Author Note
Dear everyone,
It seems stories with larger formats are really popular, so I gave that another go. As usual, I really love hearing from you guys - whether it's by comment or private message, positive or negative - because it's always interesting to hear how someone read the story. Sometimes I'm astonished and fascinated by the different interpretations of a scene or character, what someone took away from certain parts, or what people's favorite bits were.
I also noticed that many don't have a account, which I found surprising. If you'd still like to stay up to date with writing projects without being able to follow my person on this website, send an email to marie. de. france (at sign) gmx .com (no spaces) and I'll put you on the mailing list. I'll let you know when I'm uploading another story here; I might also send chapter previews if you don't mind that. You can also find the email on my profile.
Phew, I'm not big on interaction as I'm quite shy but I think as far as author notes go this wasn't the worst. I'll look forward to hearing from you again, positive, negative, confused, and everything in between.
Sincerely,
Marie
Arrival
And there he was. Just walking in front of her.
"Oh by the gods, you're him."
He was standing, alive and well, on the dirt road. Behind him Konoha loomed above them, on a hill emerging from the luscious forest it was named after.
"Of course I'm me," he responded.
But I … Oh goodness… I saw you die, she thought. What she said, though, was:
"I haven't seen you in years…"
She reached out to touch his cheek but never quite made it that far.
"What are you talking about? You saw me an hour ago," he informed her.
"No. No. I saw you years ago. We said goodbye. You said 'I'll see you after the battle'. I know it for sure. The moment's burned into my memory. What are you doing here?"
Now he was looking at her as though he didn't have time for games.
"No, I said 'I'll see you tomorrow' and it was only an hour ago, which is why it may not be 'burned into my memory' but it's pretty fresh and I have a very accurate memory."
"You're so arrogant."
"What else is new?"
Wait a minute.
"Your wrinkles are gone…and your hair's shorter," she said.
"No it's not. You literally saw me an hour ago. You walked off the training compound and you took off your shirt and poured water-" Neji momentarily stumbled over his words. "And then one of Asuma's crew whistled, some boys laughed, and you got mad and I … didn't say anything except 'see ya tomorrow".
Something was wrong. This Neji was wrong. Her Neji was not this Neji. But he seemed eerily familiar.
"I poured water over my face because you shoved it into the dirt. And then the water ran down my front side and I was wearing white, so someone whistled…," Tenten murmured.
Neji still looked slightly uncomfortable but he brightened up when she seemed to remember.
"Exactly!"
Tenten felt sick when the next words stumbled out of her.
"That was 7 years ago..."
The Neji in front of her didn't seem to notice her haunted demeanor, because he just rolled his eyes again and repeated, exasperatedly:
"No, it was an hour ago. I have a perfect feeling for time."
Tenten's head was spinning and she needed to think. Nothing was making sense and she suddenly realized, prior to seeing Neji just now, she couldn't remember anything definite. She couldn't remember what she'd had for breakfast this morning or putting on her clothes. She looked down at herself. Pink. She hadn't worn pink in years.
Frantically, she began to unbutton her pink blouse but all she was wearing underneath was a white shirt.
"Tenten..." Neji's adam's apple bobbed as he watched her. "What's… going on? You know, it wasn't me that whistled but if you-"
"I haven't worn this in years," Tenten interrupted whatever nonsense he was babbling. "In fact. I'm not even sure I own it anymore. If at all, it's at the very back of my closet and I'd have to… search for it..." As soon as Tenten spoke the words, images flashed in front of her inner eye. Her hands, rummaging through her closet. And the image came with a feeling of urgency.
In fact, there had been an underlying sense of urgency to her whole demeanor this entire time. But Neji had distracted her. Or this fake version anyhow.
Tenten's eyes clung to his perplexed porcelain skin, completely untouched by death, and those piercing eyes. So empty yet so alive. It was very easy to get distracted by his perfect features. There was not a man alive who had his cheekbones and nose.
Indeed, not one … alive. That's something she knew for sure. She also knew that she was Tenten Minazuki, 30 years old, and a special agent with the Konoha forces and she was about to have an important meeting with her commander, Naruto Uzumaki.
Tenten expelled breath in triumph at having remembered something.
"Ok. Naruto," she hummed. "I gotta find Naruto."
The fake Neji's brow quivered like he couldn't quite believe what he was hearing.
"Naruto…?"
