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Chapter Text

Tenten had been close to tears leaving the hospital’s classroom when she’d noticed an older boy in the hall vanishing information into a card. 

“How did you do that?” she demanded, tears forgotten as she crossed over to him.

He had startled, somewhat, before smiling in return. “Ah, it’s a seal technique that allows only me to show the information on these cards. Are you a new genin? I know graduation is about this time of year…”

Tenten nodded, staring determinedly at the card marked only with the character for shinobi. “Yes, I was just assigned to my jōnin-sensei last week. How did you get the seal to work with just one character like that? Is there more to it? Most advanced seal designs I’ve studied involve matrices.”

The older boy’s glasses seemed to flash when his eyes flickered over her again, though his polite smile didn’t waver. “Interested in seals, are you? Not many in Konoha ever study these beyond explosive tags.”

That didn't answer her question!!

“Yes, obviously! I want to be strong.” At his look, she continued. “The only civilian-born shinobi to ever become famous in Konoha was known first for his seals.”

“The Lord Fourth? Yes, he was. Still, it’s rare for shinobi to study them past the basics. It’s a good sign that you have already studied advanced designs.”

“I haven’t been able to make things more complex than storage seals yet, and the scrolls are pretty big, still,” Tenten muttered. She watched balefully as the older boy placed the sealed card back into the pouch on his leg.

“I admit, my cards are perhaps more simple than you’re thinking. It’s a combination of a simple design and concentrated thought, more than anything,” he paused, then nodded at her. “I’m Yakushi Kabuto, by the way. I didn’t catch your name earlier.”

She then realized, with some embarrassment, that she hadn’t even introduced herself before she had started demanding things from him. “Ah, sorry, Kabuto-senpai! I’m Tenten.”

“Well, Tenten-chan, what brings you to the hospital today, if you don’t mind me asking?” Kabuto asked.

Tenten’s unwanted frustration returned, and it only grew as she realized she was about to cry. “I’m taking lessons to learn medical ninjutsu, but I don’t have the right chakra control. But there’s a clan kid on my team, and my sensei already has his favorite too, so I need something to stand out. The greatest kunoichi from this village is the Slug Sannin, and she’s a medic nin, so I have to learn! But I just can’t do it...how did you learn?”

Looking at the lab coat over his outfit, she could tell Kabuto was in the medic corps, too! Maybe he could teach her better than the hospital lessons…at the very least, she could get some seals knowledge out of him. 

“Ah…my adoptive mother was in the medic corps when she brought me back to the village, and she taught me once she discovered my gift for healing.”

“You weren’t born here?” Tenten asked, so as to not focus on her disappointment that he, too, was Naturally Gifted with a skill she struggled with.

“No, she found me after a battle during the Third War and took me in.” Third War? Tenten mentally added a few years to her estimate of his age, and studied his gray hair critically. She hadn’t factored it in earlier, after she’d mistaken Guy-sensei’s apparent rival for an old man last week, but if he was around for the Third War…

“Well, if she taught you medical techniques, how did you learn seals? I haven’t been able to find a teacher. It feels like ever since the sannin left, no one has been interested in learning,” Tenten said, keeping the grumble from her voice.

Kabuto considered her for a moment.

“If I’m being honest, Tenten-chan, I haven’t been able to find many people to discuss seals with myself.” He pushed his glasses further back on his nose and asked, “Who is your sensei, by the way? Are seals something they might be able to teach you?”

“Might Guy!” Tenten replied, watching him for any sign of disrespect for her teacher. A flicker of recognition in Kabuto’s face, and he smiled once again, easing her worries.

“Might-san is a very talented jōnin for Konoha. I imagine you will learn much about taijutsu with him. I admit, though, that I doubt you will be able to learn much about fūinjutsu from him. I wouldn’t mind working with you on this, though I would ask that you check with him first.”

Tenten beamed back at him. Finally, finally! Neji was a self-taught prodigy in his clan’s techniques, and Lee was her sensei’s primary focus. Two weeks in, though, and she’s secured a teacher of her own!

“Oh, thank you! That sounds great! When is a good time? Should we meet at the library?” The questions tumbled out of her mouth, mind whirling about logistics before she could savor the offer.

“That would work for me. Let’s plan for this Sunday evening, as I have a free shift then.”

Tenten nodded in excited agreement.

“I will see you then, Tenten-chan,” Kabuto smiled at her once again before going on his way. Yes! She resumed exiting the hospital, though took a moment to pump a fist in the air.

Upon realizing she was still in view of the waiting room of shinobi, she embarrassedly pulled her arm down and walked faster. Oh, she couldn’t wait to tell her team at practice today!

“SO! This Kabuto, he’s a genin as well?” Guy asked in that booming voice she still hadn’t adjusted to.

“Yes, but he’s been a genin for ages! He works in the hospital. He told me I should ask you if it’s alright that he teach me sealing.” A pause, before her excitement bubbled over. “He said he doesn’t get much chance to really talk about seals!”

“Hmm!” Guy furrowed his thick eyebrows and stroked his chin. “How old is this Kabuto? I like his YOUTHFUL FIRE for this subject, but I admit, Tenten-chan, I am uncomfortable sending you to be alone with a man I do not know!”

“I…think he’s about eighteen? Maybe twenty?” Tenten hazarded a guess. Her sensei’s eyebrows furrowed further. “He’s got gray hair, but I think it’s just like that.”

“AHA!” shouted Guy after a pause, and he jumped and pointed at her with great enthusiasm. “I know what will make this work! Yes, embrace your fire for learning! My Rival has knowledge of seals, as well, and would be a good supervisor and participant in such a lesson!”

“Do you think he’d show up on time?” Tenten asked hesitantly. She’d only met the man once, but Hatake had left an impression by his absence until three hours into their planned training.

“HAHAHA! So cool, Tenten-chan!” Guy’s grin was contagious. He leaned in as though to whisper, though his delivery was too loud to keep his words secret. “He will be there on time if I tell him you meet at noon!”

“We were planning to meet around six, actually,” Tenten said. 

Her sensei winked and pressed a finger to his lips.

Tenten snorted.

“Hey, what’s so funny?” Rock Lee asked, approaching them now after having run an additional ten laps than Guy required. He looked close to collapsing from exhaustion. Neji, blank-faced beside him, looked similarly fatigued at an emotional level. His long hair was tangled and his clothing was muddy from where Rock had managed to kick him into a pond.

Tenten started laughing properly at the sight of them both. Her sensei clapped her back supportively, and joined her.

Chapter Text

“Alright,” Tenten said, resting the palms of her hands against the chabudai of her sensei’s rival. “Now you have to explain. How did you get the nin-info cards to work, Kabuto-senpai?”

Hatake Kakashi, more embarrassed about being on time than he had ever been to being late, had sheepishly volunteered his shabby, dog-hair-covered apartment for studying use after the library had kicked them out. Now, he turned a quizzical eye to Kabuto and said: “Yes, Kabuto. Explain these ninfo cards.”

In lieu of words, Kabuto brought out a plain card and pressed his finger to the blank face of it. A description of Tenten, complete with a portrait of her and a description of her abilities, burned across the paper in damning words.

A one for strength? Out of how many points? Five?

Quietly, Tenten resolved to at least try to match Rock Lee in pushups until she could convince Kabuto-senpai to bump up those numbers. 

“Well, first I burn information into the card using my chakra,” Kabuto explained. He flipped the card and ignored the brush pen which Kakashi had spent an embarrassing amount of time digging through his drawers to find, instead placing his finger directly onto the back. Before he could continue, he was interrupted again.

“I admit this makes me curious,” said Kakashi, who had lifted his headband to reveal a strange red eye. “I can understand using chakra to activate the seal to reveal information. But how are you getting it to print color photographs?”

“Chakra control,” Kabuto replied, much to Tenten’s despair. Not that again.

He began to burn the first kanji character for shinobi to the back.

“That doesn’t work for me,” Kakashi interrupted. Kabuto looked up at him, causing the light to catch his glasses with a brief flash. His hand stilled before the first stroke of the character was complete.

“What doesn’t work for you, Kakashi-san?” Kabuto asked, voice suffocating in its careful politeness. Tenten recognized this as what her mom called Customer Service Voice and shuddered.

“Chakra control that is fine enough to denote words, and even to create graphs I can conceive. Maybe my control isn’t there, personally, but I can imagine it as something I could do if I spent enough time on it,” Kakashi shrugged, though the casual motion belied the clear focus in his expression. He closed his weird eye and moved his forehead protector back down to cover it. “I can draw all of those out with an actual pen. Photos, though?”

“I have the full image of the card in my mind before I even touch the chakra to the card. Consider it less like the singular movement of a pen, and more like each line burning in at once, moving down from the top.” Kabuto replied. Tenten followed the back and forth, eyes bouncing between the two.

“What the hell is your level of control?” Kakashi asked, in what appeared to be earnest bafflement.

Tenten coughed.

“It is adequate to serve my role as a genin medic in Konoha’s hospital,” Kabuto replied primly. 

“Why are you not at least a chūnin?” Kakashi demanded. He was leaning forward now, rather than slouched as had seemed his natural state.

“I’ve failed at the Chūnin Exams rather soundly, Kakashi-san,” Kabuto said, and adjusted his glasses. “Multiple times. It’s a bit of a sensitive subject.”

Tenten coughed louder.

“You’re saying that you have been evaluated and considered, multiple times, to still be genin level?” Kakashi rolled his shoulders as he leaned back. “Ah, it’s a good thing I failed those Academy graduates then. They definitely weren’t at the same level as you and Tenten-chan here.”

Kabuto twitched. “I’ve been a genin for almost ten years now and have not advanced. I suppose as a genin-sensei you would know better than me what would qualify someone for this level, though.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” said Kakashi, having pulled his headband back over his weird eye. “I was only a genin for a few months, so maybe you would know better about what skills are necessary for one.”

