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She doesn’t see it. The part of the battle where Hinata dies, that is.
She’s busy mowing through the ranks of white zestu, heart pounding in a way it hasn’t since she was a genin. The flow of combat has always come easily to her- a dance she’s known how to improvise steps to almost as long as she’s known how to walk. Her knives and swords whirl alongside her, cutting through everything in her path, and for once, she doesn’t have to worry about the face of her enemy.
Tenten loves fighting. She loves the movement, the strategy. It’s been a long time since she’s been able to do it without feeling terribly guilty.
She’s so caught up in the euphoria of finally, finally getting to do what she loves that she misses everything. Gai’s legs are damaged beyond repair. There are thousands of other ninja less skilled than her who are dead, gone forever. She stands in the middle of the battlefield, panting, surrounded by crumpled white bodies, and feels-
- - -
Tenten’s dream is simple: she is fighting an enemy that never slows and never tires, and her endurance matches theirs perfectly. They go on, dancing and dancing and dancing, never dying, never pausing. No wounds are fatal. There is no winning, no losing- only motion. She pins them, and they slip out. They drive their weapon- sometimes a sword, sometimes a club, sometimes something completely alien- through her forehead, and she shakes it off. They have no face. They are not a person. They will stay locked in this dance with Tenten forever. It is the most beautiful thing Tenten has ever experienced.
And then she wakes up.
- - -
The trek home is slow. Tenten marches in line beside Neji and Lee. They both look exhausted, their clothes torn, and their skin sallow. These are the people who she knows best of all; these are the only people who she really knows at all. Sometimes, she even thinks she loves them.
Lee disappears periodically, to check on Gai. When he’s gone, Neji reaches out for her hand, and they hold onto each other as they walk.
“Do you feel bad for him?” Neji asks.
“Which one?” Tenten replies.
“I don’t know. Both of them. Either,” Neji says.
“...I feel bad for Gai-sensei,” says Tenten. “It’d kill me if something like that happened to me.”
Because I couldn’t fight, then, goes unspoken.
“I feel bad for Lee, too,” Tenten continues. “He’s always… I guess he sort of idealized it in a way neither of us did. So it’s going to be hard for him to start viewing this differently.”
“If he even does,” says Neji.
“If he even does,” Tenten echoes.
- - -
Team 7, the heroes of the war, the most powerful people on the planet, lead the march. Tenten watches them from somewhere in the middle of the pack, and is struck with an odd premonition: they’re not going to be happy. This won’t last, for them.
It’s funny. They seem so carefree, in the moment- all tangled up in each other, drunk on the kind of happiness that only reunion brings. Tenten’s certain, though- they’re going to throw it all away. They’re the kind of people who will want to change things- fix things that can’t be fixed.
Tenten can’t relate at all- everything she’s ever wanted is right here in the palm of her hand. She has no reason to want anything to change, and so everything will continue to orbit around her, just like this.
- - -
“I could have saved him,” Neji confides to her, late one night. Their bedrolls are pushed so close that they’re practically lying on top of each other. “There was this moment… I knew I could have swapped places with him.”
“You didn’t,” says Tenten.
“I didn’t,” says Neji.
She stares up at the sky. The moon, barely visible behind the clouds, shines innocently back.
“He wasn’t there in my dream, either,” Neji whispers. “In my perfect world…”
“You didn’t have to like him,” Tenten says. There wasn’t anyone else in her dream- her partner wasn’t a person. That was the important part.
“Yeah,” says Neji. “I know. I know that. Still.”
Hinata was different from the rest of his family- or at least he had been, when he was alive. Tenten wonders if that would have changed, if he had grown up. If Neji had done him a favor by letting him die, letting him stay preserved in the innocence of memory forever.
“I don’t regret it,” says Neji, and Tenten hopes he means it.
- - -
When they finally make it back to Konoha, Tenten stalls. She stares up at the mountain, skin tingling as the hokage’s faces stare back.
“Tenten,” Lee whispers.
She starts walking again.
The parade falls apart once they make it into the village. Tenten peels off early, heading towards her apartment. Neji follows her quietly, and Lee heads off to help Gai-sensei.
They climb up the stair of Tenten’s apartment complex, something she doesn’t usually bother with. This is homecoming, though, so the ceremony…
She unlocks the door and stares into her home. There’s no one there to greet her. A thin layer of dust has settled on everything. The room still smells like molten iron.
“Can I stay here?” Neji asks. Funny, since he already followed her all the way here.
