A/N: I actually was going to do a whole bunch of firsts, but then I decided to just do this one because I think it's the most fun to write. However, I may do another one. I don't know yet.
Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
…..
The first time Tenten kills, she feels something inside her snap. It's not her mind or her sanity, it's something deeper that she now lacks. With the aid of the moonlight filtering through the treetops of Team Gai's old training grounds, she watches foreign blood dry on her hands and arms, her stomach coiling in disgust.
In actuality, it isn't really her first kill. Tenten is twenty years old, a rising ANBU agent, and happily engaged to her longtime teammate Neji Hyuuga. She has killed many times before. Yet this time, it is different. This time it had seemed almost mechanical. She had felt herself lose control of her actions, had felt herself just go, like a savage animal… like a monster.
Innocence: that is what she lacks now and the realization hits her full force. Even if she has taken countless lives before, she has still felt something. When she cut down her enemies, she was still thinking about it, was still conscience of what she was doing. Yet now, she can't recall much about the battle. She cannot recall faces, cannot recall the landscape, cannot recall the feel of the wind against her face or the adrenaline rushing through her system. She can only remember a pair of eyes, large and black and filled with fear. No one has ever looked at her that way before.
"Tenten." A soft, masculine voice sounds behind her, its owner so close she can feel his chest vibrate against her back. A large calloused hand comes to rest on her shoulder (a familiar one, one whose grooves she knows by heart) in a manner that would usually soothe her. But tonight it does nothing to calm her racing mind.
"So this is what you become," she whispers vehemently. There is a sharp edge to her voice like the weapons she's so fond of. "Just another machine, another tool. (Tears are sliding freely down her face and her fist has lodged itself in a tree.) I don't want to be like this," she tells him quietly. She feels ashamed and humiliated about crying over something as stupid as this. She is a shinobi; this is her duty. She has come too far to start complaining.
"No. You're not a tool-"
"To you! But to the ANBU what am I? I'm just an assassin, a thing that can follow orders." She turns to look at him and hastily wipes her tears with back of her hand. Neji studies her, not saying anything for a moment as she practically claws at her face in desperation.
"You get used to it." That is the only advice he can offer. He has been in ANBU a year longer than she, has seen so many people come out broken. It's not an easy way of life, he acknowledges, but it is the path his fiancé has chosen and must accept. Still, he cannot stand to see her in pieces, cannot allow her to become a stranger to herself. He takes one step towards her, then another until she is backed up against a tree trunk. He lifts her chin so she is staring straight at him, their gazes locked and unwavering. Neji glowers down at her with a look that sends shivers along the length of her spine, a look that means get a grip. Then in one quick movement, he leans down to kiss her.
"Why should you care what they think?" he asks, his lips moving against her jaw. There is a new gleam in his eyes and a warm haze is settling over her mind at an alarming rate. Tenten finds she can't breathe properly anymore and takes in shaky gasps of air.
"To me, you will always be Tenten, my Tenten."
Her fingers curl in his hair, his arm comes to encircle her waist and quickly, they become completely lost in one another.
And just like that, her heartstrings, the things that snapped inside of her, begin to heal.
…..
A/N: Hmm… Neji seemed a bit colder in this one, but I think it's his voice of reason that calms Tenten down. She can't whine about this and she knows it, and he is just trying to comfort her in the best way he can.
Anyway, thank you for reading and please review!
~M.I.