Summary: Across different timelines, the princess and the general she killed are stranded on an island without sun. Reincarnation!AU with a twist. Soulmate!AU. Historical!AU. NejiTen
I was watching The Good Place when I began outlining this fic in my head. The show is great, but my fic is nothing like it. Huheuehuehue.
A couple of warnings: Mentions of SasuTen, blood, violence, suicide and the loss of an unborn child.
Enjoy! :))
Kamakura Period
The sky wobbled above her, purple and swallowing black. Empty.
Her gaze up, Tenten spun slowly on herself, panting hard. She still knelt, her legs tied together. The waves rippled toward her, but they never touched her. Gulping, Tenten looked down at her vicious grip. She opened her palm, but there was nothing.
"What happened?" she asked softly to herself.
She had a sense of something missing, the faintest trace of a weight in her palm.
Shakily, Tenten untied the red fabric around her legs.
She let it slipped in the waves. It undulated and curled like a snake, then it was gone.
Her gaze flickered to the trees farther away, an obscure line across the horizon. There was no sun, but she could see the forest stretching, the horizon curbing, sand and dust hanging in the air.
She was on an island, Tenten realized, and it looked like her lands.
Dry-mouthed, she pressed her palm to her cheek, then her neck. Her skin pulsed, sleek and sticky. She held out her hand in front of herself. Blood.
She scrambled to her feet.
"You're bleeding, Your Highness," a cold voice said from behind her, and she whirled around.
"General?" Tenten stammered and took a step back. "H-how did you bring me here?"
General Neji Hyuuga stepped forward, his face gleaming sharp and cold. His eyes flickered to her wound. His smirk stretched.
"I didn't bring you here, Your Highness, but I'll make the best of this situation."
"You're also bleeding," Tenten pointed at his side and staggered back again.
Her mind raced.
Neji frowned, the smirk vanishing from his lips. He looked down, and there was a gash to his side. He brushed the wound with the tip of his fingers.
He lifted his head, meeting her widened stare.
"I killed you," Tenten broke the silence first, blanching.
Neji took another step forward.
"We won." Tenten shook her head. "We won the war."
"I guess, you didn't quite kill me," Neji said slowly and spread his bloody fingers in a careful wave of the hand. Easily, it curled into a fist. "We should settle this fight, yes?"
Neji didn't wait for her to answer before he pounced on her. Her sleeves, his hip were empty of weapons they realized too late. The moment they collided, they were ripped apart. There was a loud crack that severed the air, the sky, the waves. Everything and nothing all at once.
Neji landed on the sand of the beach and rolled away, gasping for air.
Tenten moaned and sat up, holding back her cascading hair.
Neji flopped on all four, scowling.
"What did you do?" he snarled.
Chest heaving, Tenten steeled herself, watching him through her strands of hair. She felt the rim of her sleeve for a needle again. Nothing.
"Did you cut your own jugular?" Neji hissed, his white eyes now as wide and frightened as hers.
"We won the war," Tenten replied heavily.
Even if she knew a daughter of a warlord should have said: "I died with honour." She died because she was a woman who killed a general. She died because an alliance was inadmissible between their two clans without her lying out her own life. Power was a commodity for men.
Honour.
No, she didn't die with honour.
She died with bitter sorrow, cursing her clan and his.
Neji touched his wound again. The blood dripped steadily, but he felt no pain. Even when they had bounced away from each other and hit the ground, he had felt nothing. He had moaned and braced himself for the impact out of reflex.
He looked up again and saw her do the same thing. Her robes were loosened, heavy with blood, it kept sliding down her neck, but her robes didn't change. Her blood didn't pool down. Her face didn't drain of its colours.
They stared at each other.
"We're both dead," Neji said and sat on his heels.
Involuntarily, Tenten looked down at the palm that had held her dagger.
She startled.
He looked up, frowning.
There was a flash of light above. Then, a second one, longer.
The sea disappeared, sunk in a void.
"What's… What's happening?" Tenten cried out.
The sky exploded, ablaze, twisting faster, white. Screaming, Tenten shielded her eyes with her arms. Then, nothing.
