Auburn and Gold
Arc I, Childhood: Of Heart
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
Standing at the notice board with her lips set in a grim line, Tenten reads the poster one more time, just to make sure she isn't just seeing things.
"War?" Yoshino whispers in disbelief, and Tenten glances at Tsume to see her face blank with shock.
"It's gotta be what happened to Hokage-sama's kids," Tsume murmurs softly, and Tenten can only look back at the poster, biting her lip. It's been two weeks since the disaster at Sarutobi Asuma's welcoming festival, and Tenten still hasn't confronted Tsume about the Iwa spy she killed.
"Not just that. I heard Tou-san tell Kaa-san that Iwa, Kumo, and Suna are planning to make a formal alliance to try invading Fire Country territories." Yoshino looked at her and Tsume with pained eyes. "He said the shinobi and civilian councils have been disbanded to make a council specifically for the war."
"Not just any war," Tenten says. "The Third Shinobi World War." She notices Tsume and Yoshino exchange looks, but Tenten doesn't care. She hadn't thought about the war that had secured Konoha as the most powerful hidden village, but she berates herself for overlooking it.
Had growing up in peacetime for both her childhoods softened her so much that she had become complacent?
"It says they're changing the Academy graduation age to ten starting with the newest class. I guess that means we'll be graduating at next year." Yoshino muses, reading the smaller flyer next to the large poster. "Genin are being bumped up to C and B-rank missions in place of Chunin."
"That means retrieval and courier missions." Tenten frowns. "And the possibility of fighting up to Jounin level enemy nin."
"But we're only eleven." Tsume's voice cracks, and at her side Kuromaru whimpers.
"Doesn't matter," Tenten says bitterly. "We'll have to go out there and fight... you're a soldier until you die."
The words, once said without emotion nor feeling, come back and haunt her. Where is your bravado? Where is your pride? There is mocking laugher echoing through her mind, bringing up memories of another war, of death, and of a tiny girl standing stoically in front of a man. You will fight until your death.
"How can we do that?" Tenten turns to stare at Tsume, who's eyes are filling with angry tears. At her side, Yoshino flinches when Tsume reaches up and tears the Academy notice from the board, ripping it to shreds with furious concentration. "How can we go out and fight a war when we're only eleven fucking years old?"
Tenten watches helplessly as Tsume spins and darts away, Kuromaru at her heels.
Tsume stares at her hands, unaware of Kuromaru's wet nose nudging her bare arms. There is nothing on her skin but dirt and dust, but to all she can see is rivulets of red, flowing from her fingertips down to her elbows, dripping down to the earth she is sitting on.
Schwack! She remembers how the shuriken in her hands slid against each other, sharp metal edges catching on one another. Her hands clench into throwing position, and she can practically feel the cool, oiled metal trapped between her finger joints.
Thump! Her ears rings with the sound of metal sinking into soft, unyielding flesh, smoother than a sushi knife slicing through raw fish. Her nose twitches at the phantom smell of iron, and she can taste the metallic tinge of blood flecking her lips. The combination causes her stomach to flip.
"Tsume?" Her head snaps up and her eyes meet Tenten's worried features.
"Hey," she murmurs, and makes no move as Tenten sits down in the dirt in beside her.
Tsume doesn't know how long she sits in silence, staring at her hands, while Tenten waits quietly beside her. Her mind runs over the motions again and again, and when the shine of the sun begins to slip into shadow she murmurs, "Does it ever get easier?"
Tenten looks at her sharply, but Tsume knows what Tenten doesn't say out loud. There is something in her friend that drew Tsume to her at first sight, something born from a strange mix of curiosity and pity. It is something she sees in her parents, in her teachers, and in the ninja who wander the streets, and although it has taken her two years to find it she can finally name it.
It is something Tsume didn't understand until the moment someone died at her hands, someone who once lived and breathed, loved and slept like she did.
It is the hollow, endless desperation to hold onto what defines you as human.
"Yes," Tenten answers, and Tsume exhales in part relief, and part revulsion. "And no."
"All I can see is his blood," she whispers, "I'm a murderer." She feels Tenten shift over to pull Tsume into a sideways hug, and Tsume clutches the slim girl's arms tightly.
