Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It starts getting harder to pass unnoticed.

Not that Manji cares much about that, but shit, it's not like he wants the bangashira on his ass 24/7 either. It had been easier, Before (or really, it was an After, but Manji’s life has slowly become an unending, ever-shifting ripple of Befores and Afters: before and after Machi, before and after Anotsu and Magatsu and Hyakurin and Giichi and all the rest. Before and After Rin). So long as he didn’t linger too long in towns or on highways, he could blend in pretty easy. But then they start outlawing weapons, and dojos keep closing down one after the other as the country moved “forward” and…

The way of the kenshi is dying bit by bit, and Manji feels like he’s dying right along with it.

Times change. Even though Manji stops counting the decades when Rin passes, time goes on and things change. Hyakurin and Giichi… even that punk Magatsu: they’re all dead and dust by the time Rin finally lets go.

"Stupid honorable older brother," She tells him once, like she’s seventeen again, and not nearly seventy. Like he doesn’t still look the exact same, scowling and scarred and twenty-something. "You know I can't leave you alone."

(She does, in the end. Feh.)

He doesn’t stay with her. Of course he doesn’t, not with trouble still snapping at his heels like wild dogs. Rin had lowered that final curtain on her quest for vengeance and she deserved to live out the rest of her life without having to worry about Manji’s shit. He’s there when she settles down, marries some yokel who doesn’t deserve her and brings honor back to the Asano name. He’s there long enough to see that she’s happy, truly happy for once, and then he leaves. The Itto-Ryu is gone and Kagimura is gone and the whole sad story is over and done with, so Manji is left to his own devices. Road stretched out in front of him, Rin safe behind and no one after his head.

So he walks. No destination in mind, but taking in sights in a way he never had the time or appreciation to do before. It’s a strange new after, and he lets his feet take him wherever. Every now and again he finds himself on a familiar path, the Asano clan estate just out of sight.

Every time he drops in, Rin smiles that little coy smile she learned from Hyakurin, the one that drives Manji up the damn wall—and she knows that—and she laughs as she asks him, “You just happened to be in the neighborhood, O Honorable Elder Brother?”

He would scowl, and she would lead him inside to the main courtyard and introduce him to the kids, the grandkids, the great-grandkids, the nieces and nephews and what felt like half of the whole damn population.

First it was, “Oh, this is Manji-san, an old friend,” but then, as the years stretched on and Rin got smaller and frailer and Manji still looked the same—scarred and scowling and twenty-something—he became the younger brother or the son or the grandson or the nephew of an old family friend.

Every single time, though, she brings out the blade. Without fail.

It’s a simple little thing; on the small side for a tanto, the tsuka and saya made from Kagehisa’s shitty sword. It was poetic, Rin had said, when she’d first shown it to him, after she’d gotten it commissioned.

“That man has been such an overwhelming part of my life,” She’d said, pursing her lips the way she always does when Kagehisa’s name comes up. “Even in death, he haunts me.”

(Manji is never going to tell her that the bastard was probably alive somewhere, dicking around the steppes or something. He didn’t know for sure, but maybe five years after it was all said and done, Magatsu had gone haring off to mainland, and he’d come back with that smug ass little half-smirk that made Manji want to thump him. Or fuck him.

Same thing when it came to Magatsu, the porcupine-haired dumbass.

Whatever. Point is, Manji don’t know shit about where Kagehisa might or might not be. Not a single goddamn thing.)

But the blade is… well. He thinks it’s fitting, when he thinks about it, which is hardly ever, because that little blade is Rin planning. Rin making plans for her family’s future, a future that she isn’t going to be a part of. She never says anything—she never does, the little idiot—but every time she pulls the blade out of her sleeve, she gives him the softest look. Like every look she’s ever given him, all wrapped up into one. And he knows. He knows it in his bones that he’s going to watch over her family until he’s fucking dead.

Fuck.

