She remembers the scene quite vividly.
Everyone around her is sobbing, Lee especially.
Neji's body is on the ground, unmoving, his forehead unmarked.
She remembers the scene as vividly as she remembers all the other scenes from the war. She remembers all the pale faces and lifeless eyes.
She won't ever forget them, but she also won't let herself be haunted by their ghosts.
"Hey, Tenten… just know, that if you need to talk… we're here for you, okay?"
Tenten looks up, meeting the red-rimmed eyes of one Ino Yamanaka. "Uh, sure, thanks."
The blonde girl nods, a shaky smile on her lips before she returns to her father's grave. Tenten, meanwhile, wonders when she can leave.
She hates funerals. They're dark and depressing, reminders of things that can't be changed. Next to her, Lee sniffles loudly, comical amounts of snot leaking from his nose.
He wipes them away in a flurry of arms, but it only seems to make the mess worse. Wordlessly, she hands him a clean handkerchief, the fifth one so far. He accepts it, wiping away at his face, before another waterfall of tears streams down his face.
Gai is still in the hospital, she notes mentally. She should visit him later.
Another wail of agony interrupts her thoughts, this time belonging to the one and only Naruto Uzumaki. His face, much like Lee's, is covered in tears, the skin red and irritated.
Hinata is much more reserved in her sorrow, silent drops prickling down her cheeks.
Tenten returns her attention to the grave stone in front of her.
Neji Hyuuga.
He was a good friend and a good teammate. But he is dead now, and it is time they all came to terms with it.
"Sooo…" Tenten asks hesitantly. "… exactly why was I signed up for counselling sessions?"
The woman opposite of her smooths the fabric of her elegant skirt, placing her clipboard over her crossed legs. Her teal eyes examine Tenten, then she nods to herself and juts down something on her clipboard.
"You lost somebody close to you during the war. This is standard procedure." The woman explains.
Tenten raises a brow. "You're telling me that everybody who lost somebody during the war got signed up for these?"
Sayori Yamanaka, renowned shinobi therapist, nods in confirmation. "That's why we'll have to keep these sessions short. But here, in this room, you can tell me everything and anything, without anybody else ever hearing it."
Tenten can't help but chuckle at that. "Trust me, I've seen seals that do just about anything. You shouldn't make claims like that."
The Yamanaka woman stills momentarily, something flashing through her teal eyes. Perhaps embarrassment? Tenten doesn't know, nor does she care. She just wants to go home.
"So, what are we going to talk about?" Tenten prods the conversation, hoping it will pass the time better than just sitting around in silence.
"You lost your teammate, a close friend. Do you want to talk about it?" Sayori asks smoothly, as if the previous question never happened.
Tenten shrugs, leaning back into her chair. "He's dead, there's nothing more to it."
The woman furrows her immaculate eyebrows. "Are you sure? The death of a dear friend can affect us greatly."
Tenten rolls her eyes. "Jeez, you'd think as shinobi we would be desensitized to the idea of death."
"There's more to it than that."
"What more should there be to it?" The weapon mistress sighs. "Look, if you're worried about me drowning in grief or so, you can stop. In fact, if that's what these sessions are about, we can call them off right now. I'm sure there are other people who need you more than I do. I'm perfectly fine."
Tenten had been hoping the woman would accept her offer and let her go, but quite contrary to that she seems to take it as a challenge. Sayori pulls her painted lips into a thin line. "That's for me to decide. I'll see you next week, same day, same time."
Tenten doesn't look up at the person who slides into the seat next to hers. She already knows exactly who it is, already knew it the moment his chakra flooded the vicinity.
"Miso ramen with charsiew, please." The raspy voice says to the man behind the counter.
She doesn't need to look at him to know that he looks terrible, possibly dehydrated from all the weeping he's done over nearly every single new grave in their village cemetery.
A bowl of ramen is set down in front of him, and he slowly picks up his chopsticks while Tenten continues eating her own, doing her best to ignore him.
"Hey, Tenten." It seems her efforts are in vain.