If she could just stop being distracted by his perfectly pale complexion, she would be able to figure out why she was so urgent. But it was no use. Her inner system was in complete chaos, everything had been thrown out of calibration. Neji was dead. She knew it for sure. She had watched it happen and what's more, he'd been dead for a while. Dead for years. This was semantic knowledge that she just knew.
So, why in the world was there a 23-year-old fake version of him running around, acting cocky? A spell? Was this just someone else dressed up as him? Tenten was notoriously bad at anything that went beyond hard metal combat, so there was no way she could figure it out. But then, how did this imposter remember an event from 7 years ago like it was an hour ago?
And why was he looking at her like this?
And why was her head hurting so much she could barely think, let alone remember anything from her episodic memory. She needed a doctor. And her commander. Luckily, the two of them would be close together.
"Sakura. I need to find Sakura first and she'll know where Naruto is."
Tenten was starting to feel woozy, like everything had been happening too fast and something was catching up to her. In fact, it might have already caught up to her because it was dragging her down to her knees.
Fake Neji was surprisingly tender when he caught her shoulder. Supporting her weight while she regained consciousness, afforded him the chance to take a really close look at her. This meant when Tenten's eyes fluttered open, the first thing she saw when she turned her head towards him was his piercing stare. All of a sudden it didn't matter that he had been dead three years because whoever this new, fake Neji was, he incited the same old spark.
That flutter of electricity under her skin, in her muscles. A weird beast that reared its head sometimes and Tenten had used to hate it, hated what this feeling stood for, saw it as a betrayal of everything a friendship stood for. But now that it was back, Tenten was overwhelmed with happiness. So much so that it brought tears to her eyes and she felt herself leaning towards this person whose features were so familiar, so…
And he was leaning towards her too. But the look in his eyes was so surreal, unlike anything she had ever seen in her Neji that it just reminded her that this one was not him. This was a strange copy with outdated memories that had somehow shown up in her village right when her memory started to act up.
Strange coincidences aside, Tenten felt steadier on her feet, so she struggled back onto them and out of his grasp and looked around bewilderedly, trying to figure out in which direction she'd have to stomp off in order to find Sakura and Naruto.
"Sakura," Tenten whispered to herself as though she were trying to jog her own memory. "Come on, Tenten. You need a doctor. You gotta find her."
"Why don't you let me take you?" fake Neji offered. There was none of his former carefree attitude left. He looked very serious now. It made him look a lot more like her Neji, so Tenten tried not to look at him as she followed him up the road they were on. A road she didn't remember walking to…
They were halfway up the hill before fake Neji spoke again.
"Tenten…," he uttered in a strange voice, while she was basically just trying to stay upright and set one foot before the other.
"I know what you mean now. I saw it."
Tenten was perspiring and the road had been blurry for a while now.
"Saw what?" she asked, foul-tempered.
"Your wrinkles."
Tenten raised her head to look at fake Neji's stiff back but he wouldn't return her gaze. She realized she shouldn't have looked up. Her legs collapsed like jello and the last thing she remembered was the taste of dirt.
ttt
Her head hurt so much now that it was causing her whole body to heat up. She was sweating and she felt like she was being flung around in endless spins even though she was simultaneously pretty sure she was lying on a table. Her fingertips tried to bore into the wooden surface but there was not an ounce of strength left in her body. She couldn't even be sure that her fingertips had actually moved. It certainly wasn't helping her feel more steady from these spins. The voices talking seemed to be coming from all directions.
"I don't know how this is possible. But I'm telling you it's the same Tenten."
"But she doesn't look the same, Sakura. I've been seeing Tenten all my life and I was inches away from this one and it wasn't her."
"Neji, why were you inches away from-?"
"Not important. Now listen, something strange is going on here. Remember what I said she was talking about when I met her? Naruto, did you change up my Tenten somehow? Are you two signed up for some mission together and she had to get all… changed for it?"
"No. We haven't had a mission in a while. I haven't seen her in, like, three days. Are you sure she gave you the impression I would know why she looks all… mature?"
Tenten could tell one voice was Neji's. The one who'd said "my Tenten". But the other voices were familiar but for the second time today Tenten had the feeling that something that sounded so familiar was also indescribably wrong.
"I don't know what to tell you, Neji." That was a woman's voice, familiar but off. It was the voice fake Neji had addressed as 'Sakura'. "When I look at her chakra it feels like pretty much the exact same thing. I've never had an experience like this. This has got to be her. And it's not make-up, so maybe some attack had her age overnight?"