“Can you please show the seal?” Tenten finally interrupted. This was all very interesting, but she would prefer if her Study Sessions were less combative. Both of the men lost some of the tension in their stances, in what appeared to be practiced gestures. Weird.

“Of course, Tenten-chan,” Kabuto said, and, with pure chakra, finished burning the first character of shinobi into the back of the card.

“It still just looks like the character, and not much of a matrix at all,” she said, awed again at his easy, impossible control over his chakra.

“Are kanji not themselves made up of radicals?” Kabuto asked rhetorically. “The full word with both characters spells out shinobi; but some might read it differently. It all depends. The meaning you know refers to endurance. But it also refers to sneaking, and when I write this character, I am directing my chakra to remember this meaning. So it is my chakra that causes the information to sneak away, and mine that breaks that memory.”

“Huh,” said Kakashi, who had pulled out a small notebook and begun writing this down, using the pen lying ignored in the center of the table. “You’re smarter than you look, Kabuto-san.”

Tenten wasn’t sure how to take that line. Did Kakashi mean Kabuto looked stupid, or that he looked like a smart guy and this was a compliment? She reasoned that since nerd was the most precise way to describe Kabuto’s appearance, that Kakashi was just really bad at compliments. Kabuto even looked flushed from the praise! Or…was that anger? She wasn’t sure, and before she could figure it out, his face had returned to its normal polite blankness.

“Do you have seals for those without the super precise chakra control like you? Considering that I'm failing the medical classes?” Tenten asked hopefully.

“Maa, Guy mentioned some of your work with storage seals. Bring them out so we can discuss,” Kakashi said before Kabuto could answer.

“Before showing your current design, can you explain why you chose that specific function? What size of things you hoped to store, why you preferred it to be sealed rather than unsealed…those sorts of parameters would be useful to a critique,” Kabuto interjected. Kakashi glanced at him. Not this again! The arguments were cutting down on Seal Time!

Tenten brought out her sealing scroll, the one tentatively labeled First Aid. “Uhm, I know the medical classes aren’t going well, but I’ve made sure to keep supplies on hand! I think it’s better for them to be sealed so the perishable parts don’t spoil, and because a lot of the supplies would be too unwieldy to carry!”

“...What unwieldy healing supplies have you sealed?” asked Kabuto, a gray brow raised, and Tenten guiltily recalled the source of most of them. She swallowed, and began to pull at the seal carrying her heaviest materials.

She could sense where things were largest, but couldn't tell shape or form beyond that. She started relatively lightly with the pair of crutches she had stored.

And continued.

“So that’s where that went,” murmured Kabuto, adjusting his glasses.

“In what field situation do you expect to need a hospital bed,” asked Kakashi flatly, in the most honest display of emotion Tenten had seen from him yet. 

She flushed, guilty and caught out for her lack of answer, and began sealing everything back away.

“Well, it looks like you’ve got some idea of what things are from the feel, but no precise method of bringing out the object you want, when you want it,” Kabuto mused. So much more professional than her sensei’s rival! Immediately understanding the issue, too!!

“You know, there are sealing scrolls that adjust around it, that can be divided more specifically to different items. Ah, admittedly, I haven’t studied those seals very closely. I know they’re based around sealing, hmm, organic material, though.”

Kabuto pinched the bridge of his nose and gestured for Kakashi to step to the next room with him. Tenten wondered why he bothered because she could still hear each little hissing whisper.

“Tell me you don’t plan to introduce this thirteen-year-old girl to ANBU body scrolls. She hasn’t even been outside of the village yet. You need to ease her into that.”

“Maa, sensei, what do you know about ANBU sealing?” A heavy, unsettling feeling crept over Tenten, and she felt frozen in her seat, scared and stuck.

“Stop that; don’t be childish.” The feeling receded, and Tenten grabbed at her knees and breathed heavily, overwhelmed by the lingering fear. “I’ve done autopsies for the Village, when necessary. I’m familiar with ANBU’s results. I will not have Might Guy knocking on my door to bend my spine into a, forgive my language, fucking paper crane because on night one, you pulled a head from a scroll and traumatized his student to get her to be a little more precise in storage sealing.”

“Show a little more respect, genin. I’ve got empty scrolls too, at least for now.”

“Ah, jōnin-san, I apologize for my inconsiderate tone. I just ask that you not ruin this before it starts. I so rarely have a chance to discuss sealing.”

A beat.

“...If I’m being honest, you’re not alone in that feeling, Kabuto-san.” A pause. “Maybe. I don’t know how to teach baby genin, but I’m sure this will be practice for when I finally get stuck with a team.”

The pair returned as Tenten was putting the finishing touches on a poster inviting all interested parties to a sealing study club. They both paused to read it before speaking.

“You’re planning on hanging this in public?” asked Kakashi, tilting his head at Tenten. She nodded, carefully inking the last character.

“You’ve got good handwriting,” praised Kabuto. “You show good control over brush strokes, and where you added brush calligraphy, the artistry is done well. This precision and creativity will be a great benefit in studying sealing.”

“Did you have to include my apartment address on this?“ continued Kakashi, in a plaintive tone. 

“Well, Kakashi-san, how else will the, ah, Seal Club know how to find us next week?” said Kabuto, sounding amused.

“You’re the one who said we should study here!” Tenten argued. She reread the poster herself and was pleased with the final look of it. "Besides, it's just the address! If it said it was Hatake Kakashi's apartment, no one would want to come!"

She resisted the urge to stick out her tongue.

Instead, she asked Kabuto if he knew how to develop a seal where she could actually figure out what she was grabbing before she'd already begun taking it out, and he'd pulled a book from his pouch for her to read before their session next week. He had smiled at her while she thanked him, and sent a judgmental glance over at Kakashi, who had not prepared similar instruction.

Not wanting to deal with whatever that was, Tenten nodded politely at Kakashi, and bailed. She had to hang the poster by the Mission Board before the desk-nin were there to complain about it if she wanted anyone to show up. This way, people would just assume it was authorized!

The next morning, she resigned herself to a practice of trying to compete with Rock Lee.

Chapter Text

Even standing a polite distance away, her sensei managed to loom over her with an aura of Great Concern.

“Tenten-chan! You look vibrant and youthful as ever!” He paused, as though bracing for the next question. 

“Yes, Guy-sensei! I am ready to be trained!” she beamed up at him. After seeing more of how weird his friend was, her sensei seemed pretty normal in comparison! Maybe jōnin were just Like That, and she should start embracing it if she wanted to get anywhere in this business!

“AH! I am so happy to hear that Tenten. It seems studying with my Cool Rival has brought new focus to your ambitions!” Guy said, an even larger grin on his face. If Tenten learned to smile like him, would she be able to frighten Kakashi into behaving?

“Yes! Kabuto-senpai was more helpful, but Kakashi-san let us use his apartment after the library kicked us out!”

“My Rival, so hip when I least expect it! How did Kabuto react to meeting my cool and famous Rival?” Guy had started to loom again. Tenten forced herself to stop leaning back.

“Eh…” she reflected on the weird, combative energy between them, but Kabuto hadn’t been rude … “He was pretty respectful, even when Kakashi-san showed us the infection he’s been hiding. Now that I think about it, do you think I should ask senpai if he can help heal it? I never even knew an eye could get that red…”

“ HMM…” Guy said, biting his lip in a visibly painful show of restraint. “My Rival showed you his Sharingan, Tenten-chan! It is a powerful weapon of his, not an infection! I admit, I am concerned why he would show you this in this first meeting. Did something happen?”

“Ah, he thought Kabuto’s info cards used a cool technique. Was he threatening Kabuto?” 

Guy relaxed back into his natural, still-lipstraining smile. “Ha! No, Tenten-chan. His Sharingan has him called the Copy-Nin, because he uses it to learn techniques.  This Kabuto guy must be pretty cool, too, if my Rival saw something he wanted to learn from him!”

“Yes, he is!” Tenten recalled when the pair had argued in the kitchen, and wondered if Guy could answer her question. “Sensei, do you know if Kakashi has learned a technique that makes you feel really cold, like you’re about to die? He must be really good at it, but it’s scary! We didn’t learn about anything like that in the Academy.”

Guy’s grin stayed fixed and unyielding as he blinked his eyes open to stare at her. The resulting combination stare-smile was more than a little unsettling. “My Rival did what? ”

“Wellll…when Kabuto told Kakashi that I was too young to learn something, Kakashi made the whole apartment really scary until Kabuto told him to stop,” Tenten snitched blatantly. She might actually get some answers this way.

“I see. Thank you for telling me, Tenten-chan. It seems I should apologize to your Kabuto for doubting his professionalism!” Guy's smile didn’t waver, looking almost frozen. “There is such a technique, yes. I will need to find my Rival to advise him on what is appropriate for Youthful students!”

“Eh, that’s what Kabuto was telling him! I could hear him in the kitchen. He said something about me being too young to handle ANBU body scrolls!”

“This Kabuto seems very wise indeed! I will thank him as well. Not many genin would stand up against a jōnin to do what’s right!” Guy said in his normal booming voice, though his thick brows were furrowed, and Tenten had a strong suspicion that Kakashi would not do the creepy jutsu next Sunday. “It was good that you asked him for aid! You have shown great Youthful Energy to pursue your dreams in the time I have known you, and I am so happy you have such assistance in this mission!”

He clapped Tenten on the shoulder affectionately, and she straightened her back, pride filling her at his belief in her.

She wanted to be a strong kunoichi, but there were so few living examples she could learn from! There was Tsunade, but Tenten didn’t have the control for her techniques. There weren’t many female full jōnin in Konoha, the ranks having never recovered after the Uchiha clan died. Tenten would have to forge her own path forward…but. But. She glanced at Rock and Neji, both so focused on achieving more than anyone believed them capable. More than anyone save her sensei, who believed in them all so fiercely.