She finally gives in and turns her head to the side, meeting his dull blue eyes. "Yes, Naruto?"
"I'm sorry." And he means it. His words are saturated with hurt, honesty and heartbreak – and Tenten can't relate at all.
"It's not your fault." She replies, returning her attention to her noodles. "It could have been anyone."
Naruto seems to fumble with his chopsticks, still getting used to using his left arm for everything. If he had a free hand, she is sure it would be clenched tightly into a fist now.
"But it is." He insists, frustration clear in his voice. "If I had been stronger…"
"Then he would probably still be dead." Tenten sighs. "None of us blame you, okay? War is messy, that's just a fact of life. We chose this path for ourselves, knowing exactly what it entailed."
Naruto's bottom lip quivers. Tenten shakes her head mentally. It didn't matter what kind of a powerhouse the boy was, he was too kind-hearted to become a true shinobi.
They finish their meals in silence before going separate ways.
Tenten almost thinks it's funny that the unbreakable Naruto Uzumaki seems so broken.
A week passes, Tenten visits Gai in his hospital room regularly and she's begun training again. And yet, here she is, passing through the Yamanaka compound to reach Sayori's office.
If it weren't by Hokage's decree, she would have outright ditched the sessions, but alas it was, and here she was.
"Good afternoon, Tenten." Sayori greets her professionally. Tenten nods back in greeting before slumping down in the patient's chair.
Sayori's auburn hair is styled differently today, she notes.
"So, what are we going to talk about today?" She asks lazily, propping her head onto her palm.
"Why don't you tell me about your teammate?" Sayori says gently.
Tenten shrugs. "Sure, why not. He was an arrogant prick at times, but you could count on him when push came to shove. He also somehow always ended up in the weirdest situations."
"You were close, were you not?"
"We were friends, if that's what you mean." Something that was quiet the accomplishment by Neji standards, if she might add.
"Do you miss him?"
"Sure, a bit. He was good company." Together they managed to balance off Gai's and Lee's insanity. They worked well together. But she'd manage without him, somehow.
Sayori taps her pen on her clipboard twice. "Do you sometimes wish he was still alive?"
Tenten takes a deep breath, fixating the woman with an icy glare. "No."
The woman raises a brow in question. "No?"
"You heard me."
Sayori lifts her head in interest. "May I inquire why?"
Tenten grimaces. "There's a technique for that, you know? Bringing people back to life? It's called the Edo Tensei."
"One life in exchange for another. I've heard of it." Sayori confirms.
"On the battlefield, we met many people who were supposed to be dead. And you know something? Most of them were crying. Most of them were angry and upset." Tenten lets out a sigh. "And all the time, I couldn't help but think they were better off staying dead. We had to kill them… again. The people close to them lost them again."
"Are you afraid of that? Losing somebody again?" The Yamanaka presses on.
"Not really." Tenten admits. "I've already accepted that I might lose any of my friends on any given day, though any given circumstance. The one who survived a battle with three enemy shinobi might die of an incurable disease the next week. The strongest amongst us might accidentally eat a poisonous mushroom one day and kick the bucket. One of us might get caught in the trap we laid out ourselves. The life of a shinobi is fleeting, we don't really have the highest life expectancy."
She chuckles. "I signed a death waver when I was thirteen. Actually, I'm pretty sure I signed one when I entered the academy. But nobody reads the fine print anyways."
"So, if one of your friends dropped dead tomorrow, you'd be okay with it?"
"I wouldn't say I'd be okay with it, it's more like… I wouldn't have any problems dealing with it." Tenten explains with a frown.
Sayori lets out an audible sigh and glances at the time. "That's all for today. I'll see you again next week."
Gai looks at her. "How are you holding up?"
"Better than Lee." She answers absentmindedly, busy arranging the fruits in his gift basket.
"Kakashi told me you two are receiving counselling. How is it going?"
"Okay, I guess."
Their conversations are stiffer than usual, and Tenten can see that each exclaim of youth that comes from the man's mouth has less vigour in it than the one before.
