Author's Note: Welcome to the next chapter! I'm interested in what you think, and I will respond to all constructive feedback. I'm curious - does Ten-ten seem bratty or immature? She has so little characterization in Naruto that writing her was like writing an original character (cue screentime joke).
Risa regained consciousness early the next morning with a pulsing headache threatening to split her brain open. Squinting at the nightstand, she saw a cup of tea, probably left by a servant. She couldn't imagine Neji showing her that kind of hospitality. Hangover tea, she recalled, a special blend of black and white tea meant for her current ailment. Risa gulped the lukewarm tea to sate the thirst left by her wedding banquet sake binge.
Collapsing flat onto her bed, she closed her eyes to let the hangover tea lower the screaming in her brain to a simmering throb. Neji had decided to forgo the traditional wedding night in their shared bed, to no surprise of hers. She still wore her wedding kimono and now-wilted flowers in her hair. At least he hadn't taken advantage of her drunken slumber to violate her. Risa fanned out her hair behind her head, spreading her arms and legs to indulge in the extra space.
Until two months ago, Lord Hiashi praised Neji as one of the Hyuga clan's stars, comparable in ability and potential to his younger daughter. Every parent of an eligible Hyuga daughter had spent the past two years currying favor with the boy genius and his uncle, trying to secure a union that would raise their profile within the clan.
But two months ago, the girls' parents closed ranks around their daughters. The boy genius was tainted – and Lord Hiashi could not have betrothed Neji to any of them without raising angry protests from parents concerned with honor. This left Risa. She had no parents to defend her honor, and her status as the daughter of traitors ensured that she remained unmarried well into her 20s.
Two months ago, Lord Hiashi made an announcement to the clan that Risa and Neji were betrothed, their wedding set a mere 60 days later.
When she finally won an audience with the Hyuga patriarch, Risa could barely restrain herself from shouting at him over the nonsensical pairing. For the past two years, Natsumi Hyuga – his wife's 19-year-old niece – had been Lord Hiashi's favored match for Neji. Once the boy genius reached legal adulthood, he would have married Natsumi within five years and gotten as close to joining the main branch as any side branch Hyuga could.
Why wasn't Natsumi still slated to marry Neji? – she'd demanded. She was closer in age and at least could count multiple conversations with him.
A marriage between a 26-year-old woman and 18-year-old man had little precedent in the village. Neji's union to a much older cousin would cause a minor scandal in his close-knit circle of shinobi friends. Risa knew outsiders, and even clan members, would whisper about their obvious incompatibility.
Pressing him into a marriage would only pour burning oil on the anger that simmered within him.
As she expected, he showed her arguments no sympathy.
He watched her with blank eyes as she stated her case, and waited until she'd exhausted her arguments to offer his final response. I've been good to you, haven't I, Risa? What other young woman – abandoned by her own mother and father – can claim a life like yours?, he'd said in a stern voice.
Unlike most of the hidden leaf's orphans, Risa had never spent a day in an orphanage, or felt the gnawing hunger of poverty. She could thank the Hyuga for providing her material needs, and giving her an extended family that stood in for the parents and siblings she lacked.
Even in her moment of desperation, she couldn't deny the gifts she owed the clan – Yes, I am in your debt, Lord Hiashi.
Then marrying Neji is your duty. I will hear no more from you about the matter.
He'd dismissed her from his study with the back of his hand, leaving Risa's fraying nerves to drive her to tears.
Groaning, Risa slipped from the bed onto the cool hardwood floor. She noted the wrinkled sheets on her side of the bed, but otherwise found the room undisturbed from how the servants arranged it in preparation for her upcoming marriage. Scanning the bedroom, she caught sight of herself in the polished mirror of her vanity and frowned. The shades of red and black painted on her face now screamed against her pale skin. Risa felt possessed by an imposter to her body – the imposter people saw becoming Neji Hyuga's wife. Ripping the wilted flowers from her hair and stepping out of her wedding kimono, she rushed over to the vanity so she could reclaim her face from beneath the bright pigments.
Risa sighed in relief as the last of yesterday's makeup came off onto her hand towel. Dressed only in her undergarments and stripped of makeup, she allowed herself to smile. She could easily forget she was now a married woman tasked with reigning in the Hyuga boy genius and forcing him to atone for his crimes against the clan.
A light rap sounded on the bedroom's door frame. Neji? Risa quickly dismissed the possibility that her husband had returned already. Only one of the servants would knock in such a self-conscious, almost apologetic way.
She pulled on a plain white dress, one she'd worn since her teenage years.