"There will always be blood, and there will always be guilt," Tenten says, "But if there isn't blood or guilt, there won't be someone there to protect what you love."
"What if I kill so much it becomes too easy? What if I start... liking it?"
"You will not like it," Tenten says sternly, and pulls back to stare at Tsume in the eye. "You will accept it only to protect, but you will never kill for the sake of enjoyment."
"But what if I do?" The idea shakes Tsume so much that Kuromaru buried his face into her neck, trying to comfort her. "What if I become a monster?"
"You won't," Tenten replies, "because I won't let you. And Yoshino won't either."
When Tsume doesn't reply, she hears Tenten begin to speak softly.
"There was a man who lived near the orphanage who liked to come over and watch us play in the backyard," Tenten starts carefully, catching Tsume's attention. "He was very... vocal, I guess, about what kinds of kids were his favorites and stuff like that. It creeped me out."
Tsume sees Tenten's hands clench, knuckles white, and she pales when Tenten says, "He started taking kids away to his house, and he... hurt them."
"Did he...?"
"I don't know," comes the glum answer, and Tsume is floored. Being sheltered by her parents and her clan's standing, she is not aware of the darker side of Konoha where evils hide in sheep's clothing. It opens her eyes to the differences between her life and Tenten's, and it leaves a bitter taste in her mouth.
"He tried taking you, didn't he?" Tsume knows what the answer is, and Tenten's mouth tightens into a line.
"I overloaded chakra into his heart." Tsume notes the flatness of her friend's voice, with an undertone of steel. "The official story is that he died from a heart attack."
"Do you regret it?"
"Do I regret killing a human being? Yes. But do I regret protecting my friends from someone worse than trash?" Tenten's eyes have a hard look in them. "Never."
Tsume mulls over her words, even after Tenten pats her shoulder and heads back to the orphanage as she walks back to the Inuzuka compound.
"Kuro... if you had to kill someone to protect someone important to you, would you?" Tsume closes her eyes when Kuromaru barks an affirmative, and sighs.
"I would too," she whispers, the heaviness in her heart still weighing down her chest.
Then she looks at her hands, and although she sees blood, in her mind she knows there is less on her skin than there was before.
A few short raps on the door to his office knocks Hiruzen Sarutobi out of focus, and he can't suppress the sigh that escapes him as he gently places down his brush. He had been hoping for a quiet morning before the afternoon's war council to tackle his paperwork, but as usual, nothing ever goes as planned.
"Come in," he calls, and expresses his surprise at his visitor by raising his eyebrows and folding his hands.
"Hokage-sama," the Genin, recently graduated if the unmarked hitai-ate is any indication, greets him formally, bowing. "Genin Nara Shikaku, sir."
"Ah, Shikano's boy, yes?" The boy nods his affirmative, and Hiruzen smiles. "What can I do for you today?"
Hiruzen notices the slight tensing of the boy's shoulders and the twitch in the boy's jaw, silently taking in the off combination of hesitation and anticipation in the boy's unsure form. This makes him slightly anxious; what could a new Genin be both scared and anxious about, particularly a chronically lazy Nara?
"I think there's a spy in the village," the Nara boy says lowly, and Hiruzen freezes.
Silently, the ANBU ninja in the room move outside to guard the door and windows, while Hiruzen taps a soundproofing seal on his desk twice, watching as blue lines of chakra flare across the floor and walls and ceiling. "May I ask what brings you to this conclusion?" He settles his chin on his clasped hands, studying the nervous boy who fidgets under his gaze.
"There is a girl," Shikaku says haltingly. "In the Academy."
Hiruzen just barely stops himself from questioning whether the boy's nervousness is resulted from an unrequited crush, but something in the Nara boy's eyes make him pause and listen. It is the same look that Nara Shikano gets when he can't quite figure something out, down to the spark of frustration and the overwhelming curiosity, and it is... unusual.
"Go on."
"She is... unusual," the Genin says, almost helplessly. "I can't explain exactly why... but there's something about her that seems... odd."