Bringing out the blade is a big production, so big that he wonders if she only ever brings it out on the chance occasions that he visits. She gathers the whole clan, everyone still living in the compound, from bright-eyed infants to daughters and sons and grandkids on the cusp of leaving the nest, and leads them all to the garden. She sits seiza on the porch, high enough off the ground to be seen, and flicks the habaki of the tanto with her thumb.

She makes Manji stand next to her on the porch; it’s not like he ever really told her no, but she’s gotten even wilier with age and isn’t above guilting him into it.

“You wouldn’t make an old woman sit by her lonesome, would you?” She croaks, the picture of morosity but for the wicked gleam of mischief in her eyes.

“Sure I would, you old hag.” Manji tells her, mouth curled in amusement around the stem of his pipe. But he joins her on the porch, and he even deigns to watch her present the blade to her family, the unveiling of a treasure.

“This is our family’s most prized possession,” She tells them. With age, Rin hasn’t gotten any harsher, but she knows how to hold a crowd’s attention, and how to make people listen. Hell, she’d known how to do that back when she was doing ridiculous shit like starting riots outside of the Shogun’s Palace and somehow talking Doa over to her side. “This land might not live by the sword any longer, but if any of you are ever in any trouble, just take this and find Manji-san.”

It gets indulging smiles from the adults. Most of them probably put it out of mind; it’s all about progress now, and weapons are ugly reminders of a bloody past that very few want to revisit. It gets the kids all wide-eyed and nosy, excited that their clan has such a “cool” heirloom. Manji sits there, legs folded seiza and unlit pipe in his mouth, and listens to them chatter. He was such a big guy, with such scary scars, and how did he know Rin-baa-chan? He had to be yojimbo, no yakuza! Grannie-Auntie-Old Lady Rin used to be an assassin, no stupid, she used to be kenshi, no, no, she—

No one ever thinks to ask how they were supposed to find him, years down the road. If anyone old enough couldn’t help but think that he resembled a man who once sat there on that same porch, decades ago, well… Rin did say her was the son, the nephew, the grandson of an old friend. No one ever questions how he’s supposed to be able to protect them, or save them, or whatever, in ten or fifteen or twenty year’s time when he would be—should be—an old man himself.

No one ever asks and Manji never offers up any answers. Rin doesn’t either. She just looks at him, soft and caring, and she laughs when he scowls at her.

But times change.

Asano becomes Yoshitori becomes Gozen becomes Morino becomes something else, eventually. Too many years and too few visits makes his mind fuzzy; it gets harder to see Rin, to watch her falter and stumble and stutter over his name. Or worse, to have her look at him with confusion and caution, in a way she’s never done, before the recollection sets in.

And then she dies.

He doesn’t remember much of the year after that.

What’s the point? Rin is gone. He stops coming around, stops seeing familiar faces. The world keeps changing, even if he doesn't bothering to keep up with it.

But then one day, Manji looks down at his hand and can't remember who's arm it is. It makes his stomach turn, and everything narrows down to the dark, wet stone of an underground cell and Burando and poor fuckin’ Dewanosuke and that frog-mouthed executioner bastard bring his katana down again and again—

He wakes up in a bar after that little doozy. But even the booze doesn’t help take his mind off it, because he can’t remember which parts of him are his and which parts aren’t. It’s been too many years spent walking under the sun; he’s even-toned all over, and the kessen-chu have yet to leave behind any telling scars.

So he drinks, and he remembers and forgets in the same breath, and then drinks some more. He doesn’t know if it’s the shitty worms or the fact that he’s been at it for a few hundred years—or maybe more, the hell if he remembers—but sake hardly packs a punch anymore, and he nurses a dish out of habit more than anything else.

(Once, he blinks and behind his eyes, he can see a girl sitting at his side, eating a stick of dango. It’s a roadside teahouse. There’s a buoying sense of contentment in his chest. She smiles at him, dark hair framing a pale face.

He has no idea who she is.)