"Yes? You may come in," she called into the corridor.
The sight of Hotaru bearing a cup of tea brought her excitement, tempered by embarrassment from the way she'd treated him during the banquet. She scolded herself for needing him to cut her binge drinking short, before she destroyed herself further.
"Lady Risa. I hope you're well. I have half an hour to spare, so I wanted to check on you."
The elderly man bowed before Risa. I've told him he doesn't need to do that. So many times, she remarked with mild annoyance. Some of the Hyuga insisted that their servants address them only with honorifics, but others – Hinata and Risa among them – hated the sound of titles with their names.
"Hotaru. Please. I have a name," she protested. "And yes, the first cup of tea relieved my pain immensely."
He set the tea on Risa's nightstand and gazed into her white eyes. In over 50 years of service, he'd learned to read his masters' blank eyes for signs of emotion, subtle movements imperceptible to outsiders who didn't live among the Hyuga.
"It pained me to see you last night, Risa," Hotaru said. "I'm sorry...sorry that I can do nothing to save you."
Hotaru arrived at the Hyuga compound at age 17 as a groundskeeper, tasked with maintaining the compound's manicured courtyards and gardens. Working for the Hyuga clan paid well, much better than other lines of employment available to illiterate civilians who could only compute basic sums.
His range of duties had grown decade by decade – refereeing sparring matches, serving food and drink at clan gatherings and caring for Risa as a surrogate father. After losing her parents, the orphaned little girl tailed him around the compound until he acknowledged her and started saving her sweets in the folds of his uniform. He drew the line at allowing her to pull weeds beside him. If Lord Hiashi caught him allowing a Hyuga to perform servant labor, Hotaru would lose his job. He would likewise lose his job for speaking against one of the patriarch's decisions as clan head.
Risa closed her eyes. He could see her eyelids fluttering, as if she were keeping a flood of tears at bay.
"No. Not your job to save me. I'll be alright."
"Risa. I can tell you're not alright. You don't have to pretend you want Neji."
On many occasions, he'd observed Risa playing house with her cousins in the sun-soaked courtyard. She always insisted on playing the mother and sometimes he'd find her sneaking pillows to stuff under her dress.
He watched Risa passed over for marriage until she reached the age when the clan considered her a leftover, good mostly for helping raise others' children. Her marriage to Neji Hyuga was a demented bastardization of the dream she nursed of one day having her own family. Hotaru wanted to quit in protest, but that would leave him cut off from Risa and without an income to pay his grandchildren's tuition at the shinobi academy.
"I-no, he's like a child. Younger than Natsumi, and I trained her," Risa confessed. She swallowed and paused. "He acts just like a child, too. If I embarrassed the clan like he has...even once…"
Risa never completed her sentence, but Hotaru immediately recalled Neji's outburst during the chunin exams four years ago. He remembered the buzz of gossip among the servants when they heard of Neji's interest in marrying an outsider. Hotaru's daughter – a housekeeper in the compound – claimed that the girl was with Neji's child when he made his appeal to Lord Hiashi. Hotaru doubted the rumors because he never heard anything of the illegitimate child's birth after his daughter made her remarks. An illegitimate child with Hyuga blood, and possibly the Byakugan, would have been the ultimate slap in the face to the clan.
"Oh, Risa."
He stayed silent so she could vent two months of suppressed anger.
"I'm not a genius," she spat. "I'm not the most powerful Hyuga alive."
"But Neji doesn't have your heart. Your devotion to your family. He'll never measure up to you, not to me."
Risa hushed her voice in case any clan members could overhear her tirade against her new husband. She sneered and shook her head.
"You've always been so kind. But your opinion counts for nothing here," she countered. "And I don't forgive him for any of what he's done. Attempting to kill Lady Hinata, too. Unbelievable that Lord Hiashi still allows him to live."
Hotaru shrugged and ran a comforting hand across Risa's shoulders. He only concerned himself with clan politics when they affected the servants bustling unseen in the clan's home. Yet a flash of outrage filled him at Neji Hyuga's arrogance and the clan's continued deference to its boy genius.
"At least I'm not losing you, Hotaru. And Ko. And Hirono. My brothers and sisters," Risa muttered, comforted by the servant's touch. "For better or worse, Neji is still a Hyuga."
Risa knew stories of women treated as slaves in their new homes, left unable to contact their families of origin. Growing up, she drew comfort knowing that her future husband lived within the confines of the Hyuga compound. She imagined him as someone who had trained with her, grew up calling her a sister, eaten at the children's table with her at clan gatherings.