"Perhaps some examples? Any signs of advanced skills, higher intelligence?"
Shikaku sighs. "Her skill and intelligence levels tend to match that of her classmates. An interesting proficiency in weaponry and perfect accuracy, and high scores on written exams, but seemingly average in practical jutsu application and strength. If anything, her high speed and stealth is unusual, but it can be attributed to her small stature."
Hiruzen frowns, trying to think of a face to place with Shikaku's theory, but falls short. "Is there any information on her family?"
"She's apparently an orphan who lives with Nono-san's orphanage." Shikaku shrugs off the sharp look Hiruzen shoots him. "I overheard her talking about it to her friends during lunch. Her name is Tenten, currently finishing her penultimate year of the academy."
Hiruzen turns his eyes to the crystal ball sitting at the far corner of his desk, waving a hand over the transparent surface and watching as an image of a rather nondescript girl comes into view. A closer look reveals that the girl is reading a tome on fuuinjutsu. Interesting.
"Is this her?" Shikaku nods, and Hiruzen graces him with a smile. "Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Shikaku-kun."
The dismissal is clear, but the boy lingers just so slightly that Hiruzen registers the hesitation to something more than nervousness.
"Is there something else I can help you with?"
"I... Her taijutsu skills." Shikaku shifts. "From the little I've seen, she unconsciously channels chakra to her hands and feet, and tends to mimic several Juuken moves."
Hiruzen sits up straighter. "Hyuuga Juuken?"
"Hai."
"So you think she may be a spy from Kumo."
"Possibly. Of course," Shikaku admits, "I could be paranoid. She could have Hyuuga classmates or friends."
Hiruzen hums in reply and says, "I will see what I can do. Thank you again, Shikaku-kun."
"By your leave, Hokage-sama," Shikaku bows, and leaves through the door.
As the soundproofing seal wears off, Hiruzen thinks. And when he senses his ANBU guards nearby again, he calls out, "Hawk."
The ninja appears at his side, kneeling and head bowed in a show of servitude. "Hokage-sama."
"Shadow the Academy student Tenten. Report to me any suspicious behavior." The ANBU straightens to look at the crystal ball, and nods before vanishing though the window.
Hiruzen looks down at his paperwork and sighs, dipping his brush into the bowl of water to wash ink from the soft bristles. He hopes that Nara Shikaku is wrong, and that this Tenten is simply just a regular academy student, but he will have to wait for Hawk's report.
After all, he is a ninja first and foremost, and a Hokage second. And for a shinobi, the most important lesson is one that has been ingrained within him ever since his childhood days were taken over by Senju Hashirama and Senji Tobirama.
A misinformed shinobi is a dead shinobi.
"Team 4," Toushi-sensei recites from the paper, "Masaharu Jirou, Jibaku Akira, Inuzuka Tsume. Meet your sensei at the lobby of the Hokage Tower."
"Shit," Tsume mutters, and when Tenten reaches over to squeeze her friend's hand she hopes it is reassuring.
"Try to get along with them," she murmurs, but Tsume snorts.
"Easy for you to say," she grumbles. "You're not the one Jibaku wants to blow up."
Tenten opens her mouth to reply but winces when Toushi-sensei shoots her a dirty look. She mouth snaps shut and she settles for a grimace of pity when the next team formation is called.
"Team 5. Honda Toko, Nakamura Yoshino, and Matsumoto Hiro. Your sensei will be waiting for you at the base of the Hokage Monument."
Yoshino lets out a sigh of relief, and Tenten gives her a smile. Good for you, she mouths, and Yoshino replies with a smile of her own for Tenten and a sympathetic look for the grumbling Tsume.
"Team 6. Hyuuga Hikari, Tenten, Hirohito Takashi." Toushi-sensei makes an odd face as he says, "Meet your sensei at Ramen Ichiraku."
Tenten returned Tsume and Yoshino's questioning glances with ones of her own, ignoring the odd meeting place in favor of her team placement. To her knowledge, there has never been a Konoha Genin team with more than one female, despite the widely accepted all male Genin formation. She knows the team formations are decided by the Hokage, so she wonders what type of team Sarutobi Hiruzen has in mind for them.