He drifts from town to town, from bar to bar, bottle to bottle. Whispers follow him, the man who dresses like a relic and drinks like a fish. Some days, he can… almost remember. There’s something that happened, way back when. Almost near to when that damn Yaobikuni stuffed him full of kessen-chu to begin with. I have a task for you, she’d said. They’d made a deal, his deeds for his death. And there had been… something. There’s a reason he travels at night, a reason why the expanse of the highway sends waves of unease down his spine. A reason why the sight of patrolmen raises his hackles. There’d been some asshole, some official… Akagi? Some kenshi asshole, who hadn’t been so bad in the end.

But why had he gotten himself all tangled up in that mess to begin with? He’d gone to ground after his sister… his sister—

(… his sister?)

There had to be a reason. Hadn’t he been helping someone? A job, from Yaobikuni; she’d promised that if he helped, the kessen-chu would finally let him die, but the mere thought of it is laughable, because Manji can’t imagine ever throwing the stupid worms away.

(There’s something he needs to do, after all, even if he can’t remember what the fuck it is.)

All those memories seem so faint and distant and the heavy feeling of forgetting curdles his stomach. He drinks to drive it away, and can’t even be satisfied with the hum of alcohol in his veins, because it’s a dull buzz at best.

He walks the length of the damn country near twice over, and by the end of it his collection of now-outlawed pointy things has doubled. Every single weapon he recovers brings back a rush of memories, and he finds himself sitting stupid on the side of the road more than once.

(His hand dips into the rice paddy without hesitation and pulls up a beast of a sword, nothing of the usual make, with an intricately carved tsuka and no habaki or tsuba and without knowing why, he almost throws it back down.

All that damn work, he thinks, suddenly furiously and not knowing of what he’s thinking. And it was worthless in the end. All that damn blood.

Two weeks later, he finds the weirdest fucking axe he’s ever seen and he starts to cry without knowing why.)

Hungover and with more blades than he knows what to do with, he walks. He’s gotten better at it, over the years. He just walks, letting his feet guide him, because there’s nowhere he wants to go. He thinks about settling down, once or twice, but every town or village he passes through gets his skin crawling. The age of the kenshi has passed—and he knows that, but shit, it’s not like he knows how to be anything else—but there are people who still walk the street with weapons. They don’t… feel right, though, and he can never talk himself into sticking around long enough to learn why.

Only, one day he lets his feet guide him far south, where the tall grass comes up to his damn elbows, and he finds himself climbing over rotting logs and smooth rocks, picking his way further and further into dense foliage, with the cloying smell of dew and earth in his nose. Eventually, he’s staring down at a headstone and—

Asano Rin

Beloved Mother, Fierce Protector

—he's vomiting, choking on bile and saliva and tears, because how could he have forgotten Rin, stupid, careless, wonderful Rin—?

He doesn’t remember much the year after that, either, come to think of it. Although he can probably guess it’s due to him drinking himself to liver failure and then having to gut some unlucky bastard. Again.

He sobers up, eventually. Not that it helps much, considering the world that he sobers up to. Turns out that the times have really changed, so to speak.

(“Manji,” Sori—and man, what did it say that he nearly took his own hand off when he remembered Sori?—had told him once, when the two of them been sharing a pipe on the veranda. “One day, Rin-chan won’t be around to remind you of your manners, and you just won’t know what to do with yourself.”

“What fuckin’ manners, sensei?” Manji had smirked, blowing smoke right into Sori’s face.

Tatsu had taken one look at them—Sori with that flat expression and one hand fisted in the front of Manji’s yukata, pulling him off the porch and into the hallway to his studio—and had dragged Rin out the front door, yelling something about going shopping, and please not the walls this time.

And well, after that, Sori had given Manji a very pointed lesson on How to Address Your Betters, You Shitty Kenshi, that had involved a good deal of rope, a greater deal of cursing and no lube, but Manji had gotten what he wanted in the end any-damn-way.

Tatsu and Rin had eventually come back—Tatsu despairing over the dents in the paper screens, and Rin giving Manji that gleeful meddling look she always got before she gave him shit for his ‘terrible taste in people’ for weeks, which she probably also picked up from Hyakurin (who really had no room to talk, seeing as she’d sweet-talked Giichi into bed with her and Manji, after the whole shitshow with Anotsu was over, but whatever).