He's lost so much in the war.
He'll probably never walk again, and her heart sinks at the thought. The human body is far more fragile than one would think, after all.
Another small voice in the back of her head asks whether he wouldn't be better off dead.
"Your hands are quite beautiful." Tenten suddenly remarks.
"Huh?" Sayori looks up from her clipboard, blinking in confusion.
Leaning forward, closing the distance between them, Tenten holds out her hand in comparison.
The Yamanaka's sleek, manicured fingers are long and smooth, no blemishes whatsoever, and they shine in comparison to Tenten's short, practical fingernails and roughed up skin.
"I wonder," The brunette continues, "have those hands ever gripped a kunai so hard that they bled?" Tenten smirks as unease creeps into the woman's expression.
She takes the dainty hand into her own calloused ones. "Have these hands ever been covered in somebody else's blood? Have they ever plunged a tanto into somebody else's heart?"
Sayori doesn't say anything in response, merely grimacing. "What are you trying to say?"
Tenten backs off instantly. "Nothing, nothing." She smiles. "Nothing at all."
"This is… unexpected, to say the least." Tenten remarks at her newest visitor.
They're at her team's usual training ground, the tall man leaning against a nearby tree while she flings kunai at the target board.
Sasuke Uchiha doesn't say anything at first, merely watching her land one bull's eye after the other. Finally, he speaks up.
"Did you know they considered you a flight risk?" He asks her in that steady tone of his.
She scoffs loudly. "Is that why you're here? Giving me advice on how to be a good nukenin? Maybe how to slip out of Konoha easily? I mean, you'd know, right?"
He responds by narrowing his visible eye at her.
She doesn't know why he's here. In all honesty, they never had anything to do with each other. At some point, she had learned a great deal about him when Ino and Sakura dragged her into their conversations, but he left Konoha before they ever got the chance to actually interact.
Which only really left one option.
"Did Naruto put you up to this? I swear, if he still blames himself…" She grumbled, releasing another two shuriken from her fingers.
"This is Naruto we're talking about." He states, as if it explained everything.
And, oddly enough, it does.
"But he didn't put me up to anything." Sasuke goes on. "I just wanted to see whether you were a threat to Konoha for myself."
"And?" She drawls. "Would I make a good nukenin?"
Sasuke shoots her a look, and she's almost surprised he has more facial expressions to offer. "The death of somebody close to us can affect us greatly. I also heard about the circumstances…"
"You would know, wouldn't you?" She mutters, reaching for another kunai. "Besides, you aren't the first person to tell me that. As for the circumstances…" She takes a deep breath.
"Do I think the way the Hyuuga deals with its members is messed up? Yes I do. Am I going to do anything about it? No, because it's outside of my capabilities. That's a promise Naruto made, not me. And we have yet to see whether even that is within his capabilities."
Sasuke's face morphs back into the usual blank slate. "I see. So you harbour no ill will towards the Hyuuga?"
"Neji once told me that his father chose to die. That it was his own way of doing something out of his own free will." She pauses, wondering whether she should really tell the Uchiha this. "I think… in the end, he chose the same path. Like father, like son, I guess."
"So, he chose to do what the elders wanted him to do all along?" Sasuke raises his visible brow. "I heard about his fight with Hinata back then, during the chuunin exams. He was going to kill her."
"And he died protecting her." Tenten completes that thought. "It's as if the fate he resented so much came back to bite him in the ass." It's a horribly morbid joke, she knows that, but she allows herself to chuckle nonetheless.
Sasuke clearly doesn't find it funny. His face remains blank, but distaste flashes in his eye.
"Ah, you probably don't know, but he always talked about fate." Tenten elaborates. "Until Naruto talked him out of it, at least. But it's actually quite ironic, in hindsight."
"What do you mean?"
"He was always convinced that from the day of your birth, your path was laid out for you. Whether you were strong or weak, whether you had talent or not… he used to say that fate had already decided the outcome of everything before it even happened."