No, Neji was nothing like Risa. He probably wished he weren't born a Hyuga. Why else would he propose marriage to Ten-ten Sato, the greengrocer's daughter? He really feels more kinship with a clanless konoichi than his own blood – she thought.
"At least I'm still a Hyuga," she finished.
Even if Lord Hiashi gave her the option, Risa would never want to live her life as Risa Nara, Risa Akimichi or Risa Yamanaka. Definitely not Risa Aburame. The Aburame clan's clouds of chakra beetles made her skin crawl.
Risa's friends at the ninja academy often liked to write their hypothetical married names in the dirt of the courtyard and argue over which sounded better. Her best friend Satomi would cast herself as Satomi Nara, or Satomi Uchiha if she felt daring.
They never understood when Risa insisted that she'd remain Risa Hyuga in her married life.
The great book of Hyuga marriages, births and deaths contained a few mentions of unions between the branch clan and other hidden leaf clans, usually to solidify alliances or resolve a dispute without bloodshed. In those select cases, the outsider always took the Hyuga name and left their clan of origin. The Hyuga valued the Byakugan's secrets far too highly to introduce it into another clan's bloodline. In the tenuous peace of her childhood, Risa foresaw no turn of politics that would compel the Hyuga patriarch to offer her hand in marriage to an heir from another clan.
The prospect of marrying even a branch Hyuga to a citizen from outside the hidden leaf's great clans was an insult.
Of course, Risa could not expect Satomi Sakamoto or Reiko Hideki to grasp the complexities of clan tradition. Though the ways of the Hyuga clan sometimes confounded her as well, Risa held her knowledge close, a token of uniqueness in an academy environment that pushed conformity.
"As long as you stay a Hyuga, you'll never lose me, Risa," Hotaru reassured her. He lifted her chin with two fingers so she could see him smile.
"Thank you. I regret that the clan can't pay you more for everything you do for me."
Hotaru laughed with her. He announced that he would soon need to leave – the servants still needed to clean the banquet hall and otherwise clear all traces of the wedding before the compound returned to business as normal.
"One more thing, Risa."
Hotaru slipped a glass bottle into her hand. Risa's mouth dropped in shock. No way I'm getting myself addicted to those – she thought. Does he really think I'm that weak?
"I can't do much for you, but these should make your bad days with Neji less painful."
Not wanting to upset her favorite servant, she stammered out a thank you, and dismissed him from her bedroom. Her hands clenched around the bottle of pills. She ran to the bathroom so she could flush every single pill down the toilet. She would have to dispose the bottle somewhere outside the compound, unless she wanted rumors circulating that someone in the clan had a pill addiction.
Emboldened, Risa slipped on a pair of sandals and buried the empty bottle in one of the folds of her dress. She exited the compound from a side gate and dumped the bottle in the first public trashcan she passed.
I will survive – she repeated to herself. It's my duty.
The now-cold tea sat forgotten on her nightstand.
Her eyes still closed, Ten-ten smiled as she woke to the sounds of early morning commerce in the street beneath her window. The street food vendors yelled into the misty thoroughfare, offering a hot breakfast for a copper coin to anyone standing long enough to listen. It had been too long since her grasping arms held the body of another. Neji must have stayed the entire night. She clutched him closer and planted a kiss on his shoulder.
She resolved to keep her eyes closed as long as possible – in the space between sleep and full consciousness, she could forget that she and Neji sat balanced on a pinhead. One wrong move and they impaled themselves.
"Ten-ten Sato!" her mother called from the kitchen downstairs. "Breakfast! Remember, you have training with Gai sensei in less than an hour!"
"'s time to go, Neji," Ten-ten groaned.
She opened her eyes to see a pillow in her arms and her heart sank. Neji was too smart to risk discovery by lingering into the daylight hours. She consoled herself as she dressed and tied her hair into twin buns. Perhaps his recent marriage lulled the clan's enforcers into complacency, and he could break away from the compound to see her in a matter of days.
"Ten-ten! Porridge is getting cold!"
"Heading down, Mom!"
Tumbling down the stairs from her attic bedroom, Ten-ten found her parents drinking tea at the dining table, empty porridge bowls before them. Only the bowl at her place still held its rapidly cooling contents, a spoon sinking into the rice slurry. The elder Satos always rose at dawn to prepare the family produce shop for the morning rush of customers.
Her father browsed the Hidden Leaf Chronicle with an eye for the births, marriages and deaths section. He told his daughter that any conscientious businessman kept a finger to the village's pulse, so he could know his customers like family.
"Well, it's about time. They stuck him with one of his own kind," he grunted in approval. "Best thing they could've done."