Yosh! She would support her team to be stronger than they ever dreamed, and they would support her to be the strongest kunoichi in Konoha! 

“AH! Your Youthful Fire burns bright, Tenten-chan!” Guy said, matching her clenched-fist pose of Determination.

Neji, in her peripheral vision, had now knocked Rock into the ground, keeping him pinned with a knee. He looked over at them with Guy’s renewed shout, and scoffed as he offered Rock a hand up.

Before her teammates reached them to join the conversation, Guy said: “I will speak to my dear Rival, too, so do not worry, Tenten-chan! He will not be so rude next time!”

“What happened with your Eternal Rival, Hatake Kakashi, Guy-sensei?” asked Rock Lee, smudges of dirt clinging to his cheeks. Tenten tsked and pulled a tissue out of her hip pouch to dab at him. 

Neji rolled his eyes at them, though the act seemed pointless, considering, well. Byakugan. The whites of his eyes and the white irises were also already hard to distinguish, and Tenten had learned she could only really track what he was looking at by watching the slightly darker border of his iris move around.

Already trained in tuning out Rock and her sensei’s conversations, Tenten considered why Neji would even bother rolling his eyes if he could still see them the whole time. Ah, so her unstoppable prodigy teammate was capable of childish pettiness too! This was important information. Tenten resolved to drag him into social activities beyond whatever his stuffy clan had to offer. Probably… tea ceremonies and memorizing classic poems.

Guy clapped his hands, drawing all their attention. “I have an idea for training today, my team! Before we begin, we must find and bring our Volunteer here, so I can show you the proper forms! Tenten-chan, do you recall my Rival’s address?”

“Yes, sensei!”

“AH! Your memory does you credit, Tenten-chan!”

“Thank you, sensei!”

“Of course, Tenten-chan! Now, I already know where my Rival is. Tenten-chan, without showing them yourself, guide your teammates to his apartment. Neji-kun and Rock-kun, follow her directions. This will teach you to trust intelligence! and your youthful teammates!”

“Where will you be then, Guy-sensei?” asked Neji, who had at least stopped saying Might-san  about two days in when Tenten had finally given into her urge and teased him for it during Team Guy’s mandatory end-of-practice get-along group hug.

“AHA! Excellent question, Neji-kun! It is always good to make sure you understand where your teammates will be. I will be at my Rival’s apartment, blocking the windows so he doesn’t try to escape my wonderful youthful genin! Do any of you have any further questions? No?”

“Wow, sensei! Such a crafty, brilliant plan!” Rock said, scribbling into a notebook. 

“EXCELLENT! And so we begin!” Guy flickered away.

“You heard him, guys! Let’s go!" She tried to remember the directions, but only recalled how she had walked the day before. "We’ll have to head to the town library first so I can reorient myself!”

Shoving at each other as they scrambled, her teammates took off running.

When, after a few redirections, they finally reached the apartment door, Tenten abruptly wanted to be at any other door. Kakashi had gone out of his way to help her yesterday, and had even used this apartment to host them! And now she was using that information to bother him the next day!

“This is it,” she whispered.

Unhesitating, Rock Lee pounded at the door.

A moment later, there was a loud squawk inside the apartment. A few seconds passed before their sensei opened the door to them with a smile on his face, holding his Rival by the scruff like he was a misbehaving dog and not a six-foot-tall murder man.

“Excellent work, Students!” he gave them a thumbs up with his free hand. “I learned that my Rival needs some help learning what sorts of techniques are appropriate to show fresh genin. This morning will offer great training for everyone!”

Tenten hadn’t really noticed how spiky Kakashi’s hair had been before it had visibly begun to droop the longer that Guy kept speaking. 

Guy shifted Kakashi to a fireman's carry, to a surprising lack of protest. He must have realized the futility of trying to escape a prepared Guy. This must be the strategic mind that had brought him such fame!

Tenten chided herself for the uncharitable sarcasm.

It was a much shorter run to the training grounds from his apartment than it had been to get there, and she realized guiltily just how indirect her instructions had been. Neither Neji or Rock commented on her error, at least, though it must have been obvious…

Moving into the training circle, Guy gently shifted Kakashi to a standing position, waited for their attention, and signaled the beginning of the spar. Kakashi sighed and signed back accordingly.

“Watch closely, students! If you are ever beginning a fight too close to your opponent, remember you can create distance without yourself retreating!” Kakashi’s single eye widened in response to this, and the motion of his shoulders indicated he had tried to quickly move backwards.

Before he could, though, Guy had grabbed his chest with one hand, then lifted him, then threw him clear across the ring. Kakashi had mostly righted himself before impact, but his landing was still heavy. “If you have a less Cool opponent, such a move would leave them to catch themselves with their back! They would return to you winded, and you can press the advantage!”

“But since my opponent is so Cool, I will instead show you the value of focusing on a specific area of your opponent. Perhaps later, we can explore how you can also wear out an opponent by targeting their entire body!”

“I don’t know if we need to do that,” Kakashi managed to reply while ducking between fierce, blindingly fast strikes. Most of them, until a kick landed in his abdomen and he doubled over. 

“You see, even though he has some protection over that area, a strong enough hit still left him unbalanced!” Guy’s next punch sent Kakashi from his unsteady position, and, back-first, he crashed heavily into the ground and kept sliding. Tenten winced, but she was more than a little touched that her sensei was beating up his friend just for making her scared for a bit yesterday.

“You should focus on any visible weaknesses, but with a powerful opponent, there might not be any! So you should instead focus on any weakness you are able to create!” Guy shifted Kakashi’s left arm over his shoulder, and hoisted the man until he was fully upside down, unable to prevent the drop from happening.

“Don't forget, use your legs not your back to lift! In a vertical suplex, dear students, you should wait for the blood to gather in your opponent’s head a bit! Again, though, this is just a friendly spar, so there’s no need for all of that!”

He fell backwards, slamming Kakashi with the weight of their falls, and then pinned him. With his one free hand, Kakashi signaled his surrender, and Guy rose from the pin easily.

“Wow, you’re so cool, Guy-sensei!” Rock Lee cheered.

“Thank you, my student! Now, there are a few more lessons I would like to impart this morning before we begin our own sparring practices together. For example, notice how I did not use Killing Intent in a setting where it would be inappropriate for Youthful genin!” 

At this, Kakashi began to mutter something foul enough for Tenten to cover Rock Lee’s ears, and Neji to flush a scandalized red.

“Rival! I challenge you to best of the next three, this morning! Winner will buy lunch!”

“Not much of a win condition,” Neji muttered.

“Yeah, sure, why not,” Kakashi said, louder, the lazy shrug not enough to hide the tension tightening his frame.

Tenten settled in to watch her sensei throw his rival around a ring like a ragdoll for the next thirty minutes. The next two matches were far less one-sided than the first, and yet. Ragdoll was not inaccurate towards the end.

Still, by the end, all parties seemed happy, and while she couldn’t hold Neji in a suplex yet, she was able to successfully land a few hits in the same targeted area on him. And when they were all laying in an exhausted pile afterwards, Neji even let her braid his hair! He said it was to make sure all the leaves and dirt were out before he went home, but it was still progress !!

“Ah…winner pays for lunch, no?” emerged from the man-shaped puddle that was Kakashi.

“YOSH!” said Guy, and scooped up Kakashi to carry on his back. “To the restaurant!”

He took off, and his students followed in a hurry.

Lunch (Tenten thought, as she sprinted) was the most important meal of the day, and hopefully, Kakashi would be mellowed out and forgiving by the time she had to face him again that weekend.

Chapter Text

“That’s legal?” asked Tenten, straightening her back from where she had been slouching against the wall during their final break.

Neji only nodded before he looked away from her with a frown.

“That’s fucked up,” she said, too shocked to censor the profanity. Neji at least had the decency to look mildly scandalized.

“It is my fate. No matter how talented, I am branded forever the property of the Main family. I am a pair of eyes and fists, guarding their backs, and they will stab my own as it suits them.”

“It won’t be like that forever.” 

Pale eyes flicked to hers. His lips tightened, but he said nothing. Tenten persisted. “You, me, Rock, and Sensei. We’ll all get the respect we’re owed one day, I promise.”

Neji scoffed, and looked away. “Rock Lee receives exactly the amount of respect he’s owed.”

“You don’t mean that, Neji.” She forged onwards. “Don’t joke about this, or act like I’m making light of it. It’s not fair, Neji, and just because it happened, that doesn’t mean it was right. That it needed to happen, that it was going to happen anyway.”

“You don’t understand the Hyūga at all—”

“You—you know what? I think it’s good that I don’t! If they’re branding their own family as slave. Look at me, Neji. Don’t look away.” 

“You realize I don’t need to be looking at you directly to see your face?” Oh, he was angry. For the first time since Tenten had met him (as an especially surly, and in retrospect, grieving child), some color entered his pale face, and the edge of his lip had twitched into a slight snarl.

“Then listen to me. You have the same stupid ears as me. You are not a better shinobi than Lee and me—” she ignored his mocking noise at that, continuing: “—and even if you were , it’s not because of your eyes or your clan. You are strong because despite being a natural genius, you work just as hard as Lee and I at improving yourself.”

“I have to work hard because of my position in my clan. You don’t understand.”

“Really? Really. I’m a clanless kunoichi with an immigrant, civilian mother and no father. I know you’re aware. You’ve said as much to my face.”^[1] Guilty silence. “How much do I need to spell this out for you, Neji? How about this: I will be stronger than anyone expects of me. Rock will be too. And so will you. What people expect of us because of how we were born doesn’t... It just doesn’t control how we will live!”

“It has controlled exactly how I live,” Neji said, but the flashpoint of anger had clearly drained from his voice. Listening to the dead sound of him, Tenten missed the spark of life it had brought.