Mongol invasion: Khara-Khoto
Tenten opened her eyes to a black still sky.
Pebbles rolled and screeched as she sat up. She grunted when she caught a glimpse of Neji sitting on the beach. His hair was braided, and he had set his helmet to the side. The side of his face was caved in, but his white eyes gleamed with the same intensity as before, piercing through her.
"Not this again," she moaned.
Carefully, she stood up and dusted off her palms.
"At least, this time, you didn't kill me," Neji said coldly.
"I saved my people," Tenten snapped. "This is what you do with a snake, you cut off the head."
"Yes, great thing that did you," Neji replied with cold irony.
Tenten glared at him.
"I don't remember allowing you to address me so informally, General."
"From your clothes, you were a peasant in this timeline, so I don't think the title princess applies anymore."
Tenten glared at him and gestured toward his soldier uniform.
"As spoken by a lowly solider," she said sarcastically.
Neji stood up and approached her.
She snarled, standing her ground. His eyes flickered across her face.
"We didn't meet in this life. I didn't even remember you or this, until I woke up here."
Tenten smiled coolly.
"At least, my prayers were answered."
"We both died, and we're both here. Why?"
His calculated gaze searched her face. She hadn't changed. She had high cheekbones and grey eyes that looked almost brown.
"I died in Khara-Khoto when the Mongols took the city," she said evenly.
Neji nodded to himself, still watching her. They were warriors first and foremost.
"I was fighting there. I died there too."
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know."
She pressed a hand to her clammy forehead.
"Did you notice, the island is different now?"
Neji frowned.
Tenten kicked at the ground.
"Pebbles," she said flatly, staring hard at the ground. "Last time, it was fine sand. We aren't on the same island." she pointed at the horizon, and he followed its direction. "No tree too, but high grass this time. It's modelled after the place we died."
He said nothing.
She smirked.
"Are you disappointed, you didn't notice, General?"
He pinched his lips.
"I figured out we were both dead."
"Yes, well, I left the child play to you."
Tenten spun on her heels and started walking on the beach. Neji remained where he was. Eventually, she came back from the other side.
"How long was I gone?"
"I don't…" Neji licked his lips, troubled. "I don't know."
She closed her eyes, paling.
"I was afraid you would say that," she said softly, and she faded in and out in front of him.
He braced himself.
A low rumble built up above them. Her mouth stretched in a scream. Fade in. Fade out. The horizon flickered.
"What's happening?" even her words faded in and out, stretched and muted.
The sky, the island, exploded, swirling black. His arms closed around his head.
Hightstown rail accident, New Jersey
Tenten opened her eyes to an empty train station. She sat on a hard bench. Grabbing for the iron arm-rest, she turned her head, searching for him.
Neji sat on another bench to her left at the end of the platform. He stared ahead, so her head whirled back in the same direction. Ahead, they had a view of the beach, and there was nothing beyond.
The island felt stuffier, smaller, now.
She stood up, her heel clicking dully as she approached him. He was dressed like a banker, his tie neatly folded against his high collar. His hair reached his jaw and a part of her revolted at the sight, still prisoner of her first life.
A warrior didn't cut his hair this short without dishonour.
"Did you die in the train crash in New Jersey?" he asked and his jaw twitched.
"Yes," she said softly and her hand beat her purse against her thigh.
Tenten closed her eyes briefly, sighing, then walked to the edge of the platform. The rails gleamed dully. She crouched down looking at them.
"What compartment?" she asked sharply.
"12."
"I was in 11."
She shook her head and lowered herself to the rails. Neji grabbed her arm to steady her.
"Careful," he hissed, then widened his eyes.
Eyes ablaze, she detached herself from him.
"How dare you," she said imperiously.
"I touched you," Neji said blankly and turned his hand to inspect it.
"Was that the first time you ever touched a woman, General?" Tenten asked in a mocking tone. "If we were back home, I would have taken your hand for that."
"I couldn't touch you the first time," Neji mused.
Tenten stopped walking and cocked her head to the side.
She walked back toward him and tossed her purse to the side. Her eyes gleamed like drawn steel.
"So, we could have our long overdue fight?" Slowly, she pulled at her lacy gloves.