“Sure,” she says. “Make yourself at home.” She dumps her bag of seals of weapons onto a chair and goes into the bathroom to take a shower.
- - -
Neji doesn’t ask, but Tenten goes with him to the funeral anyway.
It’s all for show- everyone knows most main-branch Hyuuga are fairly glad to see Hinata swept out of the way for his younger, more talented sister. Neji stares at the swaths of black clothing with pinched lips.
A dozen or so people take turns prattling on about nothing important for a few hours. Tenten leans against a wall and wishes she was anywhere else.
“You don’t have to be here,” Neji whispers to her.
“Neither do you,” Tenten retorts, even though it’s untrue. He raises an eyebrow and turns around.
Tenten is a clanless orphan with no real responsibilities. She has reached a notable level of skill and fame and has no one to blame for it- no clan, no mentor. No one offered her a hand, however superficial the offers her peers received were. No one can claim her. She is unbeholden to the unspoken system of favors and legacies. No one is forcing her to be here.
Hinata saved Neji’s life. He died to save a branch member. Tenten’s surprised that no one’s making Neji give a speech.
He shifts, uncomfortable. Tenten looks up and doesn’t wonder why Hinata gets a funeral and all the nameless, faceless pawns that got trampled underfoot along the way to victory get a mass grave. She already knows.
“I’m going to go grab us something to eat,” Tenten says, a little too loudly. A few people shoot her dirty looks, but the sparkle of gratitude in Neji’s eyes more than make up for it.
- - -
Missions start up again with brutal normality. Tenten falls back into a routine of taking achievable a-ranks just to have something to do. She’s not low on funds. If she retired today, she could live out the rest of her life in comfort. The thing is, though-
“You don’t have to do this,” Neji observes blankly as he watches her pack for her next mission. She’s not sure when he fully moved in, but she doesn’t really mind his presence. When their schedules line up, they sit quietly together.
“I don’t mind it,” she says, piling ration bars on top of her bed roll. “It’s not like I’m choosing anything strenuous.”
“But you don’t have to do it,” Neji repeats. “You have enough money.”
“It wasn’t ever really about that,” Tenten shrugs, standing up. “See you later?”
“...yeah,” Neji says.
- - -
Most orphans who enlist do it for the money. Tenten understands the logic. They spend their childhoods in cramped, dirty orphanages, and unless they find a steady career, they’re kicked out onto the streets to starve. The easiest career to get into is that of the shinobi. Konoha makes it as easy as possible to enlist for a reason, she’s sure.
Tenten enlisted because one day, when she was six, she threw a punch at a girl who had stolen her lunch, and the mad scramble that followed was one of the most thrilling things she had ever experienced. The thing she loves is-
- - -
She goes out with Lee. He bounces with barely contained energy, flexing his fingers as they wait for their target to come out around the bend.
“I don’t like assassinations,” Tenten mutters.
“Hm,” Lee says. “I too find them dull, sometimes. But it is a necessary task, and we are loyal shinobi! We must put our best effort forward for this as well!”
“Is it really?” Tenten muses, flipping a kunai around and around. “What’s it necessary for?”
Lee pauses, and stares at her in that quiet way he always does when she says something vaguely treasonous.
“I’m doing it, aren’t I?” Tenten asks. She doesn’t have to be here. She could have chosen any other mission. She did this because she wanted to see Lee- not for the village. They both know it.
“Tenten,” Lee says quietly. “I don’t see how you can say things like that.”
“I don’t see how you can ignore what’s right in front of your face so easily,” Tenten fires back.
The target rounds the corner. Tenten sends a senbon flying into his spine, and he collapses. There is no one to protect him. He might not have even been a ninja.
Lee seals him into a body scroll, and they go home.
The thing about killing people is that when it happens in a fight, sometimes the roaring in her ears outweighs the guilt that eats at her stomach after it’s over. Assassinations are too quiet.
- - -
Most of Neji’s paychecks go to the Hyuuga clan’s treasury. He has enough to live comfortably, but he can’t quit. They would never allow it.
Most of Lee’s paychecks go to Gai-sensei’s treatment. He’s making a recovery, slowly but surely, so it’s probably worth it. It’s not like he’s forcing Lee to pay, either- Gai-sensei has plenty of money, and is perfectly willing to pay for himself. It’s just something Lee wants to do. He still has enough to live comfortably. He’s never going to quit, because he believes that the things he is doing are good. Important. Noble.