Ten-ten knew he referred to Neji. A sting hit her heart while she shoveled food down her throat.
"Here Ten-ten, take a look."
Her father lay the page in the table's center, pointing his finger at the line bearing Neji's name.
"No, I'm good," Ten-ten muttered, her head down.
Her mother scowled at her father over thick wire spectacles.
"Honey, leave her alone. Don't rub it in the poor girl's face," she scolded.
Chastened, Ten-ten's father folded the newspaper into fourths and slipped it under the table. A small, calloused hand laid on Ten-ten's shoulder.
"Sweetheart, you're still young. And you'll grow even more beautiful than Lady Tsunade. You just need time to accept that he's moved on."
"Thanks, Mom."
No use letting them know he hasn't moved on. Ten-ten rose from the table before her father could make any more triumphant remarks about Neji. For now, he sat with his hands folded and lips pursed, subdued but unapologetic. Unlike his wife, he believed Ten-ten needed a slap of harsh reality to snap her infatuation.
"Oh, Ten-ten – tell Gai sensei that your mother says hello!"
"Will do."
Her mother loved Gai sensei's ever-present energy and theatrical flair. When he visited the shop, she perked up as he rambled about his team's game-changing new training exercises. Though Ten-ten didn't share her sensei's excitement over his training innovations, she found their banter endearing. If meeting Gai sensei could help her mother accept her daughter's chosen path, Ten-ten would gladly endure hours of his grating cheer. She endured it by Neji's side since her genin days – but no longer.
Ten-ten climbed the stairs to her room so she could pack her weapons and summoning scrolls. In the moments before she opened the door to leave, her parents' muffled voices from the kitchen gave her pause. She pressed her ear to the door, focusing chakra to her ears to amplify their words.
"...we dodged one there, dear."
Her father's gruff tones reached her first.
"Sometimes I wonder if we should have kept her out of the academy. If I were still a girl, I could see myself getting drawn in by the Hyuga boy," her mother answered in concerned whispers.
"Isn't this interesting? I wasn't the one who filled her head with stories of the legendary Sannin Tsunade."
Ten-ten's mother responded with an indignant huff.
"I just wanted her to see what a woman could accomplish in our world. I never thought...well, I never thought her classmates could lead her astray like this."
"No, no, it wasn't the academy," her father interjected. Ten-ten could picture him waving his hands above his head.
"Tell you what, putting girls and boys on the same team, training them together day in and day out is a disaster waiting to happen. Heh. I could become hokage with that idea."
He would make a terrible hokage. The man couldn't get through a single mission report without a dictionary. His competency lay in balancing numbers on a sheet, not commanding shinobi.
"Ugh, again with the hokage thing." Ten-ten could hear her mother rolling her eyes. The clatter of spoons and bowls sounded from the kitchen sink.
"I went for tea with Misa Haruno last week, and she's still worried sick about Sakura and that Sasuke Uchiha. She still insists she loves him," she continued. "At least Ten-ten's not trying to get herself killed for the Hyuga boy. Those clan heirs – always too much baggage."
Baggage that's not his fault. He didn't choose his father, or his clan. He didn't choose to marry a bitch who hates him.
"Hm. They can keep fucking their cousins for the rest of time, for all I care. Just don't want our Ten-ten getting eaten alive by any clan bullshit. Their kind and our kind shouldn't mix."
"Honey, don't curse like that!" her mother yelled. "Oh, but you're right. At least we can get to work finding her a suitable husband. That Rock Lee knows Ten-ten well, and his mother's a great friend of mine."
Good luck, Mom. Lee only loves Sakura. And Sakura only loves Sasuke. He'll be stuck in that loop until he gives up. Which would be never. She dreaded the inevitable parade of "surprise dinner guests," always young, always single and always male.
"No fucked-up mutant eyes? He's worth a shot."
Neji's not a mutant. Ten-ten resisted the temptation to throw a shuriken down the stairs.
For her first year on Team Gai, Ten-ten couldn't bring herself to look Neji in the eyes. Maybe a subconscious part of her assumed that she could evade the Byakugan's powers by avoiding eye contact. Yet sometime after the first year – and after numerous exhortations from Gai sensei to always stare down her sparring opponent head-on – Ten-ten grew used to his blank gaze. And after the second year, she started to notice when he looked on her with affection. It was after the failed Sasuke retrieval mission that he finally pressed her back to a tree and confessed his feelings with a kiss.
"Again with the cursing!"
Ten-ten slipped out her bedroom window before the sound of her mother's slap could echo through the apartment.