Neji tilted his head to the side.
"I think we can touch each other, but we can't hurt each other."
Tenten shrugged, grinning.
"Well, this is the New World, so no katana or needles."
Tenten threw her weight back and tried to punch him. There was a rumble that exploded in a crack and her arm flew away from him, repulsed. She panted, staring at her hand in all angles. Frowning, she approached him again.
She carefully lifted her hand to his face. He stilled, his eyes following her movements. With hesitation, she laid her hand on his cheek.
Tenten warmed, something hot pulsing in her core. She gasped, ready to pull her hand away, but Neji pressed his palm to her hand, his eyes closed.
Her knees weakened.
"Stop that!" she whipped her hand out of his grasp and staggered back. Holding on to the edge of the platform, then sliding down, she slowly lowered her body to the rails.
Neji blinked.
"Are you a witch? You made me... do this."
"I didn't make you do anything, you goddamn asshole!" Tenten shouted and held her head between her hands. She panted heavily.
She felt herself twist and recoil, vibrating with... longing. She couldn't explain it to herself.
"God, I miss home," she said shakily, even if it wasn't quite true.
It wasn't home she missed.
Nothing loosened inside her. She missed him. She longed for his touch.
"Your Highness..." Neji muttered and it broke something inside her.
Tenten choked back on the discomfort in her chest. She twisted and arched her back. She opened her eyes. Neji stood over her, his face pale, looming. His fists curled and opened, shaking, by his sides.
"I think we are meant to find each other," he said softly. "Not here, but in... those lives we live."
"Every time we do, we die," Tenten said with a strained voice.
"I think..." Neji hesitated and licked his lips. "We die closer and closer to each other, you noticed it too, when you asked me in what compartment I was. I think we die, come here and restart because we don't find each other in time."
"Just... stay there," she panted and held out her hand to him as if to stop him from coming any closer. "Don't touch me again."
Neji sat on his heels, watching her. His eyes burnt, wildly piercing through her. Tenten turned away from him in a dignified posture, as if she was still a princess.
"You don't want to?" Neji said low, over her shoulder. "Because I do."
His eyes travelled up her neck to her elaborate hairdo. There was time, before the war, when their clans had met, and she had bowed down, hair spilling around her, exposing her neck. Her Western dress now exposed nothing.
Feeling his breath, his warmth, Tenten shivered.
"I know you feel it too," Neji whispered and reached up to her hairpins.
He pulled one out. She jolted back. A strand dropped, its end curling up. He removed a second, then a third pin, his breathing growing shallower. She gasped, but still didn't move. When her hair was completely free, he sank his hand in, holding her skull to tilt her head to the side.
Her breath was ragged, her eyes squeezed shut.
"You can't not feel that," Neji murmured in her ear.
Her arm shot back and grabbed his neck to hold him in place. His arm circled her waist and pressed her against his chest. His heart exploded in his chest, in his head, and he could feel hers, beating violently. They matched, he realized, and whispered it in her ear.
Neji reached up her chest to first button of her collar.
Tenten turned her head and kissed his arm.
Then, the light came, raining down in brutal waves. He didn't feel her anymore. He didn't feel his own arms.
They disappeared.
Sinking of the RMS Titanic
Tenten woke up retching water. She fell forward, splashing and whooshing, dry-heaving. She closed her eyes, hearing him behind her, hesitant.
She gripped at the sand, her chest shaking.
She pushed herself up.
Cursing under her breath, Tenten stood up. After two steps, she took off her shoes. She kept walking toward nothing. Her heels clicked in her hands. Her evening dress clung to her legs, uncomfortable and heavy. Her bun had slid down her face, half-undone.
Neji approached her.
"Ten?"
"You, stupid, stupid man!" Tenten shouted over her shoulder and glared at him.
The island was underwater, delimited by soft sand, but they had water to their ankles wherever they walked.
As always, they had nowhere to walk to.
"I'm stupid?" Neji repeated slowly, and his white eyes flashed. "You were going to marry Uchiha after this cruise."
