Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, of course.
Notes: I love Neji. I think his character development was one of the most dramatic in the series. His death was the reason why I couldn't continue reading the manga. Yeah, I adored him that much. And I love Tenten too because she is super underrated and so freakin' relatable (and women with their blades are sooo cool). And I love them together. Very much, it nearly broke my heart. I have wanted to write this for so long. I started this story years ago and I haven't the strength to finish this until now. Every word hurt.
Shape of Ghosts
WeSailShips
Konoha's Weapons Mistress, people whisper in awe. Beautiful and deadly, like a long blade sharpened to perfection.
She is notorious amongst the Fire Country, and her fame steadily grows across the others one kunai at a time. The best marksman of her time, she is one of the Hidden Leaf's strongest assets. At age 18, she has become a Jounin and had been offered to join ANBU. At 21, became an ANBU Lieutenant.
Younger kunoichi look up to her, as they do all the great veterans. But there is something so innately mesmerizing about a mystery, and oh, the Hawk, how mystery clung to her sunny smile. And so they fascinate and they revere to her in equal measure, these silly little girls who will know one day just what it takes to be a nin.
The Weapons Mistress, with her dead steady hands and keen eyes. She who kisses her blades and who hums to birds.
She is ever fleeting in Konoha, always on missions, as if she couldn't bear to live inside the walls of her own home. And perhaps, she can't.
In her absence, Tenten became a tale.
And it is what she comes home to.
xOx
The tall walls of Konoha looms ominously ahead. It is golden hour, the sun just waking up and the forest wet around her. Where she is perched high on a pine, still on the sloping side of a mountain, she cannot see beyond. Has it always been this tall the walls, she wonders, doesn't quite remember.
She continues ahead.
The heavy gates open to her, and a young chuunin greets her with a wide grin. Belatedly she realizes that it is the Third's grandson, Konohamaru. Tenten grins, ruffles his hair, and marvels at how tall he's become. The guards stare curiously, and gape when she writes her name into the logs.
She stops by an early stall, starving, stomach grumbling. After, she took to air, flying over the waking Konoha towards the Hokage Tower.
She is greeted by Shizune, and she stumbles into the office without a knock. Had she checked, she'd have not interrupted a mission briefing of cat-hunting of an adorable little genin team. And so, sheepishly looking at Kakashi-sensei (she needs to break the habit of calling the Lord Hokage, sensei), she asks, "Is this a bad time?"
"No, Tenten. We were just about to wrap things up."
The children hiss to themselves, arguing silently. She pays them little mind as they ogle her, though it distracts her some. Kakashi shoo them away, rolling his visible eye as they do so sluggishly, staring at her still with barely-held awe.
"Do I wanna know?"
Kakashi gives her a bored look, "They're in love with you."
"Ooh, now I really wanna know." Tenten laughs freely but sobers pretty quickly, placing a scroll in front of Kakashi who looked at it with some concern.
She nods gravely, starts her debriefing. She does not get out until well past noon.
xOx
When Kakashi finally dismiss her, it didn't take five minutes for Lee to appear and greet her with open arms and a crushing hug. They eat lunch together, Lee barely touching his food as he chats away into the hour. Tenten had to stop him more than a couple times, exasperatedly reminding him to eat. Later, she joins Lee and visits their old sensei. Gai cried buckets into the night.
They never do mention the missing one.
xOx
In the safe dark walls of her empty apartment, Tenten's smile drops.
It is a quiet summer night. Good night, she thinks, not cold, not warm, but in between. She is tired, and takes off her clothes, draws herself a nice long bath. There is no dried blood on her skin, she'd cleaned herself before coming home, couldn't stand the sight of it. She didn't mind it most times, but whenever she'd come home, she always makes it a point to be clean.
She dozes off and wakes up already halfway drowned. Huffing, Tenten stood up, not bothering for a towel. There is little light in her bedroom, only the soft beams of the moon coming from her window.