Tenten doesn’t spend her money on anything, and she doesn’t believe in anything. She takes on more missions than either of them.
- - -
“Neji,” Tenten says, one night as he stumbles back through the door. “What’s stopping us from leaving?”
He freezes, eyes locked on her, hands trembling slightly. “What do you mean?”
“What’s stopping us?” she asks again.
“Well,” Neji says, frowning. “My seal, for one thing.”
“Right,” says Tenten. “And the fact that people would go looking for us if we disappeared, because we’re high-profile jounin.”
“It’s not an option,” Neji says firmly, and then pauses, because it is. Just not for him. “Do you want to leave?”
“No,” says Tenten. The words fall out of her mouth before she can really think about them- but they’re true.
“Okay,” says Neji. He walks away, into the bathroom. The shower turns on. Tenten starts polishing her kunai again.
- - -
“Gai-sensei,” Tenten says, poking her head into the hospital room. There’s a splatter of blood on the back of her neck that she missed while she was showering. It itches.
“Tenten!” he exclaims, struggling into a sitting position. “You haven’t visited yet!”
“I’ve been busy,” she says. “Lots of missions.”
Gai-sensei nods knowingly. “The village needs money to rebuild. It is very noble of you to work so hard to provide that money. Lee told me you were working even harder than he is!”
Tenten laughs uncomfortably. “Well, he’s been taking care of you…”
“I am so proud of all of you,” Gai-sensei says, so sincerely it makes her chest burn. “I cannot express just how much you are doing for me by fulfilling your duties to the village.”
They stare at each other for a long moment. His praise has never meant much to Tenten, and they both know it. Neji and Lee were the ones who had needed that. Tenten, too self-assured to seek out his approval, is-
“I should be going,” she says. “I want to see Neji before I head out again.”
Gai-sensei nods, still beaming. She turns around and walks out.
- - -
Sometimes, she still dreams about that fight within the dream. The blur of motion and adrenalin, the showers of sparks, the smell of iron- the faceless opponent. Tenten wants to fight. She wants to fall into that rhythm again. She wants to go on and on, never slowing, for eternity.
Every mission she takes on ends the same way- corpses. Never hers. Most of the time, she’s not even injured.
If she takes on enough, though- if she goes fast enough- if the parts in between start to blur together-
- - -
Tenten pages through a tabloid absentmindedly, eyes glazing over as she flips past speculations and theories and photo-shopped pinups of people who are probably supposed to be ANBU agents. An article reminisces about Tsunade’s ‘mysterious missing-nin mission’- she stops.
The thing is- if Tenten were to disappear quietly, they’d let her go. Sasuke walked out a month ago, and no one talks about it. Tenten is talented, and she was one of the faces they hung the war on- although she’s not as famous as anyone from Team 7, or even most of her clan-born peers, she’s still part of the Konoha 12. It’d be bad press to announce that she deserted.
If she went quietly- if she went like Tsunade, or Sasuke, they’d let her go.
Going quietly, though- that means giving up everything. Giving up fighting. Giving up Neji- there’s no universe where the Hyuuga let him slip off into the shadows.
She turns the page. Some things are more important than some vague notion of freedom.
- - -
“Hey,” says Tenten. “Let’s spar.”
Neji looks up from the map he’s studying. “Now?”
“Why not?” Tenten asks. Her limbs are itching with unspent energy, even though she doesn’t leave on another mission until tomorrow night. She needs to move.
“...fine,” Neji stands up. “Taijutsu only, though.”
He says it like she’ll be upset. He says it like taijutsu isn’t her favorite art form, like he isn’t doing her a favor.
“You got it,” Tenten smiles, and drags him out to a training field. They whale on each other for a while, caught up in the euphoria of movement. Tenten paries a strike, grabs Neji’s arm, and flips him, and for one dizzying moment she has him pinned to the ground, nose inch away from her kunai, panting like a dog. Her blood is on fire, and she leans forward, willing him to continue the match-
But he doesn’t, because she has him pinned. Everything stutters to a halt, her pulse slowing, and he stares up at her. She slides off of him.
“You’re good,” he says, still on the ground. “That was- well.”
“It was good,” Tenten agrees. She stands up. “Thanks.”
“We’ll do it again sometime,” Neji promises.
“I hope so,” Tenten says.
- - -
Tenten stares up at the tiny sliver of the moon, and wishes-
"Tenten?" Neji whispers.