Tenten narrowed her eyes at him. Chest heaving, she walked back toward him. His white shirt was plastered to his chest, his long hair sticking to his cheek and neck. His features stiffened, only his gaze moving to follow her.
"You didn't seem to care before you jumped in the water after me," Tenten shoved him back with her shoes.
He looked down at the spot she had touched.
She stilled.
"You stupid, stupid man," she said, low.
"Sasuke probably drowned too," Neji replied coldly. "Congratulations, Miss Morino, you were surrounded by stupid men who all died for you."
"We froze to death, Neji! We didn't drown," she snapped and stepped closer to him.
"Hn. The Titanic will definitely go down as the worst cruise of all time."
"This isn't going to make me laugh now!"
Neji tilted his head to the side, and gave her a small smile.
"You're fighting a smile."
With a frustrated sigh, Tenten threw her shoes in the water. Breathing hard, she stared up at him. They were almost chest-to-chest.
"Neji," Tenten hissed and licked her lips. "You died for me," she forced the words out in a hushed broken voice.
"I'd do it again,"Neji replied, impassible.
"You loved me," she said and her voice broke again.
Neji stared back at her as stoic as before. It unnerved her.
"And you loved Sasuke."
"Well, this is what you get for not speaking up about your feelings," Tenten replied low.
Lips pinched, she looked around her, then sighed. She sat in the water. She held up her arm underwater. She didn't feel the water against her skin. She didn't feel wet.
Neji cleared his throat, standing still.
"Did you love me?"
She closed her eyes, hurt. She felt his hurt and sorrow wrinkling inside her. When she was alive, she didn't know he loved her. They were close friends, raised together.
She opened her eyes to the empty horizon.
"No," Tenten admitted dully.
Her heart rattled painfully.
He smiled sadly.
"I knew... that's why I didn't tell you."
Neji sat down next to her.
"You knew me better than I knew you, it seems," Tenten articulated numbly.
"Maybe." he cocked his head to the side. "I didn't get a chance to tell you, but you were beautiful in that dress."
Tenten snorted.
"You mean, before the sea ruined it."
His lips quirked up.
"And death."
She laughed softly, her head down, as she weakly punched the water repeatedly. The amethyst of her engagement ring shone, distorted underwater. She felt like a fraud and a cheat wearing it. It didn't belong there, with them, she knew. She took it off. She weighed it in her palm, feeling Neji's gaze on her.
She threw the ring in the water.
"In our next life, I'll buy you a bigger ring."
Tenten grunted and crossed her arms over her bent knees.
"We were both blue-blood, nothing should have kept you from courting me in this timeline."
Tenten shrugged weakly, staring hard ahead. The sea moved in and out, but she thought it barely moved at all. Her lips shook.
"Maybe, we won't meet when we go back."
"We will," Neji said firmly. "You fight me here, it's only fair I'll fight for you there."
Tenten frowned.
"I don't fight you."
"Very well, let's discuss what happened last time we were here, Your Highness"
Tenten pinched her lips. Her fingers stiffened in the folds of her evening dress.
"There's nothing to discuss," she said flatly, "and everything would be weird if we did because I know you as a friend now."
"You killed me in our first timeline," Neji said with a smirk. "For that alone, I think Your Highness should indulge me."
Tenten narrowed her eyes at him.
"Drop the formality."
"Tenten."
She threw her hand out in the water, and there was a wave that never began and never ended. Time had stilled for them. 'Until the next timeline,' she thought bitterly.
"You should have resisted: 'Oh no, Your Highness, I possibly couldn't!'" Tenten nodded her head, punctuating her imitation of his voice. Her gaze cut through him. "This was a test and you failed."
"And you failed the test," Neji countered coldly, bristling, "when you accepted Uchiha."
Breathing hard, she slapped at the water again. Nothing happened.
"Fine, let's talk about the train station. You were about to undress me!" Tenten cried out and gestured around her as if to mime the scene. She had once more, the strong voice of a princess. "In the middle of a train station, of all places. You're a dishonourable man, General!"
Neji froze.
Tenten dropped her hands back in the water, and closed her eyes.
"I didn't..." she let the words dangle.
"Do you really think that?" Neji asked after a moment. "That I'm dishonourable?"