Her heart clenches, and she dives for her blanket, covers it around herself. She's hunched on the floor and couldn't care less, gasping for breath as she was a minute ago, drowning, drowning, drowning.
On the vanity, illuminated softly, was a younger self grinning, arm casually slung over the broad shoulders of Hyuuga Neji.
xOx
Tenten wakes up to her own silent screams, mouth agape and breaths coming in heavy gasps. She's drenched in sweat and her fingers are shaking ever so slightly. Wide brown eyes stare in front of her, seeing nothing, hearing only the screams of a thousand faceless people.
See, this is why she does not stay long in Konoha. The nightmares are more deafening here.
Tenten blindly reaches for her blanket and puts it over her face. She whispers something, a name, a prayer perhaps. She can't differentiate.
It's been five years.
And still she denies his death.
It is selfish and unkind, that she of all people, will not allow him rest. It is selfish and unkind, and she is that, will be that, for as long as she lives. It is Neji's punishment. He will not rest as long as she breathes.
See, this is why she hates Konoha.
The nightmares are real here.
xOx
"Aren't you going to visit him?"
It is a plea much more than it is a question. Lee sits beside her, under the willow of their old training grounds. It is the second time he had asked, the first had been a year after the war. It had been a long time and it is desperate, Lee is, for her. To move forward perhaps; Lee is thoughtful, and he does not live in the past.
And perhaps it is what breaks her, this boy who became a man, who loved both Neji and her like a brother. Lee who never asked for anything, who wears his heart on his sleeve, who so easily cries. They were each other's family once. They still are, or so they all insist. Lee has Metal, Gai has Lee, and Tenten has nothing.
She pretends she does not see the tears in the corner of his eyes and murmurs, "It's high time I do, neh."
xOx
Tenten blinks and stares. It is rude, she chastises herself internally, but couldn't help herself. It's just. You'd think the weirdest things can't faze her anymore—Lee, Gai, duh— but Ino blushing as Sai perches on her shoulder is just so weirdly adorable she cannot.
It's ridiculous.
She blew cute little Inojin's stomach for a giggle, and went out the flower shop with a 'Get a room!' She snorts when she heard Sai's agreement and Ino's sputtering.
She had hoped that she'd carry a lighter heart towards this part of town, but still it is heavy inside her. Still so very heavy indeed. She hopes that poor Hinata-chan wasn't there, for, oh Kami, I can't. Please, please. I'm sorry but I can't.
Arriving at the memorial, her features turns solemn, fingers gripping the bounded stems of the sunflowers in her hands. Slowly her feet carry her to the right spot.
"This," she whispers, cannot continue though she tries. She lays the flowers on top of the grave. She can't have shed tears if she tried. She's all dried up, had nothing else to give. Words form on her lips but never sound, so she closes it and sits down, staring at the grass.
She was in pieces (has been for so long), thousands of her self scattered in this very soil.
Tenten touches the name engraved on the stone, follows the stroke of her fingers on it. A bitter smile curving her lips, she reaches for a container in her pocket and pours expensive sake on the soil.
And so she hums.
xOx
The next time she comes home, not a year has gone by. She glares at the Sixth's eye on the mountain. Kakashi-sensei is steadily withholding her work. She is silent in her fuming, does not say a thing. In the meantime she works with papers, stuck in an office doing ANBU paperwork. It bores her, and it hasn't been three days yet. Her fingers twitch, her insides squirm at the stasis — she is a woman of constant motion.
A week into Konoha, she receives a summoning from the Hyuuga Household.
She pours the tea, only vaguely aware of etiquette, but Lord Hiashi nods approvingly and she smiles reluctantly. "Why have you summoned me, Hiashi-sama?"
"It is perhaps very late to say this, Tenten-san, but I am sorry you lost him." Taken aback, Tenten's eyes widen, her world so suddenly off-kilter she has no time to right her footing. He does not beat around the bush, this stoic old man. "I know how much he meant to you, means still. And I know my brother's son enough to know how much you meant to him as well." He pauses, sips his tea and continues. "I know loss." He has lost more than he cared to show, the small upturn on one corner of his lips seem to say (he will never say). "It is evil, is it not?"