“I’m trying to listen to you, Neji, but you’re saying a lot of things I can’t agree with. How much can they control you with that?”

“It is not ‘control’ like whatever puppeting technique I imagine you are thinking of. No, it is absolute pain. If a member of the Main House feels it, they can kill me remotely, or cause me whatever torment, with no real need to justify it,” and so Neji pulled off his headband, and he showed her for the first time the manji that was burned into his forehead like some perversion of a map designation. 

Tenten’s mom only really took her to the temple to try and get money. But she was still pretty sure—

“The left facing manji is meant to signify mercy,” she said, a little shocked she was even able to get angrier. 

Neji twisted his headband in between his hands, pressing his thumbs across the leaf symbol. He stayed silent.

“It is! I know that much!”

“Well, that’s not how they use it, so I don’t know how much the original meaning matters,” said Neji. He looked at her, and laughed a bit to himself, a few short huffs. It didn’t sound very happy. He tied his forehead protector back on and stood.

He hesitated, as though about to offer to help her up, before he shoved both hands into his pockets.

“...I don’t say what I do about fate to discourage you. I say it so you accept it, as I have.” Cutting off Tenten’s protest before she could even speak, he said: “Now, do you want to practice the moonsault Guy-sensei was showing us?”

Tenten was actually pretty good at the backflip part of the moonsault. The tricky part was the chakra control needed to walk up the tree to get to a good vantage point to flip from, but it was worth it for those seconds when it felt like she was flying. She wondered if Neji liked Sensei’s “aerial techniques” for a similar reason.

Their sensei’s insistence that they have a “Dynamic Entry” for every situation was odd, but she couldn’t deny that she was learning something from it all.

It was a tough practice, but not one without breaks. Every time it was Neji’s turn to practice the move, she could rest as he climbed, and then just braced herself to catch him. And gradually, with each time he flew through the air on the fall down, Neji’s face began to return to its default level of brooding, rather than the tragic gloomy hero level that had made her ask what was wrong in the first place. Apparently some Main house Hyūga jerk hadn’t liked the braids she’d pulled his hair into earlier that week.

After Guy had ended practice for the day, and took off for his “cooldown” laps with Rock, Tenten rushed to the hospital.

“Ah, you again. What’s your emergency?” The woman at the front desk interrupted Tenten’s search before she could get started.

“I’m looking for Kabuto-senpai! Do you know where I can find him?”

“Eh, that guy…? He’s a friend of yours?”

“He and my sensei’s rival are teaching me seals!”

“...Yeah, not going to touch whatever that means. Between you and me, he’s supposed to be doing rounds in the specialty clinic handling chronic issues on the third floor, but you can probably catch him coming from one of the private rooms next to the records room on the second lower floor.” The woman rolled her eyes. “He says he needs the privacy to focus on things, and under the new accommodations law, we have to give it to him.”

“Uh, thank you! But … what’s wrong with the new accommodations law?” Tenten braved, feathers ruffled at the insult to another maybe-friend.

“It’s meant for shinobi, who can’t return to field work, to have village positions adjusted to meet their needs,” the woman scoffed. “Kabuto’s a brilliant doctor, but he’s barely left the village. If he gets a private room, it should be something in his contract, not because he’s using programs meant for people who need it.”

Tenten wasn’t sure how she felt about that, too unfamiliar with the regulation to know how to defend him, so she scurried off according to the woman’s instructions. She smacked headlong into Kabuto as he was exiting a room, and blinked up at him. 

“I really might be overworking myself in practice…” she muttered, rubbing at her forehead.

“Hello Tenten-chan! Everything alright?” her senpai smiled at her. He had a nice smile, like the ones in magazines. She hadn’t realized that real-life people smiled like that; it had always seemed too perfect to not just be a fake pose that models used.

“Hello, senpai! Um, I just had a few questions. Is it alright if I talk to you? The lady at the front desk said you were supposed to be on the third floor but would probably be here next to the records room, but that sounds like you’re on your shift now…”

If Tenten had been listening closely, she might have heard an exhale that sounded suspiciously like “the infosec in this village is a nightmare.” But she was a bit busy brushing herself off from crashing into him,  and smoothing her hair back down, to really listen to what the guy was muttering about.

“Sure, Tenten-chan. I can make some time; don’t worry.” He gestured that she follow him back into the room he had been leaving when she had hit him.

As soon as the door was closed, it burst out of her. “Do you know about the … Caged Bird seal?”

Kabuto opened his mouth, then paused. “Why do you ask?”

“I just learned why my teammate Neji has always worn a headband. He’s got that seal burned right into his forehead, and he has since he was tiny, and…” Tenten felt the tears coming, but refused to be embarrassed for responding emotionally to her teammate’s pain. “They use it to hurt him, because he’s so talented, and they hate that a Branch child is showing up the Main house that much.” 

“Ah,” said Kabuto, pushing up his glasses. He pressed some sort of seal in the door, which lit up a sequence of characters hidden across the walls of the room. “Just making sure this conversation is relatively private, Tenten-chan, given the subject of it. Yes, the Hyūga’s branding of their Branch house is a…somewhat ill-kept, if still very much classified secret.”

“It just. It really isn’t fair that he gets treated so poorly just because of how he was born. It’s given him a whole complex over it. Keeps talking about fate and the destinies of Rock Lee and me. But I understand why. It’s…how could someone look at a child, barely able to walk, a member of their own family, and see a servant, instead of someone to protect? How could anyone bear to let that happen once, let alone for it to become so…so….?” 

“Systemic?” Kabuto finished.

Emboldened, she continued, voicing the thought that had been weighing on her since she’d seen that brand right below where his forehead protector bore the leaf. “Isn’t it…kind of treasonous for the clan to say its got primary control for its members, over Konoha? Like, it feels like the Hyūga are saying no matter what role Neji has, like even if he becomes Hokage, he belongs to them and not the Hokage…” 

Tenten grew more unsure of herself the longer Kabuto stared at her. Finally, he laughed, and pushed his glasses higher up on his nose. “You’ve stumbled on an interesting little aspect to the puzzle here, Tenten-chan. I’ll ask you this: if that is the case, then why would the village let the Hyūga get away with such a display?”

Tenten paused. She had hesitated so much to even suggest such a thing, but … how arrogant had she been to think it had slipped past all the brilliance at the head of Konoha if it was something she could notice a few weeks after graduation! She flushed at her misstep.

Kabuto sighed. “I didn’t intend to make you feel embarrassed. Here, how about this: Look underneath the underneath. Have you heard this phrase before?”

Tenten shook her head. 

“It’s essential to surviving as a shinobi. When presented with a situation, you assume things immediately, just looking at it. But,” he offered a polite chuckle, “Us shinobi are tricky folk. You can’t trust everything you see, can you?”

“Because people can trick you with genjutsu,” Tenten said. “So I should always check for genjutsu when entering a new situation.”

“...Yes, metaphorically,” Kabuto said, after pinching the bridge of his nose and looking at the ceiling for some time. Her mom often did the same thing after Tenten said something particularly insightful. “What I mean is that the facts presented to you are not always the truth of things.”

Tenten nodded. That much was obvious.

“And because of tricks like genjutsu, lying, bad intel, and the rest being standard in shinobi life, you should assume there is something that what you do see is hiding, but that itself can be a misdirection.”

“Senpai, is that how the really skilled shinobi operate? Having multiple fronts like that just to cover the truth sounds exhausting, especially if you’ve got to be aware of everyone else’s layers like that all the time …”

“Well, I wouldn’t know personally,” Kabuto chuckled lightly. Right, as a genin mostly working in the hospital, he’d have no need to use that information. “Still, getting back on topic, if you look underneath the underneath, consider how the Hyūga are able to brand their branch members in the way that they do.”

He purposefully turned back to the medical file he had been writing in to give her time to think. With a pen, his handwriting was impossible to read, compared to the perfect shape of his precise seal characters.^[2] 

“I guess…since the Uchiha died, the Hyūga are the last massive clan with a dōjutsu. But… Neji-kun always wore a headband since I knew him, and he was friends with Fusao-kun before the Clan-Killer got him…”

Kabuto, still leaning against the table to work, gestured for her to keep going with his free hand.

“But it’s important how large the Hyūga are, too, relative to other clans. I guess it makes sense if the Hyūga main family’s loyalty to the village is beyond question? But how can the village leadership trust that no member of the main family will go rogue and take out most of the clan without even trying? How can it even allow such cruelty to be enacted against its own people?”

“How indeed?” Kabuto remarked, not quite flatly, turning the page over.

“I…I don’t know,” Tenten said, finally. There had to be a good reason, surely. Konoha was founded on the Will of Fire; that urge to protect!

“Part of being a shinobi, especially a clanless shinobi like you and I, is accepting that most answers rely on information that will never be given to us.” Kabuto finally looked up from his file to offer her a smile. “I can offer you a little bit though, genin to genin.”

Tenten thought of Neji, whose pale fingers had tensed enough around a metal plate to turn white, who let her braid his hair, who had apologized to her so directly. If she wanted to understand her teammate, she’d need all the help she could get. She nodded.

“The Senju and the Uchiha founded Konoha, as you might know. It is less commonly taught that Konoha was itself built atop the original clan compound of the Uchiha, as a term of their surrender following the death of their sole heir. Even if they had a similar practice to the Hyūga, they would not be allowed to practice it, given the clan’s bargaining position when they joined the village. That is, if we keep the assumption that Konoha leadership disapproved of the Caged Bird.”

“So the Hyūga joined the village on the condition that they keep this technique?”

Kabuto pushed his glasses back. “You should check the official Charter of joining, sometime, Tenten-chan. That much is public record. You should also ask your teammate if he knows why the main family started sealing the branch. If he doesn’t…come talk to me.”