"I'm fine," she says, shaking her head. "Just... thinking."
Letting go.
She's always been good at that.
- - -
They turn sparing into a nightly activity. As dusk falls, Tenten and Neji beat each other into the ground, escalating in method and force as they go on. It’s a beautiful thing- Tenten puts everything she has into every fight, and Neji returns the favor, and even though it ends, they pick it back up again the next night.
One night, as Tenten spins out of the way of a punch and lands a lucky kick, she falls onto Neji- grabs his hair, slips a kunai down into her hand, holds it to his throat- they stare at each other for a beat too long, and then Neji is leaning forward, and her kunai is nicking his throat, and they’re kissing like the world is about to end.
It doesn’t do much to calm the fire in her veins, but when they pull apart, Neji seems… more at ease, than he usually is.
“You’re bleeding,” Tenten points out.
“You cut me,” Neji fires back.
She huffs, and pulls him back to her apartment.
- - -
The two of them fall into bed together, a natural escalation. It keeps happening, after that, and Tenten isn’t sure-
Well. She thinks she likes fighting better, but it’s not half bad.
“Do we love each other?” she wonders one night.
“I don’t know,” Neji says, frowning. “I… I like spending time with you.”
“Well, obviously,” Tenten rolls her eyes. “I’m just- you know. I don’t know if this is love.”
Neji is silent for a moment. “I’m inclined to say it’s not.”
“Me too,” Tenten agrees. “...is your clan going to be dicks about this?”
“I don’t know,” Neji says thoughtfully. “They don’t have to find out, though.”
“Yeah,” Tenten says, and rolls over.
- - -
“So youthful!” Lee exclaims when he finds out. “When will you tell-”
“No one else is getting told,” Neji says. “My clan…”
“I see,” Lee says. “I’m honored that you two would trust me with a secret like this.”
The thing about Lee is that he means well. He only ever has the best intentions, and he’s more than capable of disregarding authority.
Tenten smiles at him, and doesn’t volunteer any information regarding her thoughts about leaving.
- - -
Neji doesn’t want to be rescued. That’s probably a good thing, because Tenten really has no idea how she’d go about rescuing him.
That’s one of two good reasons she has not to abandon Konoha: she can’t bring Neji with her, and if she wants to go quietly, she can’t keep fighting
Life without either of those doesn’t sound like much of life at all.
- - -
“Oh, you really shouldn’t talk to me about this,” Tenten says, scratching her cheek. “I’m- a special case.”
Naruto and Sakura sit patiently, waiting for a response anyways.
“Look, Sasuke- he’s not being selfish,” Tenten shakes her head. “You guys all agreed that you were gonna try and fix this dump, and it’s been a few months and nothing’s been fixed, so he’s leaving again. Seems fair to me. I didn’t ask to play relationship counselor-”
“Tenten,” Sakura interrupts. “Wait. We didn’t come for advice.”
“Okay,” says Tenten.
“We just wanna know what you think of Konoha,” Naruto adds.
“Rock Lee told us that you’ve been…” Sakura trails off.
Bastard.
“I’m kind of a special case,” Tenten repeats. “Don’t worry about it. I haven’t believed that I was doing anything worthwhile the entire time I’ve been a shinobi. This isn’t anything new. If I was going to do something about it, I would have done it a long time ago.”
“Why haven’t you?” Naruto asks.
“...eh,” says Tenten, and doesn’t let anything else spill out of her mouth.
- - -
She stays because she’s selfish, though.
Tenten slices through the daimyo's nephew’s fiance’s sister’s best friend’s guard with ease, and doesn’t think about how every body that hits the ground is probably just a chunin from Kiri looking to put food on the table, doesn’t look at the girl who is only related to the daimyo and the ongoing scandal through the barest of connections, and doesn’t hesitate to finish killing everyone in the room.
Because orders are orders.
Because she really, really wants to fight someone.
There’s no reason for any of these people to die- no real justification- but the daimyo wanted to clean things up, and Konoha wanted money, and Tenten wanted to feel something, and here they are.
She sets the place on fire and walks out.
- - -
“Tenten,” Neji says. “What do you know about seals?”
“More than the average person,” Tenten says, scraping ink off of a now-defunct storage seal. “Less than a master.”
They both know why he’s asking.
“I could probably figure something out, though,” Tenten says. The real reason the caged-bird seal has stuck around as long as it has is because of the weight the Hyuuga clan can swing around politically, and because most people don’t think too hard about it.