It is, Tenten did not say. She wonders, if Neji were alive, would he end up like Hiashi-sama? Old and lonely, and a thousand untold stories in his stiff shoulders. No, Tenten resolved to think, he would not.
A servant placed a long wooden box beside her and Hiashi-sama says, "My daughter Hanabi found this in his old things. Please, go on, open it."
Heart beating wildly, her hands only hesitated once. Inside was a katana, with a black hilt and a long curved blade so wicked in the sunlight. "It's beautiful," she breathes, marvels at the craftsmanship. She blinks, brows furrowing at the tiniest, uneven surface on the guard. And her breath leaves her as she read the tiny characters, and oh she's wrong, she's not all dried up after all.
"It was meant for you."
xOx
She is two years older and two years bloodier. She's assigned a partner, a younger man who is too gentle to be in ANBU, surely.
Until he slices the throat of three enemy shinobi at the same time with a flick of his wrists, and she sees that he may be kind after all, but he is broken. He is too young to be so broken, Tenten thinks, but aren't they all? And so she says nothing, proceeds to rain hell, and never asks, for she herself has never the answers.
They ask one time, these glorified masked assassins, why she bothers to strap a katana to her back and never use it. They respect her enough to find her wan smile an answer.
xOx
"Hi"
The blades abruptly stop, thin strands of chakra tethering hundreds of them midair. A blink and the biggest, bluest blue eyes stare up at her. "Hello." Tenten looks left and right but couldn't see anyone else, the stream gurgling to the left and the woods to her right. Her brows draw close, slightly alarmed that a toddler (a toddler!) was roaming around the training grounds unaccompanied. "Who you with, buddy? What're you doing out here?"
"Boru was with daddy and daddy frien'. They fightin over there, faaar. Are you ninja?" Blue eyes sparkle. "So cool!"
Tenten's eyebrows rise, wiping away sweat on her glistening skin. Her weapons bid to her whim and disappears in successive bursts, finding home on the large scroll laid open not very far away. The boy giggles like crazy she can't help one smile. "Oh your daddy must be worried sick then. And yes, I am a ninja."
"Like mama, girl ninja. K-k-kuk.. Kuknechi!"
Her laugh comes pleasant and sudden, and tendrils of hair escape from her buns. "You mean kunoichi. My name is Tenten, Boru-chan. Let's go find your dad neh."
She breathes and concentrates, trying to sense any trail of chakra. A loud, frantic, powerful wave smothers her from the south. And Tenten sighs, not out of relief, but of resignation.
"Uzumaki's, of course," she mutters fondly. "Why didn't I see that coming."
xOx
And as she enchants a man with more than come-hither eyes and a flirty smile, she thinks of how lonely she is. She watches as the poison from her senbons take effect on the missing nin, and thinks of how little it would take to die.
It was not the first and it's far from her last, these dangerous thoughts.
She binds her hair up and wipes the makeup off, relieved to see herself again.
xOx
Tenten breathes and holds it as long as she could. It's time, she thought.
She knocks on the door, strides over to the Hokage's desk, and placed her resignation letter on top.
xOx
The ANBU tattoo on her upper arm will never fade, Tenten thinks as she watches her reflection. So does the scars—most are tiny, but there are some ugly marks jaggedly slanted into her skin. She flaunts them proudly. Let them see her craft, let them know the road she'd paved unto her very skin.
She untangles her hair, braids it. She wears a white cheongsam and it's pretty enough with its black and red linings. Then, covers her tattoo with concealer (for though she is proud, there is a reason why ANBU wear masks). She is a Jounin now, slowly adapting to her old life.
Konoha is still a daunting place, though she copes. What else can she do?
"Senpai, I heard you were close friends with the Hyuuga prodigy long ago. You know, the one who saved Hokage-sama and his wife? Was he as great as history makes him to be?" A chuunin asks, pink-lipped and blush dusting heavy on freckled cheeks. The cicadas chirp deafeningly around their camp. "I've seen his photos. Jeez, what a waste."