For a moment, the bright lights of the hospital caught on his glasses, and Tenten couldn’t see his eyes at all. Still, the offer was a kind one, and she smiled at him in thanks. She had really lucked out to have such an upstanding guy helping her out. It sounded like most shinobi were shifty, dishonest scoundrels, to be watched carefully with a healthy dose of skepticism; even in the village, it might have been risky to approach a stranger like she had! After all, not all shinobi in Konoha were innocent, trustworthy medic-nins like Kabuto—some might even be infiltrating spies, or the sort of villain who might try to take over the world with… an army of the dead! Like in the zombie movies her mom watched!

When he told her he looked forward to discussing fūinjutsu that weekend, but he really needed to get back to his rounds, Tenten took the hint and left. She started to head home, but veered sharply to the library first. It sounded like there were some founding documents she should read before bringing it up again with Neji.

[1] After Tenten beat Neji in a spar for the first time (yesterday afternoon), Neji had managed, in short order, to insult her mother's profession, lack of husband, and citizenship status, as well as Tenten's own background. She considered it a rather embarrassing attempt to reaffirm the hierarchy he thought the world followed, more inspired from being beaten, but it was still annoying..

Perhaps he thought this little monologue would be internal, but, as ever, he was doomed by the narrative, and sentenced to eighteen laps “to reflect on the mission assignment practices which lead to Konoha kunoichi earning an average of eighteen percent less than shinobi.” He had come to practice this morning and, while not managing a proper apology, had been less outright dismissive of her. ^{[return to text]}

[2] A reader, having just been reminded to look underneath the underneath, might wonder why Kabuto would write incomprehensible notes in the medical records of Konoha’s shinobi. They might study it, and ask, with some benefit of metaknowledge: could this be an attempt at sabotage? Is he just trying to look busy as he gathers information? Unfortunately, sometimes looking underneath the underneath leads to missing the surface entirely. Kabuto is the sort of paranoid guy who prefers to read up on jōnin he has to meet more than once. He’s also got his ‘doctor’ class equipped currently, and thus suffers the 80% debuff to handwriting legibility. ^{[return to text]}

Chapter Text

Their second meeting, and Tenten was almost late! Hastily, she shoved the books she needed to return into a scroll and strapped it onto her back.

“Where are you going, then?” called her mother. Tenten stilled, and turned to smile at her where she was lounging on the couch.

“My study group! Didn’t I tell you about that?”

“Isn’t it your off-day this week? So young and already working longer than your mom...”

“This is just for fun! We’ve only met once, but I’ve already learned loads. I really think I can use this to become a powerful kunoichi!”

“Weren’t you taking those classes at the hospital for that? Don’t tell this old woman you’ve given up…”

“Ah, I’m running late, Mama!” Tenten said, skirting around that conversation and slipping on her sandals. Her mother waved her off as she began sprinting out the door.

 Even by ninja standards, which admittedly, she was still at the initial level for, it was a bit of a hike to Kakashi’s apartment. She and her mom lived in the refugee enclave on the west side, and Kakashi lived downtown, right by the mission desk building.

So it was with single-minded focus that she ran, not wanting to give Kakashi any leverage to excuse his own tardiness, and so focused was she that she didn’t realize there was someone already at Kakashi’s door until she already had a mouth full of dark hair from crashing into them.

“Neji-kun?” Tenten asked stupidly, upon seeing those white eyes. She blinked, fully processing the Hyūga in front of her, who looked to be somewhere in her thirties. “Uh, sorry. I’m Tenten. I’m teammates with one of your clansmen. ”

“Little Neji, I assume. How precocious for a girl your age to be interested in sealing! I am Hyūga Kotone. I  work on the Barrier Team.” Kotone smiled at her, something Tenten had not realized was something Hyūga could do to strangers. Staring at the forehead protector, Tenten wondered if Kotone had the same brand her teammate did. Interrupting her musing, Kotone said, “Now, shall we go in?”

“Sure! I bet Kakashi-san is late to his own club.”

“Hatake Kakashi is running this club?” Kotone’s smile froze as she spoke. 

“I’m running the club. I made the signs. Kakashi just hosts it,” Tenten corrected, then blushed at her cockiness. Kotone did not reply. “Yes, let’s go in.”

She opened the door, and ushered the still silent Hyūga inside. Once past the threshold, they could easily hear the conversation that must have been prevented by Kakashi’s own noise-storage seals. So cool! Tenten really wanted to learn how to do those.

“—seriously have no vegetables? I brought the tea for today, and I don’t even like to drink it. Where did you learn your manners?”

“Oh, you know what they say, sensei. I was raised by dogs, and all that.”

“Dogs know to eat, Kakashi-san. Why is your pantry so empty, even when you know you will have guests?”

“So sorry to cut you off, dear.” A noise of pure outrage. “But I believe our guests are here.”

“Use one of your many jutsu and make us some tea, Copy-nin.” Oh, there was something simpering in Kabuto’s tone which was deeply unsettling. Tenten didn’t like when adults got all sarcastic with each other. “Hello Tenten-chan. I’m afraid we haven’t met, Hyūga-san.”

A knock on the door interrupted him, and a man Tenten vaguely recognized as one of the teachers for the class below her in the Academy poked his head in.

“Er, this is the correct address for the study group, right?”

“I should hope so. I generally don’t keep random genin in my apartment,” Kakashi said, bringing cups and a tea kettle out to the table. 

“So you say,” Kabuto remarked with a raised brow, pouring the tea out into the cups with unshaking hands. Tenten valiantly ignored the weird undertone, and clapped her hands together.

“Okay, let’s get some introductions done and then get into the studying. Thank you for the tea, senpai.”

“Well, I’m Umino Iruka. Chūnin. I teach at the Academy and work at the mission desk. I admit, my knowledge of sealing is limited to what is used for barriers. But I’m hoping to learn more about the subject theory, especially if one of my students shows an interest!” He was disconcertingly chipper. Tenten’s experience of academy instructors had been injured shinobi bitter about being forced out of field service. She smiled back at him, though, welcoming the positive attitude.

“I’m on the Barrier Team myself. We should talk sometime, Iruka. Hyūga Kotone, tokubetsu.” The woman was leaning over the table in such a way as to make her hair slip in front of her shoulder, and Tenten was disconcertedly reminded of a cat on the prowl. 

“Now is a good enough sometime, maybe, Kotone-san. I’m Tenten, by the way. I’m a genin, under my sensei Might Guy. I’m interested in exploring as much of seal theory as I can!”

“Does that mean Hizashi’s son’s sensei is Might Guy?” muttered Kotone, now fully distracted away from Iruka. Tenten ignored this, too.

“I’m Yakushi Kabuto; genin in the Medical Corps. I admit, I’m fascinated by the theory, even if it holds little practical value for me as someone who does not participate in combat.” Kabuto let out a light chuckle. 

“Ah…and I’m Hatake Kakashi.” A pause, then, “jōnin.”

“That’s all we get?” muttered Iruka. 

Kakashi shrugged. Tenten drank some of her tea, and pulled her storage seal out.

Kakashi stilled at its presence. “What do you have in that one, Tenten? Surely something normal, and not a hospital room you robbed?”

“What?” asked Iruka.

“Haha, just an inside joke! No need to worry!" Tenten waved Kakashi's accusation away casually. "I really appreciate the book you recommended, Kabuto. I figured out how to separate the seals to be specific to certain items I want, but I have to spread each along the scroll. Anyways, here, please take it back! Do you think I need to return the hospital bed?”

"Sorry, what did you just say?" Iruka tried again.

“Thank you for returning this, Tenten-chan.” Ah, what a nice smile! At least one of her mentors in this group was normal!

“I wanted to ask, though, is it possible to move seals from one thing to another? I haven’t found a good answer in anything I’ve read…”

Kotone rested her chin in her hand. “It depends on the material. In theory, at least in what I've sen, something with an identical amount of chakra conductivity as the original sealing material would be able to fully absorb the original seal and its contents. In practice, even identical twins don’t have the same chakra conductivity, much less one piece of sealing paper to another. Sometimes you can trick it, though.”

“Wow, you really know your stuff, Hyūga-san. I feel kind of inept here,” laughed Iruka, flushing.

White eyes flicked to look back across the table. “Oh, there’s no need for formality. You can just call me Kotone, Iruka.”

“I, uh...”

“Why are you interested in transferring seals, Tenten?” Kakashi interrupted Iruka’s stammering, his lone eye focused on her.

Tenten thought of Neji, untying his headband. “Ah, just good to save money if a seal works, you know. I’m spending all my money on scrolls to draft new seals. It would be nice to be able to just transfer it without wasting ink.”

“I see,” said Kakashi, who sounded deeply skeptical.

“It also depends on what, exactly, is being sealed,” Kabuto interjected. His face was blank, but Tenten got the impression he knew exactly what she was thinking of. She swallowed nervously.

Right, and he’d just told her about the importance of subtlety too! She switched tact. “Well, like my seal with the medical equipment which I did not steal. Will I have to pull everything out, modify a new seal, or could I write a seal that would transfer the contents and sort them without me needing to actually activate?”

“You would definitely need better chakra control to do something that complicated,” Kabuto raised a brow.

“Ha, good point!” Tenten forced a relieved laugh. Subject changed, she quickly asked, “Was there anything you two were interested in discussing today?”

“Well, you should tell your teammate he needs to start coming to the Branch training lessons,” Kotone said, looking at her carefully. “But for today, I’m just curious about Numbered Seal Barriers. I’ve heard of them, but never seen them in practice. Any idea why they’re odd numbered? I know of three-seal barriers and five-seal, but never heard of four seal.”

Kakashi coughed. “Technically, a four-seal barrier is a forbidden technique in practice."

“Well, we are just talking about theory, after all,” Kabuto smiled.

Kakashi eyed him before he continued. “The further you put the tags from each other, the more chakra it takes. It’s an effective way to get yourself killed.”

“There’s an increase in chakra cost from the amount of tags as well as the actual number, isn’t it,” Iruka asked, tilting his head curiously.