Neji stares at her.
“Up to you,” she says, and she means it.
- - -
“You’re back,” Tenten observes, surprised.
“Hn,” Sasuke says, looking away. “...I just needed some time.”
“Huh,” says Tenten. “Well, Naruto and Sakura will be thrilled.”
He nods, and heads off, presumably to find them. Tenten turns around and gets back to grocery shopping.
- - -
“You really believe in all this, huh?” Tenten says.
Gai-sensei watches her with heavy eyes. “Tenten…”
“Even after training Neji?” she frowns.
“The Hyuuga clan-” Gai-sensei starts.
“And everyone lets it happen,” Tenten interrupts. She lets it happen. She’s not exempt- she's just mad, and looking for a fight.
“My rival would do something if he could,” Gai-sensei says firmly. “Kakashi is doing his best to get the village back on its feet. Some things have to take priority.”
The worst part is that it’s true- Tenten only cares right now because of Neji. She’s being selfish.
- - -
Sometimes, Tenten remembers her first chunin exam. She thinks back on Lee, and the way he’d pushed himself beyond the point of no return, and the price he’d paid for it. Neji’s unwavering determination to prove himself the victor against fate, and the way he’d come up short.
Tenten… hadn’t tried much of anything. She’d fought because she liked fighting, and when she lost, she moved on.
Sometimes it feels like Neji and Lee are still trapped back there- still burning out for the sake of some undefinable honor, still trying to prove a point to eyes that refuse to see the evidence- while Tenten floats onwards, drifting further and further away. Sometimes she looks at all of her peers and-
- - -
“Hinata,” Neji shoots upward with a strangled gasp. Tenten shifts, slightly, and pretends like she’s still asleep.
- - -
“Hokage-sama,” Tenten says, not looking up.
“No need for that,” Kakashi says, voice just weary enough for her to know it’s not just a formality.
“Kakashi, then,” Tenten agrees. “Did you need something?”
He shuffles closer, arms hidden within the folds of his robe. “I’m putting you on leave.”
She drops her pen. “Wh- what?”
He passes a form to her. “Gai was talking with me, and he said you’ve been working-”
“Bullshit,” Tenten snaps. “Tell him to mind his own business-”
“And the amount of missions you’ve been taking really isn’t healthy-” Kakashi tries.
Tenten slaps the papers put of his hand. “I know what I can handle, and this is well within-”
“I know,” Kakashi interrupts loudly. “That you think you’re doing something noble, but killing yourself-”
It’s hedonism at best, she thinks, and bites her tongue so hard she tastes blood.
“-but the village needs you,” Kakashi says. He tries for something that might be a smile, though she can’t really tell between the hat and the mask. “I felt… similarly, once, but-”
“It’s not like that,” Tenten says. She sighs. “Look, I’m not- these aren’t suicide missions or anything. I’m not working because I’m trying to avoid something. I’m taking the jobs because I want to.”
It’d be sweet, almost, if she really were trying to punish herself. It’s nice in a theoretical kind of way to know that Kakashi is trying to change something.
Tenten’s a selfish prick, though, and she’s too mad about this to find it endearing.
“...I’m still putting you on leave for a week,” Kakashi finally says. He doesn’t believe her.
“Fine,” Tenten snaps. It’s not like she can do anything about it.
- - -
Sasuke leaves again. He’ll come back, probably, but never permanently. He’ll never settle, and Sakura will lash out and Naruto will shut down and all three of them can be miserable about the things they can’t fix together whenever Sasuke is in town. Tenten can picture it vividly.
“I was kind of wondering how they’d fall apart,” Tenten muses to Neji.
“They haven’t fallen apart yet,” he mutters.
“Yeah, but I know how it’ll go,” she says.
Neji hums and turns the page.
- - -
Leave is agonizing. She’d rather have all of her limbs chopped off than sit still like this. Spars only do so much to curb her appetite; Neji and Lee are out, and they’re the only ones who really keep up with her these days in taijutsu.
“You train so much!” Sakura exclaims, dodging a punch by the skin of her teeth. “I guess I’ve gotten rusty, you’re really good!”
Tenten throws her to the ground. “Train?”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?” Sakura laughs.
That’s not how Tenten would describe it.
- - -
Gai-sensei gets out of the hospital. Tenten wheels him to the apartment he’s sharing with Kakashi, since apparently everyone else he knows is busy.
“How are you holding up?” he asks, smiling kindly.
