Auburn and Gold

Arc I, Childhood: To Begin


Synopsis: A Chunin kunoichi from Konoha dies from elemental chakra poisoning during the Fourth Shinobi World War, only to be given a opportunity of a lifetime: the chance to change everything. Time Travel, AU, Tenten-centric


When Tenten wakes in unfamiliar arms, she cannot fight the urge to reach for hidden weapons to throw at the masked ninja. The purpose of instinctual action is lost however, when her hands cannot feel a kunai pouch at her hip or senbon needles in her sleeves. All she achieves is being nearly dropped in surprise, but she relaxes because in the mistake allows the moonlight to shine on the ANBU armor and mask her captor wears.

"Sparrow-san?"

"Where do you live little one?" The voice is both toneless and low, but Tenten can tell by the chest she is cradled towards that the ninja is a woman, and relaxes just a little more.

"The orphanage, Ninja-sama." She doesn't have to pretend to be tired, and thanks the gods for small favors. All she wants is to burrow in her comforter and pretend she is not here. "Did Nono-san send you to look for me?"

"No." The ANBU says nothing more, but Tenten doesn't even notice because she lets her exhaustion take over and succumbs to a dreamless yet fitful sleep.


The next time she wakes, it is late afternoon and her room is empty.

She dresses with considerably less enthusiasm than yesterday, and slips out the window quietly onto an awning covering the orphanage's back patio. She takes a tentative step on the wall next to her window, testing her chakra, but frowns when she cannot generate enough to take even one, meager step.

Her compromise is to slide down the drain pipe, landing with no sound as she sneaks around the side of the house and into the streets.

Again, like yesterday, she wanders, the small, sliver of hope that grew during her slumber dying bit by bit as she is forced to accept the truth she thought, believed, hoped to the goddess herself was a product of delusion and delirium.

She notices the Uchiha patrolling the streets, the sheer number of them larger than she had ever seen before as she sees Sharingan eyes nearly everywhere. She passes the hot springs, watching a group of irate kunoichi leaving behind a severely injured, but clearly younger white-haired Sannin moaning in pain. She approaches the store that sold her the very first kunai set she ever owned, only to stop when she recognizes the young teenager sweeping the doorstep as the crippled shop owner that helped her choose her kodachi and sais.

She watches, and her hope dwindles like a dying candle with every piece of evidence she finds.

She visits the Memorial Stone that is missing hundreds of names, expecting to see Kakashi but finding the place deserted from all but wilting flowers. She sneaks around the Hyuuga compound and peers through a crack in the wall, her heart plummeting when she finds two identical male Hyuuga teens sparring instead of two Hyuuga cousins, one male and one female. She wanders to the Academy again, watching from the trees as a boy - who looks so very much like Shikamaru but so very not - is berated by a teacher, a ponytailed blonde who should be female and a chubby redhead who should be a brunette flanking him on either side.

Her last stop is her old training grounds, surrounded by dense forest and shaded from the harsh summer sun, and the last thing Tenten expects is to find someone training, someone who doesn't have thick black eyebrows or cold pearl eyes or brown buns. She doesn't expect to see a boy topped with a shock of spiky blonde running through katas, and can only stagger away gracelessly with her heart crying out, Naruto, Naruto, Naruto.

"Not Sasuke, not Jiraiya-sama," she whispers, saying the names like a mantra. "Not Neji, not Hinata, not Shikamaru, not Ino, not Chouji, not Naruto, not Naruto, not Naruto..."

Of course, she knows who the blonde is and who he will become, but it is just too damn easy to connect the scrawny boy to her boisterous, ramen-loving Jinchuuriki, instead of the imposing face that looked over her village between a Sarutobi and a Senju.

No, she reminds herself bitterly, it is not your village. Not the one you knew and loved.

And seeing all the differences make it all too easy to believe it.


"Education level?" The ninja doesn't even look at her when she stops in front of the desk.

"I can read, write, and do basic math." Her voice comes out in a squeak and her cheeks flush in embarrassment, but it makes the man look up. "I found my charka too." She hates pretending, but she is a child and must act like one.

"You mean chakra." Small eyes blink at her, scanning Tenten's small body before asking, "How old are you?"

"Seven." She is aware the age requirement is six unless under special circumstances, and she is not willing to show her knowledge until she is sure it is safe. Tenten has no inclination towards the life of a prodigy, but that doesn't mean she's willing to waste a year on the bare basics. "Nono-san says I've always been small for my age."

Orphan. The word, though unspoken, passes from Tenten to the man, and there is nothing more that needs to be said about it.

