Team Gai: Parents
Tenten
Konoha was filled with dramatic back stories; if the word had existed in their language then Konoha nin would be quick to say theirs was a village of angst. But even though the word didn't exist you could still hear the occasional conversation of, "man, we're all screwed up." Because it was true. The life of a ninja seemed to guarantee heartache, and if your family had been ninja as well then too bad for you – you were doubly screwed. Either your parents was murdered or had committed suicide or had disappeared, or had been so tortured into insanity that they were kept locked up and away in a special ward of the hospital. Or your brothers and/or sisters had fallen prey to any of the above. And really, that was just scratching the surface. Sure, there were normal nin, plenty of them, but the ones who were messed up were majorly messed up.
Tenten prided herself as an exception to the rule.
No, not because she had no depressing back-story to traumatize or motivate her; but because her depressing back-story neither traumatized nor motivated her. It was just there, a part of who she was. If an academy sensei tested their info-gathering skills by asking them to trace their family tree as far back as they could, Tenten would scribble "no family to trace" and hand that in. In fact, she had done just that. She hadn't cried into her pillow that night, solemnly fingering a necklace her parents had left with her, because she didn't have a necklace and that sort of drama belonged in one of those silly novels about girls coming into their rightful princess heritage or some other type of nonsense that Neji and Lee liked to read and pretend they didn't.
So yeah, Tenten didn't cry melancholy tears in her heart of hearts as she wondered about the parents she had never known. They had contributed genetic material and at least one of them gave up nine months of her time to create Tenten, and that contribution was the only real connection Tenten had to them. But blood was just blood, and the only reason it would really interest her was if she had a bloodline limit. Which she didn't, so she had never really cared at all about her parents.
As a newborn she had been left on the doorstep of an orphanage. In this aspect Tenten and Lee were very similar; but while Lee at least could easily find out who his parents were if he wanted to Tenten could not. She had been born in a town many countries away, and when the town and its neighbouring villages started to being raided and looted, the villages pooled their resources and sent someone to go hire nin. This person, after getting turned away by some of the other ninja villages, came to Konoha and finally got help. Konoha helped defeat the raiders, and Tenten's orphanage was leveled in the fight, killing all the children and caretakers. By a miracle she had survived, and one of the more soft-hearted kunoichi had taken baby Tenten back to Konoha. There, she looked after Tenten until the girl turned six, at which point she was killed on a mission. She had been closest to a mother Tenten had ever had (but Tenten never called her that), and Tenten greatly admired her courage and skill as a kunoichi, slaying so many enemies before dying in a battle with Kumo.
After her death Tenten had inherited the guardian's small house and a sizable amount of money, enough to keep her going until she started doing her own missions. Six was old enough to look after yourself, most world-weary nin agreed, leaving Tenten to her own devices. And Tenten did not slip into depression because she had no one there to look after her; no, she took this as a valuable life experience and moved on.
In general, moving on was what she was good at. She didn't dwell or mope or ponder or do anything vaguely like pretty much every other nin with a problem. The past was the past, and what mattered was her present. Her skills, her hundred percent accurate aim, her missions. Her, and her team. Neji (who was sort of melodramatic, but he got over it) and Lee (who was just plain dramatic, but only really worried about present problems) and Gai-sensei (who was Dramatic! and didn't have a single depressing life story to tell; he was always happy). As teams went it wasn't that bad, and although it would require Ibiki-level torture to get her to admit it, they were more than a team for her, more than friends, they were other parts of her she couldn't imagine surviving without.
When you had people like that standing by you everyday, why would you need to ruminate on the past; why would you need a family? Team Gai was better than family, of that much Tenten was sure.
She was also pretty sure the others felt the same way, too.
the end
A/N: Tenten doesn't take any kind of BS, and it's why I love her. And with her ends this story!