted buzz, like the whisperings of many insects: these were the ones they used in the war, there's still blood, its a feast for us! She approached the kunai shelf cautiously - who knew if there were remnant curses - and counted them, one by one, making ticks in an old, worn-out book.
The blade hadn't been a gift; it had been shoved into her hands by an angry boy with thick eyebrows and pigtails. "Take it! I don't want it! I don't want to use weapons!"
She had thought the boy was insane. "Why? Weapons are wonderful!"
"Have it then, I wanna use my fists. Only!" He had fixed her with fierce, desperate eyes and she had shrugged, pocketing it. "Suit yourself." He's lucky, she thought, he can't die from a single scratch.
Which was why she used weapons. She couldn't bleed; not even a thimbleful. It would simply flow, emptying her insides, till she died. Both Lee and Neji knew it. They were careful not to touch her, to hurt her, during practice.
Sometimes too careful, she thought, sadly. They were very careful not to touch her or hurt her at any other time too.
"Ten Ten, is everything okay?"
She saw the shadow first; and then the tall shinobi who, to her, would always be a lengthy, indefinite penumbra.
"I'm fine, Shikamaru-sama. I'm almost done, too." She looked at the book. There were two more columns; she just had to check the exploding tags. She turned and gave him a small smile, "Inventory is troublesome."
"Hm, that's why I get you to do it," he said, gratefully. He turned to leave, "You can keep it, by the way."
"What?"
"The kunai in your hand." There was a quiet shuffle, and Ten Ten was alone once more.
---
She had been brought up as a Chinese; there was nothing shameful in that. Her grandmother was an immigrant from Hainan and had raised her eldest granddaughter on rice dumplings and operas. Having fled a war, her grandmother had been vehemently opposed to violence.
"I won't let you fight, girl," She had huffed, the day Ten Ten had come home with an Academy consent form, "Especially in that place. And especially with your condition."
"Ah ma, if I don't learn to defend myself, people will be able to hurt me easily," Ten Ten replied.
"It's best to stay out of harm's way altogether, girl, like your lao ah ma." The lady said this softly, not looking her granddaughter in the eye.
"But Ah Ma," Ten Ten ventured, carefully, "Don't you miss your home? Don't you miss the things you left behind?"
---
In the end, she would be able to train as a shinobi - on the condition that there was no short-range combat. That was easy; there were many jutsus that worked better with distance. Weapons were one; shadows were another. She picked weapons.
On the first day of special training, it had been hot. She decided to do warm ups; throwing kunai, shiruken and even random sharp twigs at a suspended bulls eye halfway across the field. She'd struck it thrice, but one of the twigs - travelling as fast as bullet - hit an ambling bystander right in his chest.
"Ouch!" he cried, from halfway across the field.
"Sorry! Sorry!" she cried, running up to him, "I didn't see you, I swear." It was true.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he assured her, dusting the powdered wood off his vest, "I... just woke up."
"Oh." She looked the boy over. He was shorter than her; probably younger and had the most listless expression she had ever seen. "Are you here for special training then?"
"Unh." The boy scratched his head and looked up at the sky, "Pity, really. Would've been a great day for a nap." He looked at her with lazy eyes, "Good throw."
She smiled.
---
"There's something...graceful, about using weapons to fight." Neji had once said, over a bowl of ramen. It was a cool, wet evening, and the cloth flaps proclaiming ICHIRAKU RAMEN danced playfully in the breeze.
Ten Ten blushed and took a sip of her soup, "It's nothing compared to your katen, Neji-kun."
Neji smiled and shook his head, "Were you listening? I said there's something graceful about the way you fight. My katen is efficient, functional. Not beautiful. In the least."
"Neji-kun, is there something you need?" Ten Ten raised an eyebrow, "If you want me to polish your weapons, you can just ask."
Neji smiled and shook his head, "I could insult you and you'd still polish my weapons." And that's when she hit him; slapped the back of her hand into his forehead, enough to turn his head a sharp forty-five degrees.