Point is, Sori was right, the jackass. Rin’s dead and gone, and Manji’s as useless as… well, as useless as a kenshi in the age of fucking shinobi.)

Chapter Text

Tenten is an orphan. It's the first thing she learns about herself, and as she grows, it is one of the only things she knows about herself.

Tenten is eight years old, nearly nine, and she's going to become a genin. She lives in Konohagakure no Sato, in the village orphanage. She's going to become a genin, and then she's going to become the greatest weapons mistress in all of the Five Elemental Nations.

There is only one thing that Tenten has to her name, and that’s the tanto. She’s always had it, for as long as she can remember, even though no one is quite sure where it came from. The orphanage Matron can’t remember anything about the person who brought Tenten to the orphanage all those years ago; it was after the second Great War but before the Kyuubi attacked, and there aren’t many surviving records.

Tenten likes to pretend, sometimes, that the tanto is a relic from her family—whoever they were—and that it connects her to them. That somewhere, someone is missing that tanto and that once Tenten makes a name for herself, she will find them. The orphanage staff only ever try to take the tanto away from her the once, when she’s so young that she almost doesn’t remember, but she kicks up such a fuss—shrieking inconsolably day and night, refusing to eat—that in the end, they just seal the habaki to the koiguchi and let her cling to it, like it’s a stuffed animal and not a weapon.

She carries it with her everywhere, because she’s afraid—so, so afraid—that if she misplaces it, if she loses it or breaks it or shows it anything less than her utmost care and attention, that she’ll lose the only clue she has to help her find her family. If anything happens to the tanto, then she’ll be alone, forever. The tanto isn’t the only reason that she begs the matron to let her attend the shinobi Academy, but it’s a pretty large deciding factor. They let her enroll, and the seal comes off the tanto and Tenten is that much closer to achieving her goal.

The thing about the tanto, her treasure, is that it’s not very beautiful. Tenten excels at the weaponry classes at the Academy, her determination and enthusiasm only growing with every new exercise and demonstration. Swords and shuriken and kunai and garrotes and kusarigama and Tenten wants to master them all; she stays in the training grounds long after classes have let out, bringing her tanto along to replicate the stances and kata that the Sensei had gone over in class.

And then she—

The tanto isn’t like some of the weapons that the instructors bring in for demonstrations, with designs carved into the wood of the saya and characters cut along the ji itself, like poetry or names. Tenten’s tanto has a saya of well-worn wood that has become smooth like stone with age, and honestly, it looks ordinary. Plain. A little ugly, sometimes. But the metal of the blade itself is strong, and there aren’t any imperfections that Tenten can spot with her bare eyes. She sometimes likes to pretend that she is just like the blade, something strong and formidable, regardless or perhaps in spite of her exterior. The exterior of the little orphan girl, unwanted and alone.

Be like the blade, Tenten thinks to herself. It’s a thought she keeps in mind when she doesn’t know what else to do, when the other children call her names, when she needs to be brave.

Like right now.

She’d been practicing, or trying to practice, and there was a stance that the weapon’s instructor had shown them in class earlier in the week, and. She hadn’t meant to. But.

The blacksmith’s shop is a low, squat building that catches the eye, even though it’s tucked away between two taller buildings. It stands out because its construction looks almost haphazard; it seems to be made equally of wood and stone, and a visible wave of heat billows out from its wide entryway.

Tenten tells herself that she is strong, that she is sharp, that she is a treasure, and—after nearly thirty minutes of dithering—she steps inside. The heat is even worse. It’s thick like rain, the kind that Konoha only sees in the depths of spring, before it warms up into the equally cloying heat of summer. Between one breath and the next she’s sweating and it’s gross.

Set right before the door is a counter, and behind the counter is an old woman, who doesn’t even look as though she realizes that most people her age are stooped and wrinkled. Her hair is a stark white that stands out against the warm brown of her skin. She’s wearing a thick apron across her front, with a belt of tools at her waist, and she looks perfectly content and not at all like she’s standing in the disgustingly thick heat of a forge.