"Not overnight. Within the timeframe of one hour." That was Neji again and he was getting mighty frustrated. And… worried? It had been a long time since she had heard anything even remotely close to worry from Neji. In fact, it had been a while since she had heard anything from Neji… since he was dead. So, who was talking?
Finally, Tenten managed to pry open an eye but it fell shut again immediately. It's like her eyeball wanted to crawl inside her cranium.
"Less light," Tenten huffed. It was difficult to talk since it felt like an amboss was sitting on her chest.
"Can't breathe," she croaked. Someone came and turned her on her side, with a carefulness Tenten hadn't been expecting.
"Do you remember anything that happened after you left the training grounds about two hours ago?" Neji's voice washed over her. Tenten knew she was supposed to fight because for some reason this was the wrong Neji but she couldn't remember why and his fingers felt too warm on her cheeks. He was cradling her head and he must have been pretty close because she could feel his breath on her lips every time he talked.
"Hey, stay awake. You gotta tell me what happened after you left. Remember? You put your shirt back on over your wet undershirt and you walked away, towards the woods. I thought you were going for a walk because you were angry at how the boys were treating you. But something happened. What was it?"
Tenten remembered what Neji was talking about. She had poured water over her face to get rid of the dirt. She'd drenched her white undershirt. Someone had whistled and there had been laughing; she'd wanted to bash their heads in. But she'd also been embarrassed… because of Neji. So she'd just walked away. And she'd kept walking until she saw the sun set, which is when she turned around and decided to go home. And she'd vowed to ignore silly boys who …
"Went home," is all Tenten could croak out.
"And what happened then?" Again his breath caressed her face.
"And then I lived my life, got better, switched careers and then you..." died. She couldn't tell him that. Not while he was breathing living air into her face. Tenten was so confused she just wanted to sleep. So, she stopped trying to open her eyes and just let all her weight drop into the supporting hands that held her head and torso.
"See? Nothing she says makes any sense. Should we alert Tsunade?"
"Probably," a different male's voice said. Definitely not Neji's. Probably Naruto's. "Should we keep her here?"
"No," Neji seemed adamant. "I'll take her home. Keep an eye on her. You report to Tsunade."
And then Tenten felt like she was flying.
ttt
The flying feeling lasted for a while. At least it was better than the sickening spinning. Something cool swept over her body. It felt so incredibly good she moaned out loud. The coolness swept over her arms, her stomach and cleavage, her temples and eyes, her mouth. She tried to suck on it when she realized it was wet and she was parched.
"Hold it," someone familiar said. Hearing their voice somehow made Tenten happy. She heard liquid spattering somewhere far away. But then there was a bunch of moisture on her lips and she sucked eagerly. She wanted to grab whatever it was with her hand, make sure it stayed at her mouth but her arm only got halfway there before falling back onto the sheets exhaustedly.
Sheets.
She was in a bed. Her legs were all wrapped up in them. She tried to wiggle her toes and had moderate success. When her eager lips finally released the wet rag that had been held to her mouth, Tenten got even more of her bearings back. Feeling her chest and stomach, she realized she was only wearing her undergarments and when her hands found the sheets again she realized they were cold and wet. She managed to turn her head slightly with the greatest effort and there was a vague figure sitting next to her bed. She couldn't quite make him out, so her eyes focused on the bucket of water next to the bed. Something must have messed up her hearing. She could have sworn she heard water trickling far off. Maybe all of her senses were way off because now that there was no cool cloth being run over her body, she felt disproportionally hot. Burning in fact.
"You don't feel so good. I know. But there isn't much I can do. Sakura's in the other room and she doesn't know what to do and we can't have any more senior medical personnel running around until we know what kind of sneak attack this is."
Tenten realized the figure was Neji and she had the darndest feeling of deja-vu as though this was not the first time today she was realizing she was speaking to her dead friend. He sounded so apologetic, that she decided to forgive him for showing up in her fever dream even though it was painful to know he was no longer really there. And would be gone as soon as she woke up. He said:
"I know something terrible happened to you and I just wanted to let you know that, regardless of what I said before, you still look… the same to me." It was obviously difficult for him to say. He kept avoiding eye contact in a very un-Neji-like manner but Tenten just couldn't…
"What did you say?" she croaked.
Neji's brows furrowed.
"About the..." His gesture encompassed her face. "About your ...wrinkles."
"Oh, those. I've had those for a while now..." Tenten moaned as she tried to stretch her spine. Neji fell silent.
