Tenten hiccuped. She wasn't crying, she wasn't sobbing her heart out or yelling out to the heavens as one would expect. She wasn't even filled with righteous anger. Most people probably would be grieving, commiserating about how the good die too young. Most people in her position would be drinking away their sorrows, or holding their loved ones tighter. What about her then?
Well, she was empty. She was leaning against a tree in a training field late at night, idly playing with her kunai. She was just staring out into the distance. Her mind was carefully blank. She was almost in a trance, or rather maybe a meditative state. Just like-
She stood up abruptly. Tenten moved towards the targets where she always practised. Her body started throwing kunai after kunai at the bull's-eye. It was mechanical. It meant nothing to her, but it was soothing in a way. It was like nothing had changed. Here she was, still training; acting like everything was the same. It was like team training. Soon Lee would loudly challenge Neji to a match. Neji would just ignore him. Lee would get all worked up, with his usual overdramatic flair. Then Gai sensei would join him and there would be sunsets and green spandex everywhere.
She sighed, that was the root of her problem. Team Gai was broken. No matter how well she could compartmentalize her feelings, or act like everything was okay, her team was gone. The only other sane person on her team, one of her best friends, was dead. When she set out to become a ninja, she never thought about how her friends could die, or rather how she herself could die. She assumed everything would be peachy keen and that Team Gai would become world renowned. She thought that they'd reach the top, together.
Tenten stretched a bit as she got ready for her next set of accuracy exercises. She took out a blindfold from her pocket and wrapped it around her eyes. It didn't make much of a difference anyway, since it was already quite late. As she was plunged into darkness, all of her other senses lit up. She was in her element now. A flick of her hand and she could hear the thunk of ten kunai hitting their targets. Her aim was perfect, as usual. She rolled her shoulders. Time for shuriken now.
That was when Tenten heard it. The soft flapping of a hawk. A second later, she heard its warning screech. Another mission this late? Well, that sounded great. She raised her hand and with a whoosh the scroll fell into her hand. She removed her blindfold and glanced at the scroll's seal. It had to be an S-rank this time. The seal wouldn't be so complicated otherwise. She channelled her chakra into it. The hokage's seal greeted her. She scanned through its contents in seconds, committing it to memory. If all went well, she'd be back by morning. Otherwise she may be meeting Neji sooner than she expected.
She had to leave immediately, but she couldn't go in this frame of mind. So Tenten did what she did best these days. She collected all of her emotions, put them in a box and shoved them back to their assigned compartment in her brain. She was mission ready now. She didn't bother picking up her equipment and just body-flickered off. She had a job to do.