Tenten thinks the woman might be an Oni; the hammer hanging off her belt is definitely big enough to be considered a kanabo.

“Thought you were gonna flutter outside all damn day, girl.” The blacksmith gives a little laugh, and crosses her arms—thick and scarred—over her chest.

Tenten clutches her blade to her chest and stares, wide-eyed. She has to be like the blade, but she can’t make the words come out. After a moment, the old woman makes a deep, low noise, but only says:

“Well? Are you a customer or not?”

Tenten nods, shakily.

“I wanna get this fixed.” She meekly proffers the tanto, holding it up for the shopkeeper to see.

There’s a big crack in the saya, not just a little chip or splinter, and she didn’t mean to. It was supposed to have been a slight of hand, using the saya to block an incoming strike and leaving the actual blade free to counter, but she hadn’t done it right and now—

It was her treasure, the only thing tying her to her family, and.

She needs to fix it. She has to fix it.

“Hmm.” The old woman grunts, and reaches down to take the tanto. Tenten only just convinces herself to loosen her grip. Instead of looking at the saya though, the old woman unsheathes the tanto and then holds the blade up, into the sunlight streaming in from the tall, wide windows at the front of the shop. She tilts it back and forth, and the beams of reflected light dance along the walls.

“This is a good blade.” She says, after a moment. And then, “You steal it?”

Tenten’s mouth drops open, and it takes her a moment to close it. She sets her chin and frowns.

“No. It’s mine.”

“A little orphan brat with a kissaki-moroha? Pull the other one.” The shopkeeper chuckles again, but it’s a mean sound. Tenten sticks her tongue out.

“It’s mine, you—you old bag!”

The shopkeeper’s face drops into a flat, unfriendly expression so quickly that Tenten almost falls backward, trying to get away. But then, just as quickly, the old woman laughs. It’s a loud, booming sound.

“Cheeky little shit!” She chortles, setting the tanto down on the counter, saya and blade both.

Tenten doesn’t get a chance to reply, interrupted by the bell over the door jingling. Tenten glances at the newcomer and barely manages to stifle her squeak of surprise.

The man that walks into the shop is scary. He has a scar going over the bridge of his nose, like that one sensei from the Academy that stops by the orphanage sometimes, but then he has another scar that goes right through one eye. The scowl on his face only makes the scars seem that much more bold against his rough sun-hewn skin. His clothes are traditional, like really traditional: a plain, full-length yukata with straw waraji and no tabi, and at his waist—

Tenten gasps aloud, a high little sound, and doesn’t even realize it.

This scary, angry man has two of the most beautiful katanas that Tenten has ever seen hanging at his side. One has little flowers carved into the saya, all the way down to the curved end of the kojiri, and a pink tsuba shaped like a blossoming flower. The other one has a bright blue ito wound in a dizzying criss-crossing pattern around the same, leaving wide gaps to bare menuki that are shaped like dragons and clouds.

Tenten has never seen blades with so much character before. Her gaze falls in the direction of her own tachi and she can’t help the rush of embarrassment that curls in his chest; her treasure is so… plain in comparison that she almost wants to grab it and run, away from the horrible, mean shopkeeper and the scary strange man and his overwhelmingly beautiful swords.

“Aah, Kenshi-san!” The shopkeep calls, right over Tenten’s head. “You have such an uncanny sense of timing; I just finished your blades this morning.”

The man—a real live kenshi? Tenten thought they were all dead, or exiled to Iron Country—doesn’t quite smile, but one side of his mouth kicks up, and he responds with good humor:

“You say that like I ain’t been houndin’ yer ass for the past week.”

The shopkeeper laughs, that loud cackle again. Then she turns and grabs a large bundle off the shelf behind her. It makes a heavy thump when she sets it on the front counter.