"No," she pushed back her wet hair, hesitating before unpinning her locks. The pins floated away from them. "I'm just upset you jumped in the water after me, and then, you tried to make me laugh, and then, you proposed marriage to me in our next life. How absurd," she scoffed.
"Once we go back, you won't remember this, so I didn't spoil anything."
"God, Neji," Tenten grumbled and pressed her forehead to her knees to hide her smile.
He saw through her.
She grabbed his arm and squeezed before letting go. Neji thought of catching her hand, but she had done the same gesture when she announced she had accepted Sasuke Uchiha. Smile and squeeze his shoulder. "I'm glad you're happy for me." There was still something deeply careless and friendly about her manners.
'Like we had known each other for centuries,' he thought bitterly.
And it drove him mad with want and love and anger.
'We're supposed to be together!' Neji yelled inwardly. He wondered why he saw it first, that they belonged together, just as the world around them flashed and quivered, black and light.
"Here we go again," Tenten said, but he never heard her.
Everything was gone.
World War II
Tenten woke up crying in a field of poppies. They hummed, red. Everything was alit around her, vibrating softly.
She sat up carefully.
"You never made it back," Tenten said, haggard, and quickly wiped her face. She repeated it after she cleared her throat, after her vision cleared.
She blinked rapidly, horror twisting her insides. 'Maybe he isn't there this time.'
Tenten stood up, searching the field.
"Neji?"
Her heart at the back of her throat, Tenten gathered her skirts and pushed back the flowers out of her way. Something grabbed her wrist.
She cried out.
"I lost a leg," Neji said flatly and released her.
"God gracious, you scared me!" she forced a laugh out, her heart beating violently.
Her mouth still round, Tenten gazed down at his legs. He lied on his back in his soldier's uniform, one arm supporting his head as he kept staring above. There was nothing to gaze at, no sun, no stars, no clouds, but the posture was familiar and comfortable.
Tenten pointed at his legs.
"They're both there," she said quietly.
"I meant at the front." His jaw clenched. "I lost one."
With a sigh, Neji sat up.
Tenten held her arm in front of her to keep them from trembling.
They stared at each other.
Their gazes were haunted. She still wore her nurse uniform. He still wore his soldier uniform. They had restarted, as them and not them, without apparent injury. Like the death they carried, in the battlefield, in the hospital, never happened. Like they never happened.
Tenten looked away first.
"Is this why you didn't come back?" Tenten asked and her voice wobbled, distant and numb. "Because you lost a leg? You thought I would leave you?"
"I died, that's why I didn't come back, Ten. I take it you never received my letter?" Neji turned his head toward her, his eyes glinting. "I'm much more bothered by the fact that I never got you a ring."
"You're unbearable," she said with laughter in her voice and a frown. "And I liked you first in this timeline, so be grateful. I did plenty of embarrassing things."
She sat down next to him. Reaching across from him, she touched the flowers. He twisted strands of grass between his fingers.
"How did you die?" Neji asked.
"A bombing. You?"
"Same... On my way back home, honourably discharged and all."
Neji tugged at a flower, but the moment it broke free of its stem, it wrinkled, devoured by light, and faded out of existence. He moved his hand. It was there once more, attached to its stem, bent by the wind. It was as if he had never touched it.
Neji sighed and lied down on his back.
He couldn't grasp when Tenten lied down next to him. Time still had no meaning on the island. She was a Japanese princess, a Tangut peasant, a woman of the New World, a British aristocrat, and a nurse during World War II. All at once. She was stretched across timelines, like him.
But when they touched, he didn't feel thin, spread, spent. He didn't feel like one persona or another. He felt whole.
Tenten looked up at him.
"We were so close..." she whispered and her hand sneaked up his chest where his heart beat and didn't beat at once.
"I was going to marry you," he said.
She smiled sadly.
"Too bad the war happened."
"Hn."
Tenten hesitated, then snuggled to his side. She watched him carefully. He didn't react at once. Time lapsed, and didn't. Neji shifted to put his arm around her.
"Remember when I killed you?" Tenten asked abruptly.