“Terribly,” Tenten replies, words clipped. “Someone tattled on me about a problem that isn’t even there, and now I’m stuck in the village.”
Theoretically. She could still just leave- but the past few days have proven that not having Neji or fighting is far more likely to kill her than anything else, so she’ll have to stay in the village.
Gai-sensei frowns. “I’m only trying to help you.”
- - -
“I figured it out,” Tenten announces as soon as Neji walks through the door.
He freezes.
She holds up the solution to the caged bird seal.
“You…” Neji breathes. He shakes his head. “We shouldn't use it if we don’t have a concrete plan to- get out.”
Tenten entertains the idea of joining up with Sasuke and traveling the world, filling her taste for combat by sparring with Neji. It could almost work- she can see the pieces-
Neji has to be the one to decide, though. She tosses him the new seal and lets him think on it.
- - -
She kills a party of bandits and feels very, very bad about it after the adrenalin rush fades.
“Are you okay?” the bewildered merchant she’s been escorting asks when she starts to cry.
“Fine,” Tenten says, wiping at her eyes. She can’t keep- keep killing people just because-
- - -
“Basically,” Tenten says, turning to face Naruto. “The difference between me and most other shinobi is that I really, really like fighting.”
He frowns. “But…”
“I like fighting,” she says again. “Swords. Kunai. You name it. The action of it all. I know that Konoha is rotten from the core. It lets me do what I love, and I’m a selfish prick, so I don’t care.”
“It’s not rotten from the core,” Naruto protests. “Konoha’s core is the people, and we’re- we’re just protecting ourselves.”
Tenten raises an eyebrow. “You don’t actually think that, right?”
Unlike Lee, who tends to try and escape the conversation when faced with the full force of her judgment, Naruto glares back and nods.
“Damn,” says Tenten. She’s pretty sure that Konoha’s core is nothing but empty air and excuses to keep existing, but there’s no arguing with that kind of conviction.
- - -
“I want to do this,” Neji whispers in her ear. He won the spar tonight, and she’s trapped between his thighs listening to the best news she’s ever heard. “I want to leave.”
“When?” Tenten asks.
“The end of the week,” Neji says. He takes a deep breath. “If we go up the coast opposite to Kiri- find some place off the maps- we could build a little house and live there.”
She stares up at him, enchanted. “We could have a garden.”
“Yeah,” he says. “And some chickens.”
They grin at each other.
- - -
As it turns out, the reason Neji wants to leave at the end of the week is because Gai-sensei and Lee want to have dinner on Friday.
It's a fitting end to an era.
They don’t tell them that they’re leaving, and Tenten mostly just gouges herself on Gai-sensei’s dumplings one last time, but Neji gives Gai-sensei a letter and tells him to open it on his birthday. It’s not too suspicious, since his birthday’s in a month, and Tenten’s glad he got to say goodbye.
“Thanks for having us!” Tenten calls on her way out. Gai-sensei and Lee waves until they can’t see each other anymore, and-
“I guess I won’t miss them that much,” Tenten realizes.
Neji shakes his head.
- - -
Officially, they’re out on a mission together, which should buy them at least two days. Tenten removes Neji’s seal as soon as they’re in a place where they won’t be found, and then they forge onward.
“I left the solution with Gai-sensei,” Neji says. “I hope…”
“It’s all in his hands now,” Tenten says.
- - -
Their house is small and comfortable. Their garden is still getting on its feet, but they have enough money to buy food at the small, nameless market only a few miles from their home.
Every evening, Neji and Tenten spar. She’s not sure that he understands why she needs to do it, but she doesn’t really need him to.
“You weren't in my dream,” Tenten says one night, nursing a cup of sake.
“... I wasn’t?” Neji seems surprised.
“No one was,” Tenten says. “It was just me, and this… opponent. They weren’t really anyone.”
“...this was mine, pretty much,” Neji says quietly. “My dream.”
She hums. The moon, small and pale, hangs lifelessly in the sky.
“This isn’t half bad either,” Tenten says.
“I feel bad about not sticking around to make sure the seal got passed around,” Neji says.
Tenten doesn’t. She’s always been too selfish. Too willing to let go. That’s why the things she has lasts- that's why she and Neji can sit peacefully instead of ripping themselves to pieces in pursuit of something impossible.
“Maybe we can check in after a few years, once we’re sure they’re not looking for us,” Tenten says.
“I’d like that,” says Neji.
Tenten settles back, and smiles.