That night they learn that even without weapons, the Weapons Mistress was no less dangerous.
They see history in every glint of blade whizzing past, every blood that's spilled, watch as the woman they look up to turn into the tale they all knew. They keep their questions.
xOx
Years pass and the children grew.
Himawari does not say, though Mama knows that her favorite aunt is Tenten-obachan. Tenten-obachan brushes her hair and gives her candies when no one's looking. She also has the brightest smile, and when she winks, Hima giggles.
One time though, Hima caught Tenten-obachan wiping her eyes over Neji-ojisan's grave. Hima didn't understand, so used to her laughter, and when she turned to Mama, Mama's smile has disappeared.
"Where do babies come from, Tenten-oba?" Hima asks, legs dangling off the counter.
"Whaa- I.. ah.. Aren't your parents supposed to be the one you ask those Hima-chan?"
"Hima asked daddy, see. He was shouting and he was all red like tomato and, and hm, where do babies come from Tenten-oba?"
"Eh?" Her aunt scratched her head, and Mama comes to the kitchen, exasperated at her. "Well. When a daddy loves a mommy Hima, they make that love into a baby."
Himawari hums and says, guileless, "Is that why you don't have baby, Tenten-oba? You don't have daddy you love?"
Mama gasps, "Himawari!"
Himawari instantly feels awful, seeing her mama upset. And when she's about to say sorry, Hima shyly peeks at Tenten-oba. She's smiling and that day, Hima learns that smiles can be sad too.
xOx
Later, Tenten receives a pressed flower from Himawari.
The bright yellow petals hurt her eyes, and so she does not stop her tears. Nobody is around to see anyways. Under the sunflower, there was a childish scrawl. Teach me to hum please, we'll sing to the birdies together.
xOx
Under the willow of their old training ground, Tenten closes her eyes and meditates.
Konoha wind whisper to her skin, colder now that fall has taken over. And it is familiar, she felt it deep in her bones. Like someone's phantom fingers, just barely stroking her long unbound hair, her fingers, her face.
She must have dozed off because when she woke up, she finds herself draped above the fat roots under the drooping leaves. She looks to the west, to the bleeding sky and beams.
She'd dreamt of a dead man's smile.
It had been a long time.
Once, a lifetime ago, a boy with white eyes asked her why she hummed to birds. He only blinked when she said, 'The birds, they hear, that they do.'
Later, she learned he was an orphan like herself.
Years after, when they were older and he was kinder, she hums to him.
xOx
She is Tenten, the Weapons Mistress of Konoha. She is her dead steady hands and keen eyes. She is the soft thud of a body dropping from the sky. Or the foreboding sound of steel against air as she soar, soar, soar and oh there is rain, of steel and of blood, as the wind dances to her song. She is her hundred thousand blades beneath a disarming smile. She lives in the past and does not quite know how to live in the present, though blue-eyed children help her find ground.
She kisses her blades and she hums to birds.
She is slowly becoming the legend she wanted to be.
Yet she dreams of another world, another sky in another time—of free birds and of a boy who died.
Tenten opens her eyes, looks up and resignedly sighs. "Alright Neji," she smiles fondly, lets go. "See you on the brighter side."
xOx
"Tenten," the grip on her elbow is solid, as was the stare Neji watched her with. "You are strong, you will live."
He is reassuring himself, she realized, not her. Funny, how far they've come. "Have a little faith, Genius."
"I have something to tell you after all this." His gaze is intense, and he grips her closer, closer until her scarred fingers touched the vest over his chest. He's beautiful, all Hyuugas are. But Neji's just—just... "Be sure to look for me."
Her heart skipped and whisper soft it murmured wonderful things. She reached up, kissed his cheek and gave him a grin. "I will Neji. Rendezvous at the brighter side?"
His features soften, as much a smile as his Hyuuga lips allow him. "I promise."