"Not tracking," she murmurs to herself softly. "But maybe... Frontal assault? Infiltration? Assassination?"
The first doesn't make any sense to Tenten, if only because of her own skills combined with those of her team members. Being a former teammate and training partner for a Hyuuga, she knows that if a tracking team had been the goal, Hyuuga Hikari would've been Tsume's teammate and Tenten would've had Jibaku Akira on her team instead.
Frontal assault, while a possibility, is something Tenten can't really see their team doing. Tenten's own skills, better than the ones she had upon graduating the first time, place her in both support and frontal assault positions with her weaponry, and Hikari's Hyuuga abilities speak for themselves. However, Hirohito Takashi's strengths are trap-making, stealth, and evasion; none of which lend themselves to the skills a frontal assault team would prefer.
She is left with infiltration and assassination, but she has a nagging feeling her team is formed with a predisposition towards the latter. Hyuuga Juuken-induced kills can be softened to mimic heart attacks, and her own accuracy with weapons mean she can kill with a single, well-placed senbon or kunai from a distance, never needing to do close-range killings. Takashi's high stealth abilities would simply be icing on the cake.
Maybe both, she decides, and when the teams are all called she stands up. "Good luck, both of you," she says, looking at Yoshino and Tsume each in turn. "We still up for dinner tomorrow?"
"Of course!" Yoshino grins, and Tsume nods, too busy muttering angrily under her breath. With a wave goodbye, she heads over to where her two teammates are waiting at the door.
"Shall we?" Takashi holds open the door, and looking at the grin on his face Tenten decides he looks nice enough. Hikari, who brushes past the two of them without a word, is a different story.
"Well that's a bit rude," Tenten grumbles, and to her surprise Takashi laughs.
"It's typical Hyuuga behavior," he explains, shrugging as they follow Hikari to the ramen stand. "You'll get used to it."
Tenten smiles, but inside a part of her twists. I should be used to it, she tells herself. With a teammate like Neji, the consummate example of Hyuuga arrogance, she should've expected it, but the familiar gesture hurts all the same, even more because of how she forgets.
Sighing, she ducks under the fabric flaps of Ramen Ichiraku, meeting the backs of Hikari and a woman with a waterfall of blood red hair.
"You must be our Jounin sensei," Takashi chirps, and when the woman turns around Tenten nearly has a heart attack. The woman's face is so uncannily familiar to another close to her heart, and when the ever-lingering pain in her heart doubles, Tenten knows exactly who she is looking at.
Uzumaki Kushina. Naruto's mother.
Uzumaki Kushina studies her students with a seemingly casual glance, but the look she catches on one of her students' face snatches her interest. It is momentary and fleeting, so quick that she almost doesn't see it, but Kushina sees enough to know that the look is one of recognition.
Which is strange, considering how Kushina is sure she has never seen Tenten before her assignment to the Genin team. And if Kushina hasn't ever seen Tenten, there is no chance Tenten has ever seen her.
It brings her back to the conversation she has with Sarutobi Hiruzen, and she recalls his warning with a more thorough look of the girl.
If she shows any sign of wavering loyalty, the Hiruzen of her memory says, incapacitate her and bring her to the torture cells for interrogation. It is a harsh punishment for one so young, but Kushina knows orders are orders: the village comes first.
Even so, Hiruzen's warning doesn't make her more cautious. It just makes her curious... and a curious Uzumaki is one of the worst kinds.
"We sometimes encounter people, even perfect strangers, who begin to interest us at first sight, somehow suddenly, all at once, before a word has been spoken." - Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Crime and Punishment
A/N: First of all, thank you to everyone who took the time to read, favorite, follow, and review this story! I will be replying to reviews via PM, but bear with me please; it may take some time for me to get through them. However, I want to thank you all for your support of this little project of mine; I hope you continue to read future chapters, and I'll try my best to write something you will enjoy!
ALERT: I've started a one-shot series pertaining to this story called "The Color Wheel," and I'd appreciate it if you guys checked it out! There will be four arcs, and each one-shot will have a color theme to coincide with "Auburn and Gold." Let me know what you think!