Reluctantly, Kakashi nodded. He slouched further in his chair. “It also tends to require natural chakra. Again, good way to die, and not very practical.”

“Well, given the purpose of it, I suppose the natural chakra makes sense,” Iruka agreed easily.

“What do you know of the purpose?” Kakashi asked, still once again. Despite his relaxed position, the tension was roiled in his frame. Tenten wondered if he would have used that heavy creepy feeling again if it wasn't for Guy's...expressed concerns on the matter.

“I can guess, based on the different requirements and the fact that it’s a four seal. It’s not meant to keep people out or inside, is it?”

“Hard to discuss something that is forbidden.” Kakashi pulled a book from his pocket and hid his face with its bright, lurid cover.

“That just means he can’t talk about it, since he knows what it is. It’s totally a death barrier.” Kotone leaned back. “Damn. I’ve got three other people on my team, so I was hoping there was something we could do with the four of us.”

Kakashi lifted his face again. “Good thing I was reading my wonderful book and did not hear any of that!”

“Are you...  Don’t read porn in front of the twelve year old,” Iruka hissed.

“Porn looks like that?” Tenten had thought it all looked like the magazines Han from the corner store kept in the back.

“Ah, it’s just, uh, fine literature,” Kakashi said, a slight pink showing just above where his mask covered. He slipped the book back into his pocket and leaned on the table. “Any normal seal theory this cute study group would like to discuss? Preferably something legal?”

The room deflated, somewhat, once legality came into things. 

“Can you show me how to make time-release explosion seals?” Tenten ventured. 

Kakashi deflated. “Guy’s going to kill me.”

“Are you going to show us?”

“Yeah, sure, why not. Can’t read literature in front of the baby genin, but I can show her how to make bombs. Good priorities.” Even his hair was drooping with his grumblings. Tenten refused to feel bad, too excited at the possibility.

At all their unrepentant faces, he sighed again. Looking deeply put-upon, he began to explain. “Alright, the most important thing is to start by indicating the time first. If you do that too late in the sequence, the whole thing will explode in your face…”

Chapter Text

“Your cousin Kotone is really cool, Neji,” Tenten said, sipping carefully at her water as they cooled down. Neji startled enough to drop his foot from against his head where he was stretching it.

(“HA! I am holding the Standing Foot to Head longer than you, my Rival! Perhaps I am catching up to your Prodigious Ways!” cheered Rock Lee, face red with strain. Guy beamed.)

“... Which cousin Kotone?” Neji asked, steadily enough that Tenten could almost pretend she hadn’t watched him fall down a few seconds previously.

“You have multiple cousins named Kotone? Are the Hyūga that big of a clan to repeat names like that?”

“...Yes.” A pause. “Was it Kotone with the chain whip or Kotone with the spear?”

“...She had bangs. I think she was in her thirties?” 

“That doesn’t help. That applies to them both.”

“Well, whichever she is, I hope I can learn more from her about those weapons! I haven’t trained as much as I’d like to with either, honestly.”

“You shouldn’t spend time with Cousin Kotone of the Chain Whip if you can avoid it. She's...strange” Neji said, turning his head to face her properly. Tenten handed him another water bottle from her scroll, and he began drinking as well. “Thank you. …Why were you talking to my cousin?”

“Oh, I’m in a study group focused on sealing theory, and she’s pretty familiar with it from all her work on the barrier team!”

“...Kotone of the Chain Whip does work on the barrier team,” Neji said, looking deeply concerned. 

Tenten bopped her fist against his shoulder. “She’s very knowledgeable! She told me to tell you to go to the next Branch Family training meeting, by the way.”

“So the Branch Family doesn’t want me learning the Main Family’s style either…” His hand tightened around the water bottle, and his lip curled downwards. Dismissive.

“No? Well, she didn’t say anything like that, but I don’t really know the difference between the styles of the Branch and the Main House. Could you explain it to me?”

“The split between Branch and Main wasn’t always this strict,” Neji said, reaching to touch his covered forehead. “I don’t know much, since my father was born into the Main House, and I have been focusing on teaching myself its style. I know, though, that where the Main style of Gentle Fist was born out of defending the home against invasion, the Branch Family were once wandering shinobi, taking jobs for the clan and cultivating its knowledge, and developed a much more aggressive approach as they did.”

He exhaled, clenching his hand. Tenten had always been too focused on avoiding his fists, both in the Academy and in training, to have looked at them closely, but the rough scarred texture of them was apparent enough that she wondered how she could have ever missed it. She’d seen Lee’s, rough and bloody after practice, and wondered how old the calluses were on both of them.

Despite the gentle name of the style, it had been rather rough on his hands, indeed.

“Aggressive how?”

Neji hesitated. In the pause, their sensei dropped between them in a crouch, mussing their hair as he smiled at them.

"I think I can answer that question!" He beamed at them, and moved to stand across from them. He gestured for them all to follow him through stretches. “I confess, young students, that I am not an expert in the inner workings of the mighty Hyūga, or how the split came to be! But as a student myself of Combat, I can offer you some guidance in Styles.” 

Guy shifted to stretch the right side, and they followed. “Where the Main Family has perhaps the most effective taijutsu style there is—”

“Not more than yours, Guy-sensei!” Rock Lee offered loyally.

“Ah! Such touching support! Yes! But while the Gentle Fist is the most effective style, that does not mean its users are all the most effective, or even stronger than those similarly skilled in other disciplines! However, I am here today to speak of the Branch Family! While the Main Family uses their fists , the Branch Family uses steel. Their style is one of weapons, and many a skilled archer or swordsman for the Leaf has come from the Hyūga Branch as a result!”

Tenten raised her hand immediately. 

“Ah, young Tenten! Let me pose a question before you ask yours! What young Neji said of their origins as wandering shinobi, where the Main House guarded the clan home, perhaps explains why they developed this specialty. Can you think of why?”

Tenten hummed. “If they were wandering, they might have been able to learn to use more types of weaponry. And with the Byakugan, they didn’t need to ask to watch how masters trained.”

Guy nodded encouragingly. “Great! Why else? Lee, do you have a guess?”

“Um! If the Main House was defense, they would need to be able to fight even if they didn’t have a weapon with them. But the Branch Family was taking missions, right? So they’d…know in advance what weapon might be best?”

“Excellent analysis! It is good to consider both sides when looking for why a change has happened. Now, Neji, what do you think?”

“I think it’s pointless to look for pride in the Branch Family’s style when I plan to beat the Main Family with their own.”

“Such conviction! I admire your passion for your goals, but, Young Neji, anger cannot last as motivation for a lifetime. I have fought beside many brave Hyūga of the Branch House, who do not deserve your disrespect for managing to thrive despite what your family has done to them and you alike,” Guy said. White eyes looked away.

He rested a hand on Neji’s shoulder. “Why do you think the Branch House has developed its skill with weapons? Tenten suggested access to masters of the variety they use, and Lee suggested their occupation as offering them more time to prepare. Do you have any insight? I seek to train your brain, as well as your body and heart!”

Neji curled his lip, and remained silent for a while as Guy took them through more stretches. Finally, he exhaled. “Main Family has healers on hand in case something goes wrong. Branch Family needed weapons for range to have a chance at coming back. Most of them use the spear or a bow and arrow for that reason.”

“Thank you, Neji! That is also a critical point. I would also offer that the jobs the Branch Family took would be those typical of shinobi in history. Rather than the jobs safely escorting merchants and helping paint fences, most shinobi jobs involved spying, burglary, and assassinations. While the Main Family defended the house, the Branch Family would have to break into other homes. Even now, most shinobi attacks happen between settlements due to the open nature, but the Hyūga became renowned first for their skill at fulfilling missions even in the most secure of locations!” Guy smiled encouragingly at Neji, who looked away.

He sighed softly, but continued, no less enthusiastic. “The Hyūga, with their powerful eyes, are particularly good at gathering information before beginning a mission, so Lee, your intuition was likely correct that their pre-knowledge would let them choose a specific tool for a given task! Tenten, you are likely correct that their talent for surveillance led them to learn a great many styles! And Neji, you are likely correct that they had to be prepared to escape with minimal personal damage compared to the Main House.”

Tenten had begun to get used to her sensei’s ease with providing praise and specific compliments, but it still left her feeling warm afterwards. She resisted the urge to smile, noting the still-tense set to Neji’s jaw even as Guy finished cooldown stretches. She'd ask Guy at the next meeting about the kinds of weapons that had been mastered by Hyūga, when Neji wasn't on edge over it.

“Excellent work today, my Youthful students! I look forward to seeing you all tomorrow, 5 AM at the mission desk!”

“Yes! Another day of serving our village!” Lee cheered, and began walking from the grounds with their sensei.

Tenten hung back with Neji as they went. She leaned to tell him, “Listen, if you don’t want to go to the Branch Family meeting, I can tell Kotone that I forgot to remind you, if she asks me.”

Neji hummed, then shrugged. “I might as well attend. It would be good to hear other perspectives from within the Branch.”

“That’s great! We were classmates, but I hadn’t known you very well until the last month…That is, Neji…I’m still learning a lot about you guys, but I think it would be good if you had more…allies, I guess, in your own family. I hope you know Team Guy has your back, but I think that would be good. Kotone-san seems like a good person to have on your side.”

Neji grimaced slightly at the name, but then he turned to face her directly. “Thank you, Tenten. I… had not expected the support I received from my teammates, especially ones so … removed from clans.”

This guy … I get it! I’m a commoner! “Hey, if you learn any weapons, you have to help me practice! I’ve been thinking about shifting towards that as a focus.”

“...Aren’t you focusing on seals?”

“Seals can contain many weapons!” 

“I see.” Neji laughed, slightly. More just some light huffs of air, but it made him almost unrecognizable from the gloomy teammate she’d gotten used to.