The raven-haired man doesn't say anything, so she goes on. "And then Naruto managed to change his views, to the point that he would take Lee seriously and actively encourage him. But now, who is it that stands at the top?"
She twirled a kunai around her finger a few times, then flipped it around in her hand and pointed it at the other shinobi. "You, Sasuke. You and Naruto. Your power levels are above anything we could ever dream of achieving. But how did you get them in the first place? Genetics, talent and luck. You have your Sharingan, and Naruto has infinite chakra. Those are just the genetics alone, and you already see what kind of advantage you have."
"Are you saying that your teammate was right?"
Nodding, Tenten throws the kunai. "I wish I had infinite chakra. I almost died of chakra exhaustion on the battlefield, you know? The medic-nin had quite a lot of scolding to do."
"You mentioned talent. I hardly think Naruto qualifies as talented." Sasuke points out, to which Tenten just shakes her head.
"Did you see his mental state as a child? He was neglected and bullied, of course he wouldn't develop into some sort of wunderkind if nobody gave him the time of their day. However, once people did start paying attention to him, his abilities exploded exponentially. He learned sage mode, Sasuke. Perfect sage mode. Senjutsu is in its league of its own."
The Uchiha didn't seem to have any further rebuttals after that. Additionally, Tenten notes that this is one of the longest conversations she's had in a long time. Even her sessions with Sayori don't last this long.
At first she wonders how it happened, but she reaches her conclusion quickly.
Sasuke doesn't care.
He doesn't care about the fact that she doesn't care. He's perfectly okay with her being perfectly okay.
And she appreciates it.
Sayori puts away her clipboard and folds her hands in her lap. "Let's talk about something else today."
"Okay."
"What do like to do in your free time?" The teal-eyed woman asks.
"I usually train." Tenten begins listing. "But I also spend a lot of time polishing my weapons. I like reading as well, I guess? There are a lot of great scrolls about kenjutsu…"
"Anything that doesn't have to do with your shinobi life?"
"Hmmm, I like fortune telling, if that counts. My teammates were never too wowed by it, though…"
"Fortune telling?" Sayori's voice peaks with interest. "How did that come to be?"
"It has a lot to do with the unpredictability and predictability of life…" Tenten tried explaining. "A bit like knowing what's going to happen but not knowing the details, leaving you on high alert."
"So… some kind of thrill?"
"Not really… how do you explain this… maybe that it has a lot to do with how some things unfold unexpectedly, but still lead to the same conclusion?" Tenten and Sayori looks at each other, and the brunette feels just as confused as the other woman looks.
She shakes her head. "Ah, I think I just confused myself."
"Tenten, have you considered joining ANBU?" Lord Sixth asks her one day, as she stands in his office, having just returned from a mission.
"ANBU?"
He nods. "You have the right mind-set. I think you would make a great addition."
She considers it. And accepts almost immediately.
Sakura's green eyes are filled to the brim with pity. "How are you feeling?" The pinkette inquires.
"I'm good. You?" Tenten answers, taking a bite of her food.
Sakura smiles hesitantly. "Yeah, me too."
It's coincidence they run into each other at the dumpling shop, but Sakura seems determined to do something for her.
"Have… Have you spoken to somebody about it?" Her jade eyes drift over to Tenten. "I mean, besides the assigned therapists."
Tenten thinks about it quickly. Surely Sasuke counts, right? She'll just go with it, hoping Sakura will stop asking her about it. "Yes, I did."
"Ah, okay." The other girl releases a breath of relief. "That's good to hear."
At the same time, it seems Sakura is upset about something. Probably that Tenten didn't speak to her about it.
But then again, they aren't the closest of friends. Ino, Sakura, Hinata and Tenten only hang out with each other because they are the only girls in their age group, after all.
And girls' nights out were far better in comparison to risking Lee picking up Gai's sake by accident in a family restaurant.
They both leave the dumpling shop, heading off in opposite directions.
"You're a chuunin, right?" Tenten inquires the next time she's in Sayori's office.