"This is not a game, little girl." The sigh that follows the tired, weary words makes it clear they aren't meant to be patronizing, but cautioning instead. "We're on the brink of war. We need every able bodied ninja out there, which means that once you sign up-"

"You're a soldier until you die," she interrupts in a soft voice but curses herself for forgetting she is supposed to be a civilian and is not supposed to know these things. Making up a lie to hide her blunder, she continues, "I know. Sparrow-san said told me." She is well aware that orphans are no more than cannon fodder during wartime, and she knows that she will be more than that. You will fight until your death.

"Yes." The man, whose face is horribly disfigured on one side and perfectly untouched on the other, pins her down with a stern, assessing gaze. "Are you prepared for that?"

Standing in front of the Chunin manning the administrative desk, Tenten bites her lip as she thinks hard about the ninja's words.

Are you willing to sign your life away? Tenten thinks back to the times when she had wished for a life free of murder, of death, of blood. She thinks back to the times when she had seen civilian teens smiling and gossiping together, skin unmarked from weaponry scars and chakra burns. She thinks back to their helpless screams and tearful worries, their desperation in trying to do something, anything instead of sitting and waiting with dying hope.

She doesn't think she can live with herself if she chooses civilian life, not while knowing she can make a difference.

If she had landed at any other time, in any other place, she just might've chosen to not be a ninja. There were other things she could do, things she didn't have to be a ninja to do... operating a weapons shop, babysitting ninja clan children, opening an architectural construction office, even managing a small bar.

Of course, her shop would only sell to those whose currencies weren't of gold or silver or ryo, but rather classified intelligence and blackmail material.

Babysitting young, impressionable children would only give her influence over their future, securing their loyalty towards her person and becoming valuable sources of dirt, of the figurative kind of course.

Her design business would specialize in security seals secretly doubled as sensitized recorders, funneling hidden conversations back to her to comb through painstakingly.

Her bar would cater only towards ninja, ninja who would blurt out drunken, hidden truths and ninja who were willing to trade information for information.

It would be impossible for her to achieve any civilian cover, for reasons that included her age, her orphaned status, and the war looming over Konoha's back. She knows that her only true option is that path filled with murder, death, and blood, and so makes her choice.

She nods, and the Chunin pulls out the Ninja Academy enrollment forms with a thin, strained smile.

"Name?"

At this, she pauses. Tenten has never heard of a time traveler before, and so doesn't know if there are any rules for this sort of paradox. Would she die upon her counterpart's death? Would her counterpart cease to exist entirely? Or would the gods compensate her absence with another?

She thinks, and decides. "Tenten." She isn't willing to give up the one thing her parents left her before dying. "Just Tenten."

He nods, and after minutes of scratching it is done. She signs on the line indicating applicant's name, marking the box labelled 'Orphan' next to her signature. She leaves the guardian signature line blank.

All it takes is a quick scan and a large red stamp, and with that the Chunin gets up to lead her to her classroom after filling her arms with Academy supplies.


The first time she signs the Academy enrollment forms, Tenten is six, signing her name with a flourish and a proclamation that she would become as legendary as Tsunade-sama herself. The Chunin manning the registration desk had chuckled and told her to work hard.

The second time she signs those forms, Tenten knows better. It is not a promise of fame and recognition, but rather a glorified death warrant that can be fulfilled at any time.

She has signed away her life twice now, but innocence can only be lost once.

And Tenten lost hers a long, long time ago.


She doesn't know what to expect when she is nudged into the room, but it certainly isn't this.

There are many brands of chaos Tenten is used to, being friends with people like Gai and Lee, Naruto and Kiba, and Sakura and Ino. She has as much patience as Naruto has chakra, built up after years of prolonged exposure, but she had hoped such insanity wouldn't follow her here. It is a futile hope, but it brings her comfort to see that time hadn't changed one of the familiar things she remembers from her home.

The Chunin escorting her sighs, eyes darting around the room for the class teacher. Tenten is the one who finds him amidst the spitballs and pencils and paper shuriken flying through the air, tied up and hanging from the ceiling to hover next to the lecturing podium.

She notes the glue and paper covering the teacher's trussed up body, and mourns the utter lack of sophistication or originality. Naruto could had done better when he was five.

"Again, Toushi?"

"Shut up, Kenta. One of the little devils slipped sleeping pills into my coffee," the hanging man scowls. A quick jerk of the wrist and the ropes slacken enough for the man to escape. "I woke up less than three minutes ago."

"You're getting rusty," Kenta muses, before turning back to the chaos that still reined in the classroom. "OI! BACK TO YOUR SEATS, BRATS!"

At the low-ranked genjutsu Kenta performs, Tenten is brought back to her own Academy days with good old Iruka-sensei. She had thought her old teacher's 'Big-Head Jutsu' was one of Iruka's own creations, but perhaps it was an Academy teacher secret.

There is a minute of mad, frantic scrambling, and then utter, complete, blissful silence.