Neji glanced down at her with an eyebrow raised.
She played with a button on his uniform, avoiding his gaze.
"I don't regret it. It was the right move at the time. I just wonder if you'll ever forgive me. If that's what keeping us apart."
Neji grabbed her waist and pulled her to him, so she was half-lying on top of him.
She squealed.
"This is highly inappropriate, General," Tenten said shakily, choking, and her gaze gleamed when it found his mouth.
She slipped in and out of the princess she had been.
Her fingers curled around his collar.
His chest heaved carrying her weight, sinking into her. Neji touched her face, and the wind warmed against his skin.
Tenten closed her eyes, her lips parted. She leaned on his touch. It felt right.
"I wondered about that," Neji whispered and he traced the line of her jaw. "We've had so many lives now. I've hurt you, and you've hurt me in many other ways. It's only here, that we can't hurt each other."
"Right..."
She nudged her head forward, and his hands ran down her back until it reached her low back. He pressed her against him harder. She brushed her lips against him. She leaned in, resting her forehead against his.
Neji sighed, caved in, caved out, finally full of her.
His hands travelled back up, to hold her head. He kissed her hard, the way he had done before he left for the war. She moulded her body to his, and for a moment, before she saw the light behind her lids, she felt the weight of her robes pushed off her shoulders, back home, centuries ago.
'If I hadn't killed him,' she wondered, and her skirts slid up her legs.
They never opened their eyes, sinking in the darkness, the nothingness of the island.
Springfield, Philadelphia, 1985
They woke up, side-by-side, in a shopping mall. Through the windows, they could see the sea gleaming without sunlight.
Tenten blinked and sat up with difficulty. She had a gunshot wound to her side. She shook her head, laughing hollow.
"I thought it would be over once we found each other. We're married." Tenten angrily waved her left hand at the empty mall. "Why isn't it over?"
She pinched the bridge of her nose.
"Where did we go wrong this time?" she said, her voice extinguished.
Neji touched his gunshot wound, then hers. She stopped, dropping her hand. She looked up at him with tears in her eyes.
"I was pregnant," she said quietly.
Neji pulled her to him. Warmth spread between and inside of them.
"I know..." he muttered in her hair. "I know."
She cried noisily, clinging to him. He cried silently, clinging to her. The part of him who was the General, the part of him who found her test in the bathroom mourned side-by-side with all the parts of her.
"Listen," Neji pulled back. He gathered her tears with his thumbs.
Tenten sniffed and wiped at his cheeks. He closed his eyes. She pulled him back toward her, and pressed her forehead to his. Despair and sadness guided them, but the warmth their shared, the way they fitted onto each other held them up.
"We were so close," Tenten muttered. "This is senseless," she laughed quietly. "We were killed at the mall."
Neji smiled sadly against her lips, her throat, her cheek, her eyelid.
And he began again, kissing all he could reach.
"I'm glad, it isn't over... It means, we'll always find each other," he kissed her wet cheek, resting there.
She squeezed his hand.
He squeezed her hand back.
Mirrored, in sync.
They dissolved like sand in the mist, flashes of light and darkness. Round and round, they started over.
Thank you for reading! I may do a second chapter with them meeting in modern times, but we'll see...
Please take the time to let me know what you thought if you can. :))
...
Historical notes:
Kamakura period timeline: A daughter or wife of a warlord or samurai would commit seppuku the way that is described: a knife through the jugular. Their knees were tied together to avoid sliding in an undignified pose once dead. This is unlike men who were assisted by a clansman and drove their sword through their gut. A woman of the samurai class would also know how to fight, and there are records of women who were samurai.
Khara-Khoto was really a city taken by the Mongols. Today, its location is in Inner Mongolia, China.
The Hightstown rail accident truly happened: a cart was derailed because of a hot box. There were two deaths, so evidently, I thought I would push it on Neji and Tenten.
The WWII timeline ended in a field of poppies for their significance for veterans and those who have fallen in combat. Since Neji and Tenten died in two different locations, I chose a field of poppies.
About the last scene: It's based off the case of Sylvia Seegrist who shot and killed three people, including a child, at a shopping mall in Springfield.