The kenshi steps forward and unties the bundle and Tenten sidles closer almost without meaning to, standing up on her tippie-toes to catch a glimpse. There are at least twelve other weapons laying on the counter, shining with recent care. Tenten's eyes go wide. There are a few more katanas, but there’s a bunch of other weapons, too. She can only see a few, but that’s more than enough to hook her interest: there’s what looks like some kind of modified kusarigama, weird swords that aren’t quite katanas or uchigatanas or wakizashis, and a handful of smaller knives too narrow to be kunai.

“You do damn good work, Higurashi.” The kenshi says, picking up one of the not-tachis. It has a huge, broad blade, with an intricate, narrow handle that looks delicate by comparison; it looks like it could cut anything in half.

The shopkeeper cackles again. She seems a lot less intimidating, as she keeps laughing. Or, so long as she’s not laughing at Tenten. “Anything to keep your business with me, kenshi-san. You have such an interesting collection, I can’t help but want to keep it to myself!”

The kenshi rolls his unscarred eye, exaggerated enough that Tenten can see it. Then he starts to tie the bundle up.

“How much I owe you?”

“Let’s call it 200,000 yen.”

Tenten’s eyes almost bug out of her head. Two hundred thousand yen? She’s never even had five yen! She peeks up at the kenshi, certain that he’ll refuse to pay such a high amount, but to her shock, he’s already got one hand tucked into his yukata, obviously rooting around for something.

“Not bad.” He comments blithely, pulling a pouch from within his yukata. It’s a simple red thing, and doesn’t seem like it could possible hold 200,000 yen.

And it doesn’t. Instead of yen, the kenshi pulls out gold. He passes over an entire handful.

“This enough?”

“Kenshi-san,” The shopkeeper says gravely, but there’s a wide, toothy smile on her face. “You spoil me.”

“Nah,” The kenshi argues, tucking the pouch away. “Just appreciate yer good—”

The kenshi stops. He’d started to lift his huge bundle of weapons—the whole thing with just one hand!—but now he’s just staring at the counter, shoulders set high and stiff.

No, Tenten realizes, after a moment. He’s staring at her blade.

“The brat says it’s hers,” The shopkeeper grunts, jerking her chin at Tenten, who falls back off the ball of her feet when she suddenly finds herself holding a one-eyed, narrowed gaze.

“This is yours?” the kenshi asks, roughly.

Be like the blade, she reminds herself. The kenshi doesn’t seem violent or anything, and even if he was, Tenten is one of the fastest runners in her class. She could get away, if she had to. At the Academy, they do drills sometimes about how to escape from shinobi that are stronger than you, and Tenten knows she can be quick.

But she’s curious. The man is acting like he recognizes her tanto, even though it’s a plain as plain can be, especially in comparison to the kenshi’s own finely decorated blades. Be brave, Tenten thinks, squaring her jaw and holding the kenshi’s gaze. She nods, and says, as firmly as she can:

“I didn’t steal it. It’s my treasure.”

The shopkeeper snorts disbelievingly, but the kenshi doesn’t even blink, still watching her.

“What’s yer name, kid?”

“Tenten.”

“Yer whole name.”

“S’the only name I got.”

“Where’d you get the blade, Tenten?”

Tenten crosses her arms, and turns her face away. Stupid kenshi and his stupid questions. She bites her lip, and hates herself for ever admiring anything about him, even if his uchigatana are the most beautiful things she’s ever seen. Tenten looks down at her feet. She’s won’t cry. She won’t, even if this kenshi and the dumb shopkeeper don’t believe her.

“The matron said it was the only thing I had with me when I showed up.” She grits out from behind clenched teeth, determined not to let her eyes tear up. “It’s mine.”

The kenshi doesn’t say anything for a long moment, but then he abruptly sets his bundle back down on the counter and pulls out his little pouch of gold again.

“How much for the repair, Higurashi?”

The shopkeeper, Higurashi, narrows her eyes and scoffs. Tenten blinks dumbly.

“You really think it’s hers? A kissaki-moroha tanto?”

