Author's Notes: Themed drabble for LJ's 31days. Neji & Tenten.

Danse de la Mort

Tenten almost screams when the corpses rise from the ground, and the sound cuts through Neji's mind like a high frequency razor. He pauses and turns almost halfway, catching sight of her from the corner of his eye. She's tangled in her own chakra threads and her eyes are wide as the victims of her fatal dance come for her. He's too far away to make a difference and so he doesn't.

(They are fourteen.)

Tenten recovers enough to move out of the way of katanas and kunai but her face still wears it's stunned expression. She does not fight back and Neji feels a moment of irritation at her hesitance. (He's still young and proud and oh so caged.)

"It's only a jutsu," he calls to her tightly, "They are not alive." (Kill them.)

His annoyance is smoothed when she follows his unspoken command and stops retreating. Her teeth clench, a brief flash of white, and then blood falls again.

He doesn't notice it then, but later he sees the tear tracks on her face and reads the hopeless anger in her features. (She is only fourteen.) Surprisingly, he is not upset. It is only right to honor the dead and the slain.

So he again says nothing, only offers her a fallen machete from one of her own scrolls. She takes it from him, a bit more forcefully than usual (she's still young and proud and much too kind) but that too is right.

"This is the first," he says into the heavy silence and she understands. (The first battleground, the first fight, the first death.) They've been trained for this, to this life. It is theirs.

This time, it is Tenten who says nothing.

End.