Said woman nods. "Yes. I began specializing in counselling and therapy right after graduating from the academy, but in order to take up the occupation I needed to be chuunin or above."
"Did you ever strive for jounin?"
The Yamanaka shakes her head. "No, I never saw the necessity to. Do you?"
"Ever since I've been little, I wanted to be a legendary kunoichi." Tenten hums. "Lord Sixth offered me a place in ANBU. He said I might even be bumped up to jounin depending on my performance."
"I see." Sayori answers. "I assume you accepted?"
"You don't seem very happy about it." Tenten observes sceptically.
"I'm not." The Yamanaka admits. "ANBU members are reduced to nothing but their mask. They die, nobody remembering their names."
"Isn't that a good thing?" Tenten points out. "As shinobi, we're supposed to remain unnoticed. It's actually really not such a good thing to have your name plastered in bingo books. The less an opponent knows about you, the better."
Sayori sighs, spins her pen around in her fingers twice and looks Tenten straight in the eye. "From my observations… The more of a shinobi you become, the less human you become."
Tenten locks their gazes. "I know."
"And you're okay with that?"
"Yes. Yes, I am."
"You'll be nothing more than a tool."
"I believe that's pretty much our job description. Besides, tools are useful. I love my ninja tools more than anything."
Sayori sighs and turns around her clipboard. "Then there's nothing I can do but to wish you the best of luck."
Sayori calls off their sessions after that. Tenten is quite grateful about it, even sending the woman a small gift basket in thanks.
She walks down the street, heading to the restaurant where she is supposed to meet Gai and Lee. It's been a long time since they've been somewhere as a team.
It's filled with pleasant chatter, a few laughs, mostly keeping sake away from Lee and small smiles. She hasn't told them about joining ANBU yet, but she knows that Gai knows.
Once the night is over, Lee on his way home already, Tenten pushes Gai's wheelchair down the road.
"I heard from Kakashi." Gai tells her. "And I respect your decision. I'm proud of you, Tenten." His words are heartfelt, and she smiles in response to them.
"Thank you."
"Please be careful."
"I will."
"You reek of death."
Tenten wonders why Sasuke is speaking to her, again. "And? What does death smell like?"
"Blood, sweat and ANBU uniforms." He responds without hesitation.
She clicks her tongue. "Tch. That's awfully specific."
"But it fits the bill, doesn't it?"
"So maybe it does." She glances at him. "What are you doing in Konoha, anyways? Don't you have some sort of long-term SS-Rank mission or something?"
"I was handing in interval reports." He returns the glance. "And isn't that an S-Rank secret in itself?"
"Naruto." She offers the singular word as an explanation, and Sasuke nods, accepting it completely.
"I thought so." He mumbles.
"Why are you here?" She inquires. "Making sure I haven't defected yet?" It's meant as a joke, but Sasuke doesn't laugh. She gets the feeling he never does.
"I happened to see you." He explains monotonously. "And I heard about you joining ANBU."
Tenten rolls her eyes. "Wait, don't say anything. Let me guess, Naruto?"
"Naruto."
She shakes her head disapprovingly. "It really makes you wonder how he doesn't get any backlash for spilling all these S-Rank secrets."
"It's because he's Naruto." There's an amused undertone to his voice, and Tenten cracks a smile.
The war may have been over, but its aftermath was as messy as ever.
Her ANBU missions are mainly about finding certain nukenin and other small groups that try to make use of the chaos in order to gain power.
This is the life of a true shinobi. This is the thrill and excitement she signed up for. She lets herself grin behind her mask, because she knows the others are doing so as well.
She remembers the scene vividly.
Neji's body on the ground, unmoving, his forehead unmarked.
She remembers his birthday, bringing a bowl of herring soba to his grave each year.
She remembers him as a good friend and comrade.
But she won't let his death hold her back from reaching her dreams.
AN: This is a mess, because the human brain is a mess. Well, my brain is a mess.
Reviews make my day :)
~Emi