If she thought back, though, she remembered him, back in their first year at the Academy, before whatever had happened to him happened. Laughing with that Uchiha classmate of theirs, Fusao, until he’d changed and began to train constantly with him. But even then, he still at least spoke to the rest of the class. Then the Uchiha had died, and Neji had clammed up completely…

It wasn’t a big smile that he had now. It was more of a curl at the edges of his mouth. But the hard set of his brow had lifted for the moment, and she was glad to see it.

“You should smile more often, Neji-kun. Sensei says it trains a lot of muscles at once.” He exhaled sharply again in what might be the Hyūga version of laughing, so Tenten counted it as a success. She smiled, said her goodbyes, and left, with her turmoil churning about in a chant of unasked questions. 

Do you think you might consider me a friend someday, and not just a teammate? I’d like to be friends with you and Lee. I think we all need it…

You’ve been in that sad, angry place for longer than I realized, Neji. Will you let us bring you out?

Neji, are we friends? Can we be friends?

Without asking, there was no answer for her, just the long shadows and orange sunset as she raced home across the rooftops.

Chapter Text

“That teammate of yours is going to be trouble~,” Kotone said, sinking in next to Tenten, a few weeks later.

Tenten raised a brow to look at her in question, and the woman put out her cigarette.

“Don’t do that on my table,” Kakashi called from the kitchen. 

“Habit. Sorry, Hatake,” Kotone called back, carelessly brushing the ash off the wood.

Across from them, Kabuto clucked his tongue and drew a glowing finger through the ash mark. He pressed his finger into a piece of paper, and the character of the seal transferred cleanly, leaving the table unblemished. “Did you forget the purpose of the club you are attending, Kotone-san?”

“So you can transfer a seal to a different material,” Tenten said. Reminded again, she turned to Kotone. “What makes you say Neji-kun will be trouble? He’s a good teammate.”

“Hah, that I doubt. In that, he is his uncle’s son. Awful lot of arrogance, for a child of the Branch, but at least he’s finally coming to the Branch meetings,” Kotone hummed. “Neat trick there, Kabuto. What else can you use it for?”

“Don’t bring me into anything,” Kabuto answered. “I provided a demonstration of how a seal might be used to cleanse a surface. Anything you do to develop that further has nothing to do with me.”

“That’s a little blatant of a denial. I sort of assumed you would have a more believable explanation than that,” Kotone replied. She dropped the attitude to offer a slight smile in his direction. “Thanks, kid. Seriously.”

Tenten glanced between them. So..was Kotone thinking along similar lines? She had been reading the theory scrolls he’d passed on to her between meetings, but this was the first time she’d seen this done.

“Don’t thank me. I have done nothing, right?”

Kotone mimed zipping her lips shut with a wink, before leaning back over to Tenten. She seemed, suddenly, in lighter spirits than Tenten had seen her before. At Kotone’s put-upon expression, Tenten sighed and unzipped her.

“Tenten-chan, if you can pull this off, I doubt your cousin will be Branch much longer. I can tell he’s got skill, even if he doubts what we have to offer him. But if there is nothing marking him aside from his own skill…,” Kotone said, and began to laugh. “Shit, he’s an arrogant child, but at least he’s strong enough to end the practice if he was reinstated. I doubt that current heir would.”

Kakashi entered with a tray of the snacks he had clearly been reheating in the microwave. “Wow, good thing I didn’t hear any of that! If I did, it might have sounded lightly treasonous, and I did ask that you read the new rules before sitting down.”

He had, at that. For a veteran with his service record, and from how sloppily she had seen him write his own name on forms, Hatake Kakashi had revealed himself to have a surprisingly refined, artistic style of writing. In elegant, yet dynamic brushstrokes, he had written:

1. NO TREASON.
2. NO TESTING OF FIRE, EXPLOSION, STINK, or SMOKE SEALS IN THE APARTMENT.
3. NO CONTACTING, SUMMONING, OR ATTEMPTING TO VIEW THE [REDACTED] OF THE OTHER-SPACE.
4.  NO “REINVENTING” METHODS FOR FORBIDDEN TECHNIQUES TO COMPLY WITH THE LETTER OF THE LAW.

“We didn’t vote on the rules,” Kabuto pointed out. “You just  wrote them, went into your room, and then told me to pin them on the wall. Really, I think we can discuss the latter two before adopting them.”

“No cosmic horror in my apartment, Kabuto-sensei,” Kakashi said. His single eye was bloodshot, Tenten noted.

“If the Beings we don’t discuss are real, it doesn’t matter whether or not we’re in your apartment,” Kabuto said, really sounding rather snide. He pushed his glasses up. “It just seems a little irrational, and the club really should get a vote. ‘Reinventing’ could just mean a theoretical discussion, and you’re banning it outright. And no treason as the first one, really? It seems rather redundant, considering it is already illegal.”

“You would think so,” Kakashi said, and looked at Kotone and Tenten meaningfully. He clapped his hands, and forced his eye shut in a terrifyingly cheerful smile. “So. Shall we begin?”

“With a vote.”

“My apartment, my rules, don’t you think, sensei?”

“Aha, sorry I’m late,” Iruka said as he entered, slipping off his shoes hurriedly. He glanced at the rules on the wall as he joined the table. “Where did you find that color of pink ink? Do you know how hard it is to find other colors for marking assignments in this village?”

“Well, it wasn’t in this Village. I got it in Kiri.”

“When were you in Kiri? I’ve been filing your reports— ah, I see. Hatake Kakashi  wasn’t. You went shopping for stationery on one of those missions??”

“What’s Kiri like?” Tenten asked.

"Wet,” Kakashi answered, without elaboration.

“It was a violent place, but not so much in recent years. They value simple, ruthless efficiency in all things, and in stark contrast to the broader Land of Water cultural norms, do not value seniority so much as power in their social hierarchy,” Kabuto answered, more helpfully. He took a sip of tea while the other adults stared at him. “You might be interested to explore their weaponry, Tenten-chan. The village itself venerates weaponsmiths, and this is reflected in highest caste in their system being the descendants of the smiths of their Seven Swords.”

“When were you in Kiri?” Kakashi asked, staring long at him. “You’re a medical genin.”

“Not all of us were lucky enough to have squads in the last war, Hatake-san,” Kabuto said coolly. 

“We’ll talk about this later,” Kakashi replied, after a long pause.

“I thought every genin in Konoha was assigned a three-man squad upon graduation? I barely graduated and still had one,” Iruka said.

Kotone’s hand landed heavily on his head. “Doll, it’s not worth digging into.” 

Kabuto took another sip, and placed his tea down with a soft clink against the saucer. “All citizens, upon graduation from the academy, yes. But I was not born inside the village. My adoptive mother was a captain in the medical corps, and I assisted her with her work before I … volunteered to assist in her additional duties.”

“Show me your tongue,” Kakashi said, suddenly. Tenten furrowed her brow, but remained silent as Kabuto complied. If they forgot she was there, maybe she’d finally get an answer to the things she was ‘too young’ for.

Kabuto smirked. “Don’t worry. He never marked me as a full agent, Kakashi-san, and I’m out of his grasp. I can speak, but it’s hardly safe to.”

“As long as you’re in the village, you’re in his grasp, even in the medic corps. Do you need an international placement? I can pull some strings…”

Kotone snorted. “Hatake, don’t act like the second that our little doctor is sent over the border without a jōnin escort that our leader’s shadow won’t find him. Here, he’s in the hospital and unnoticeable.”

“Root was disbanded,” Kakashi said softly. He was looking at his hands, too steady from training to be shaking. 

Kotone flinched at the word, as Kabuto hastily drew a glowing sequence into the table. “Don’t use the name, idiot! What the fuck is rule number one for?”

“I…” Kakashi began, and trailed off. He looked uncertainly at Kabuto. “When did you get out of his grasp? How?”

“I had little choice, in the end. I was returning from a mission, around four years ago, and the leader decided to … excise either my mother or my own connections to the world outside of him. Perhaps both of us; perhaps to tie up his own loose ends entirely.” Kabuto sipped the last of his tea, and emptied the grounds onto the saucer. 

He carefully sketched the character for ROOT into a paper.

“If you want to know why I can talk, I’ll tell you. I was too expendable and too fully embedded to brand fully, and I believe he thinks me dead besides. That said, if you break down the character, the left component means tree, and the right means good, usually. It is a total of ten brush strokes,” he said, and then swiped his finger through one. “The design you think of uses nine, for the symbolic value of the number meaning ‘suffering,’ and is drawn in consideration of ‘good’ meaning allowable.” 

Light glinted off his glasses as he looked up at Kakashi. “Do you understand?”

Kakashi swallowed. “Yeah, I do. The version I’ve seen looks more complicated, if I could… discuss it with you, hypothetically.”

"Rule One sounded real important to you when we were talking about my issues," Kotone muttered.

Iruka laughed nervously, eyes locked on the window as though watching for something.

Kakashi wrenched his stare off the character in Kabuto’s teacup to look at her, apparently remembering Tenten’s presence as he did. “Rule One always applies. Kid, you heard none of that, right?” 

Tenten nodded, seriously, though her eyes were bright and wide as she puzzled over what the discussion meant.

Kotone leaned down. “Trust that I’m not kidding when I say leave it. This is not something even your sensei could look into without consequence, and no one on your team has a strong enough clan backing them. Let my little cousin establish himself, and then maybe, if you’re in his corner and he’s in yours, you’ll be able to do something.”

“But what were the loose ends the guy they’re talking about wanted to tie up?” Tenten asked.

“I promise you this much: it is not worth knowing.”

“I might need more than this privacy seal to say," Kabuto answered over her, drawing already, "It’s just keeping the sound from traveling further than the table, but our lips can still be read.”

“Tell me later,” Kakashi insisted, sounding more serious than Tenten had ever heard him. “Away from prying ears.”