"You have some nerve!" She cried, half-exasperated, half-moved.
Neji didn't laugh, nor did he reply with one of his carefully-worded retorts, but just sat there, wide-eyed, staring at her. His mouth was a thin, inexplicable line. She couldn't fathom the look; shock? awe?
It was only a few seconds later that she realise what had happened. She had dealt her first real punch and Neji had stepped forward, willingly, to receive it.
---
They often trained in foreign lands. Gai let them because, in his own words, they were the most talented and beautiful trio he had the honour of training in the glorious and dramatic epic of his existence. Of course, they had been the only trio, but it was no need to remind him of that.
Lee was always fiercely protective of her during these sessions, much more so than when they trained in Konoha. Once, at a bar, he had slapped a merchant for giving her an interested eye.
"If you want to fight Ten Ten, you'll have to fight me first!" He announced loudly, a clenched inches from the stunned man's face. "And that applies to everyone else here, got it?"
Ten Ten had turned a furious red, more out of anger than embarrassment and Neji had said, quietly, "You idiot! He didn't want to fight Ten Ten."
"Huh?"
Neji stood up, walked over to the merchant - who looked slightly relieved that he'd found an ally - and gave him a hard punch, knocking him out instantaneously.
"If you want Ten Ten for any other reason, you'll have to fight me first," he said it softly, menacingly and every other interested onlooker quickly turned back to their drinks.
"Neji-kun?" Ten Ten was stunned. When the boy turned to her, she quickly looked into her drink, a deep, unfathomable blue.
"We should leave." He picked up the comatose man and handed him to the bartender, "When he wakes, give him some sake. It's on me." He looked at the man again, "After all, it wasn't his fault."
---
Ten Ten closed the book and fished the storeroom key from a pocket. She slipped the kunai inside and took one last glance over the shelves of metal. They wouldn't run away. She left silently, thinking about the last five years.
Perhaps it wasn't too surprising that Shikamaru and her were the only two of the Konoha Eleven that survived the War. While everyone charged in, kunai between their teeth and blood on their minds, they had kept to the sidelines, kept their distance.
They had been far from the crush of shinobi mutually assisting each other's destruction.
But she had bled.
She still remembered the searing ache of the poisoned mace piercing the soft flesh of her arm and the impatient gush of blood that burst forth.
"Neji!" she had cried, knowing the boy was right beside her, "Neji-kun, I'm bleeding." She was half amazed, mostly terrified. He lodged a stray dagger into the attacker and caught her in his arms. Laying her carefully on the ground, he held her left hand against the gash.
"I have to go," he said, heavily, "I'm sorry."
"Neji..."
"I have to go." He pressed his lips quickly to her forehead and squeezed her right hand. "Press against the wound - as hard as you can. I have to go."
"I don't..."
"I have to save Hinata," he said, quietly, as if it were an answer. With that, he charged back into the fray and Ten Ten closed her eyes, letting her left hand fall to the side.
That was when she felt it. A thick cord of chakra wrapping around her left hand. It raised itself to the wound on her arm, applying a pressure she knew was beyond that of any woman, staunching the flow.
She looked at the ground and found her shadow stretching and merging with that of a pale, familiar shinobi, his own hand pressed hard against a perfectly flawless patch of arm.
She shook her head, No, don't bother to save me. But he had dashed, dragging her along, straight into the infirmary.
---
"Everything is in order, Hokage-sama," Ten Ten reported, placing the book on the table and pushing it towards Shikamaru. He flipped through it, somewhat negligently, before closing it and replacing it on the shelf.
"It's very good work." He laced his fingers and rested his upper lip against them, "Would you like to go for a walk, Ten Ten-san?"
"Pardon me?"
"It's a clear day; not too hot, not too cool - I was thinking of visiting the graves."
She nodded, "I'd be glad to accompany you. Should we bring anything?"