"Listen up," Kenta scowls, purposefully releasing a wave of killer intent into the air strong enough to make all the sitting children cower into their chairs. "This is the third time you maggots have done this. Your sensei is not a chicken to be trussed up and feathered. Do you understand me?" Tenten notes with amusement that Kenta ignores the dark look Toushi sends his way.

A low murmur is his reply, and Kenta's scowl deepens.

"I said, do you understand me?"

"Hai, Kenta-sensei!" comes the discordant, fearful chorus of responses.

"Good." He pushes Tenten out from her place behind him, and she fidgets at the number of eyes trained on her small form. "This is Tenten, and she'll be in your class from now on! And if I hear about bullying or anything similarly idiotic, your asses are mine. Are we clear?"

"Hai, Kenta-sensei!"

He nods, momentarily satisfied, then claps a firm hand on Tenten's shoulder. "Good luck, girlie," he mutters, and then stalks out of the classroom.

"Take a seat anywhere you'd like, Tenten-san," Toushi says, and she obligingly chooses a seat in the far back near the wall. She feels eyes following her, but they turn away soon enough when Toushi begins lecturing on hand seals and chakra theory.

Tenten pretends to be taking notes, but instead begins to plan. She plans to graduate on time, which gives her little more than five years to refine her skills and rebuild her chakra reserves. She makes plans, head filled with ways to improve her arsenal of skills as well as her speed and strength and stealth.

She is in the process of making a training schedule for herself when she is startled by the girl sitting beside her, sneaking peeks at her paper. "What're you waking up at six for, Tenten-san? The Academy doesn't start 'til nine-thirty!"

Tenten stares at the girl, the smudges of dirt on her face doing nothing to conceal the blood red tattoos streaking down her cheeks, and her eyes travel to the young puppy peeking out at her from inside the girl's jacket, and immediately knows.

"I'm sorry, who're you?" Tenten keeps the confusion on her face as her heart answers for her, blood pounding in her ears. Inuzuka Tsume, eagle spread red face red coat all red red red. Tenten feels her expression wavering, and forces her tongue up to the roof of her mouth to suppress the urge to throw up. Old Kuromaru, claws gone teeth gone eyes gone empty skin all gone gone-

"Inuzuka Tsume," the girl grins, sharp canines glinting at Tenten in the fluorescent lights of the classroom. "And this here's Kuromaru." She adjusts her jacket, and the puppy preens for a moment before snuggling into Tsume's soft mesh shirt with a soft, contented yip.

"Hi." Tenten cannot help but smile, clenching her hands under the desk to hide her violently shaking hands. "Nice to meet you, Inuzuka-san, Kuromaru-san."

"Bah, it's just Tsume and Kuro. I'm nobody special," she grumbles, but Tenten notices the pleased smile on Tsume's face upon the address to Kuromaru. "But back to you, whatcha doin' up at six in the freaking morning?" Tsume peers down at Tenten's neat writing, "Stamina and speed training? "

"Laps, sets, reps, timed sprints, obstacle courses," Tenten says, reciting the drills by memory and feeling like she wouldn't mind being friends with Tsume. A traitorous, malicious part of her accuses her, just Kiba's replacement, but she ruthlessly squashes the voice and the guilt that wells up in her heart. "I hafta be strong."

"Me too!" Tsume grins. "I'm gonna be the strongest ninja in the Inuzuka clan! I'll beat that damn Kenshi-baka and become the first female Alpha ever!"

Tenten smiles knowingly and with an unnoticeable hint of sorrow says, "You're gonna be strong, Tsume-san. You'll be the clan leader one day, I know it."


Tsume blinks at the new girl, speechless.

It's the first time anyone has believed in her, the first time she hasn't been laughed at for her big dreams. Even her Ma and her Pa and Ginmaru think she's just trying get Kenshi-baka's attention because - and Tsume makes a face every time she thinks of this - she likes him.

Hah! As if Inuzuka Tsume would ever like that butthead of a baka.

But that isn't the point. The point is that this new girl says that Tsume'll be the Inuzuka clan leader as if this Tenten girl actually believes it.

She may only be seven - though her eighth birthday is coming soon - but Tsume is an Inuzuka through and through, and her nose can't be fooled. And her nose is telling her that Tenten really, truly, honest-to-Kami-sama-herself, believes in her.

Tenten's attention has already been drawn back to her notebook, and so Tsume quickly scoots back to where her things are and pretends to take notes of Toushi-sensei's boring lecture. She sneaks a look at Kuromaru in her jacket, and smiles to herself.

"Tenten-san's right, you know? We're gonna be the best, Kuro," Tsume whispers. "Just you wait."


Tsume leaves the Academy with Kuromaru that day wearing an ear-splitting grin and holding a lightness in her heart.

Tenten leaves the Academy as well, unaware that she has won the loyalty and friendship of a girl and a dog.


"Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it." - L. M. Montgomery, The Story Girl