“When are we ever away from them?” Kabuto hummed. “Here’s a hint: it’s for something my mother and I were made to assist in, five years ago.”

Apparently a revealing hint, based on how Kakashi paled. “You can’t mean…”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

Iruka and Kotone apparently had done similar math, but Tenten wasn’t sure what their conclusions were that had them paling too. Five years ago, she had only been a student in her second year, so any big scandals at time were outside her knowledge, except the unavoidable ones like the daimyō’s first wife running off with her maidservant and when all the Uchiha stopped coming to class—

Wait.

“No,” she gasped, pale. Iruka flinched at the high pitch of her voice.

“She is too young to even know… The implications alone! Kabuto, why would you say this?” he said. “I swear I won’t reveal this to anyone, but you cannot just .. risk this information so freely, especially in front of a child!”

“Fuck, doc. You really got a rough hand, didn’t you? Still, why bring us into this shit?” Kotone said. “Spirits, why let the kid know?”

“Knowledge is power. If she has the goals she has, with the background she has, she will need every advantage,” Kabuto said. “She will already be a target if she pursues them, and you can tell as well as I that she is far too determined to be brought off course. It doesn’t matter if I tell her now, or she finds out later on her own, but one is far safer than the other.”

A pause as the adults considered this, and her.

“Was it just the cleanup, or was he involved in what happened that night?” Kakashi rasped. 

“Do you truly wish for me to tell you? I believe my own knowledge is why he tried to have me killed, and why he set me against my mother,” Kabuto said. “I am a loyal shinobi, and follow my orders as well as my ability lets me. I recognize it is … troubling for me to have these doubts about our leadership, and if keeping this secret keeps you all safe both physically and from such … doubts, then perhaps I should refrain.”

“Skies above, Kabuto, you’ve already taken us to the finish line. Might as well cross it.”

“They definitely do not have the clearance to know about this, Kabuto,” Kakashi warned.

At this, Iruka snorted. “I’m a desk nin reading and summarizing reports for the Lord Third. Kotone-san handles the security of village itself. Only Tenten-chan lacks clearance, but it seems pretty clear this is about that—that elder’s manipulations, which are likely outside the clearance structure entirely.”

Tenten had startled at her name, but it seemed she’d be allowed to stay even if she spoke. She felt like she needed to, the words pulling at her. “I wasn’t friends with this boy in my class, Fusao-kun, but I knew him. He was clever, and understood lessons as soon as teachers gave them. He liked to wrestle with my teammate Neji-kun, and whenever he won, he would make Neji go pick flowers and weeds with him to braid into little bracelets. There was a girl in the year above, Fuyumi-chan, who had the prettiest hair I’ve ever seen. It was long as her waist, and it never tangled even though she never tied it up. I remember deciding I was going to ask her how to get my hair to look like that."

Fuyumi hadn't been very nice, but it was not in the usual way pretty girls were not nice. Tenten had actually liked her more for that. She had been funny in her waspishness, and more honest than the girls who would pretend to be nice until they learned Tenten didn't have a dad. She finished her thought, where it had been dangling. "But before I could, she was dead.”

Iruka flinched. “I had forgotten how many children were there. I have one of them in my class, now, and he’s so … like his family, that it is easy to forget how many of them there were.”

“Fifty-four pre-genin children; sixty-seven genin; forty-six chūnin; and nineteen jōnin who died in the compound, alongside ninety-eight civilians, both married-in and retired,” Kakashi recited, eyes hard. “In the Konoha Police Force Headquarters, all forty-three officers, of varying rank. Over three-hundred, in a single night; an six percent reduction in Konoha’s forces overall and about seventeen-percent reduction in active full jōnin.”

“I forgot how rare it was to make jōnin. Most became tokubetsu, before they loosened the requirements,” Iruka said quietly.

“What was the cleanup you did?” Kotone asked, white eyes flashing. “That many jōnin Uchiha. What did that old man want medics like you and your mother for, instead of the coroners?”

Kabuto took a breath, and inked a few more seals, placing them around the room. He pushed his glasses up.

“Shimura Danzō has spent most of his life terrified and jealous of the Uchiha. He craved their power as much as he feared it. I believe he first acted on this desire with his genin teammate, for the described ability of that eye matches with how he uses it.”

Tenten felt very cold, all of a sudden. Like she had fallen through the ice, and was too shocked by the water to kick her way up.

Kotone swore, long and low, fingers flexing along the handle of her whip. “He took his fucking eye? His own teammate?”

“He did not stop there,” Kabuto said.

“What’s under the bandages, Kabuto-sensei?” Kakashi asked, sounding very tired, and very, very old.

“There are ten implanted on his arm, unless he has added more, since. I do not know where he would find any.”

“Ten?!” Iruka sputtered. “Doesn’t having one put Kakashi-san into the hospital half the time he returns to village?”

“Kakashi-san doesn’t have the benefit of Mokuton cells balancing the strain.”

“He stole the fucking Mokuton? ” Kotone hissed. “How the fuck did that happen? When?”

Kakashi slumped back in his chair. “He was working with Orochimaru on that, wasn’t he. He wasn’t just aware and waiting to see results...”

It wasn’t a question, but Tenten wasn’t sure what he was referring to. She recognized the name of the Snake Sannin as the Lady Tsunade’s teammate, but couldn’t recall the last time she’d heard about them.

Kabuto nodded. “From what I know, it looks like Danzō had commissioned the Snake Sannin for that task, and Lord Orochimaru believed he was working under legitimate orders until they were in too deep to back out.”

“Not that they would,” Kotone snorted, still pale. She shrugged at their looks. “I worked with the guy. If they wanted to find an answer to something, nothing like ethics was ever going to stop them.”

“Regardless,” Kabuto said, something oddly pinched in his voice, “that is how he has the chakra to maintain eleven Sharingan.”

“You said ten,” Kotone said, before blanching further. “The damned eyepatch. Of course.”

“That means he either took the full pair from five of the massacred, or one each from ten. And that you helped him.”

“I’m sorry, Kakashi-san, but when a village leader, and your direct commander, tells a thirteen-year-old boy to assist in a mass autopsy, and then to help his mother with a surgery, the thirteen-year-old obeys. What more could I have done? They were already dead,” Kabuto said. 

Kotone slapped him across the face, hard enough his glasses flew off. 

Iruka caught her hand, and she snarled at him. “I had friends who died that night. Good friends. I…”

Quietly, Kakashi handed Kabuto’s glasses back to him, as the young doctor erased the red hand imprint on his cheek.

Kabuto adjusted his glasses. “At the time, I had no reason to suspect what I now know. I was told to remove the eyes while my mother identified the causes of death, and I assumed this to be procedure with dōjutsu clans."

“It is not,” Kotone said, teeth grit before she exhaled. “Fuck, fine, you didn’t know. Whatever. Don’t you dare stop talking.”

“I noticed, even then, that it was odd how there were such distinct causes of death between those who died at the compound, and those who died in the police force, but I did not ask. Given the total number dead, I also was skeptical that one child, no matter how gifted, could kill so many of the village’s forces. Fast enough, even, that it appeared as though none of them even fought back. I have learned since that shortly before the massacre, the councilman found himself in possession of a Sharingan with powerful hypnotic abilities.”

“Shisui,” Kakashi said softly. His voice hardened. “Shisui was one of the most loyal I’ve worked beside. His death was such a shock — I had suspected Itachi, after everything…”

It was the first time the Clan Killer had been addressed by name, and it fell like a lead balloon onto the table. The Clan Killer had been her age, hadn’t he? How could he have handled it? Even hearing about it had Tenten’s stomach churning.

“I suspect he used that hypnotism to keep the compound from fighting back against their heir, who they instinctively would not wish to fight. After I had completed the autopsies, I was called in with my mother to begin the transplants, on him and his men.”

A pause, then lowly. “Many did not survive. It apparently takes a certain level of strength to survive such a thing, even with how many of the Sharingan were relatively weak, freshly awakened at time of death.”

“Why was this allowed to stand?” Iruka asked hotly. He pounded the table, like it would distract from the tears in his eyes. Tenten suddenly wished she was old enough to understand all the implications they did, or young enough to not get it at all.

“With his students gone and his wife dead, the Lord Third values his friendship with the councilman above all else,” Kakashi said blankly. “I had known him to be indulgent, even of attacks against his life —” a shocked what from Iruka “—but of such attacks against the Village?”

“Was he only taking advantage, or did he order the damn thing?” Kotone asked. 

A knock on the door, and they all broke apart. Kakashi hastily broke the secrecy seals as Kotone stomped forward to answer the door. 

Chain whip in hand, she flung it open, and paused at the sight.

“Hello, cousin,” said Neji, and tilted his head to past her to greet Tenten. “Our sensei has sent me over to pick up my teammate. We have our first C-rank.”

“Yes, you should go pack, Tenten-chan,” Iruka said faintly, clearly catching his breath after the adrenaline stopped rushing. “We’ll just stay here and continue to talk... about seals.”

Neji cast a suspicious stare at him before inclining his head for Tenten to follow. She did, noticing as Kabuto began to redraw the privacy seal as she hustled past Kotone.

“The mission is out of village. We’re escorting a merchant to the Land of Earth. Meet at the Village gates by 5 am, and tell your mother,” Neji recited, then pinked a bit. “Sensei wanted me to be sure to tell you. You’re the only one with a mom, so it wouldn’t have come to me.”

It was easy to fall into conversation with him as he walked her home, but after she had gone home, spoken with her mother, and packed… she no longer had company to distract her.

Kabuto had said an awful lot. But why would he still be in the village if that was all true? Tenten couldn’t imagine leaving the village for anything but… being made to kill her mom? To cover up a crime like that?

Her senpai was made of stronger stuff than she realized, to still be so loyal to the village despite everything. Tenten pulled the covers over her face, and tried fruitlessly to sleep.