He shook his head. "I think they have more than we do," he said thoughtfully.
They walked in silence to the North gate. It was that time in the afternoon where everyone was either sleeping or - sleeping. A handful of tired-looking workers were, at last, grabbing a bite at the few restaurants still open and there was the quiet shuffle of young couples taking a stroll.
If not for this troublesome garb, people might have suspected us too, Shikamaru thought, dryly. He snatched a glance at Ten Ten. The girl was completely lost in thought, one hand in her pocket fingering something.
He turned back to the street. It had been awhile since he walked down this particular one; lined with trees and littered with sweet wrappers. It was also the street where the fiercest fighting had took place (it led to the Temple of Fire, so that was no surprise); the street he had abandoned to save the life of a girl.
"You remember this street?" The girl asked, suddenly.
"Yes," he replied. There was no reply.
Then, as if to follow-up, she said, "I never properly thanked you for what you did."
"There is no need. If I didn't stop the blood, you would have died." It was not tender, but not curt either.
Ten Ten pondered for a moment, "I always wondered how you knew I was a haemophiliac."
"That was simple," he replied, "I trained with you once, remember, before you were promoted to a higher class."
She nodded, recalling the first day she'd met him.
"I always wondered why you would dodge first, instead of parrying a blow. It struck me as odd," He stopped and gave her a meaningful look, "Because I knew you were a very brave person."
She blushed. "But it could have been any physical deformity - or simply an attack style."
He chuckled, "You're right of course. I didn't infer haemophilia from that alone... but I had suspected it. I noticed how you never got cut. Not once during training. Then, the night before the Last Battle, Neji came to see me."
"Neji?" Ten Ten felt a knot in her throat.
"He knew we were close friends - and that we were in the same platoon. He said to me, very firmly - almost pleadingly, 'Don't let her shed blood. If she does, she will die.'" He looked at her, "Despite everything, Ten Ten, he cared for you very much."
"I never knew." She said, numbly. A group of children had emerged noisily from an alleyway, kicking a ball. Seeing the Hokage, they quickly stepped to a side. Ten Ten, quite unintentionally, fixed them with a sad look.
"You do know why he didn't marry you, don't you?"
The sudden question, like a slap on the face, shook her out of her torpor. "No...No, why would he want to marry me?"
"Come, let's sit down," Shikamaru said, pointing to a nearby bench. He sighed inwardly, realising he had, knowingly, got himself into a troublesome situation.
"I don't like reading people. It's difficult and troublesome," he admitted, "But I can. The twitch of a lip and the sleight of a hand can tell stories... Neji spoke to me for a full five minutes. During those five minutes, I realised he loved you."
Ten Ten looked at her toes. She could hear the shouts of the children in the distance, growing dimmer every second.
"So I asked him, outright. Quite bold of me, when I come to think of it." He took off his hat and gazed up at the clouds.
"You asked him why he didn't marry me?"
Shikamaru nodded, "He said - 'I don't want to hurt her. I cannot hurt her.' He left immediately after that."
But he did. Only now... I know it wasn't intentional. Ten Ten stood up, suddenly. Her voice was weak, strained. "We should go," she said, "To the graves...it's getting late." She stooped down and plucked a single flower from the grass.
"You were wrong, Shikamaru, there's something the dead don't have." She turned around and gave him a look full of clarity and grief, "They don't have someone to forgive them."
It took the Kage five seconds to realise what had happened. Rushing forward, he caught her in his arms and took her right hand out of her pocket. It was covered in blood; the red, thick fluid oozing small a small cut in her thumb. He retrieved the bloodied kunai from her pocket and tossed it as far as he could.
"Ten Ten!"
"No," she said, her voice growing steadily weaker, "Please, please don't save me this time." She reached her good arm, the one clutching the flower, around his neck and brought his ear closer to her lips.
"I don't want to run anymore, Shikamaru, I want to go home. I miss... all the things I've left behind." With that, she closed her eyes and never opened them again.
---
End