The kenshi raises an eyebrow, either unaware or uncaring of the way that Tenten is staring up at him, slack-jawed and confused.

“How much?”

Higurashi gives an indignant sniff. “Anyone else and I’d say 10,000 yen, kenshi-san. But even if I don’t believe the brat, I ain’t here to drive you off. 3,000 yen. It’ll be done today.”

The kenshi flips another piece of gold at Higurashi with a smirk, even as Tenten tries not to scream. She hadn’t really thought about how she was going to pay for the blade's repair, as she’d been too worried about damaging the tanto any further. There’s no way that she could’ve afforded the kenshi’s discounted price, let alone the full price of ten thousand yen.

“Yer all heart, Higurashi.” The kenshi says, throwing the blacksmith a two-fingered salute.

“Get the hell outta my shop, the both of ya.” Higurashi snaps, snatching the gold out of the air. She sounds as mad as she looked earlier, when Tenten called her a hag, but even though her teeth are gritted, her face is flushed.

Tenten turns to stare up at the woman, even more confused. Is she embarrassed?

“C’mon, kid.” The kenshi beckons Tenten, leaving his bundle on the counter. “We’ll eat while we wait. My treat.”

Tenten looks between the kenshi, who looks close to laughter, and Higurashi, who’s still flushed and scowling. Hesitantly, she steps closer to the kenshi, who herds her towards the door.

“You’re a damn menace.” Higurashi says with feeling, the words doing nothing to hide her reddened cheeks.

“See you in a few, Suzu-tan!” The kenshi calls back over his shoulder, not even bothering to hide his wide, obnoxious smile. The last Tenten sees of Higurashi is her scowling, blushing face.

The two of them walk in silence down Konoha’s main road. Tenten finds herself following the man, bemused and a little uncertain, staring at the back of the kenshi’s head, where he has his hair pulled into a messy, spiky bun.

It feels like everything has sped up and torn past her, and here she is, trying to catch up and understand. It has to do with her treasure, but other than that, she’s unsure. The kenshi had first looked at it like it was a viper lying in wait, but then, the way he’d questioned Tenten…

He recognized her tanto.

Which means. Maybe he knows—? No. Those kinds of thoughts aren’t worth the hope she would put into them. Tenten shakes her head free of the idea, and puts it out of mind.

Except.

He’d paid for the repair. Without even asking or offering, and not in an obnoxious way, like he knew Tenten couldn’t afford Higurashi’s prices—there’s no way she could’ve scrunged together ten thousand yen, even if she’d tried to requisition it through the Academy—but more like… he just wanted to. Like he knew how important the tanto was to Tenten, how much she needed it fixed.

Maybe… maybe he does—

“Where we goin’?” The kenshi asks her abruptly, without looking back.

“I dunno,” Tenten shrugs, dragging her eyes away from the huge manji pattern that adorns his yukata, and letting her thoughts go. “Never been to the restaurant district.”

“Feh,” Is the kenshi’s response. And then: “Let’s do barbecue.”

Tenten says nothing. She just keeps following him, even when he veers off to the side. She cocks her head in confusion when he stops, right next to a vegetable stall.

“Walk in front,” He tells her with an absent hand gesture, as he picks up and sniffs at an onion. “So I can see you.”

It makes him sound like the matron, when she takes all the kids to the park. Tenten blinks and smothers the giggle she can feel bubbling up in her chest; the kenshi is probably the last person she would’ve ever expected to care about something like that. She does move to stand in front of him, though. Her amusement isn’t worth whatever his reaction would be if she ignored him.

The kenshi buys an onion and a handful of bright peppers, but he pays with yen this time. He settles the paper bag in one hand, and doesn’t move until Tenten is a few feet ahead of him.

The meal is unlike anything Tenten has ever had. It’s not really the food—she knew it would be good, because almost all the restaurants in the district are owned by the Akimichi clan, and they take their eateries very seriously.

It’s just a strange experience, but the uncanny thing about it is that nothing strange actually happens. They walk into Yakiniku and are promptly seated. They’re brought the platter of meat and the grill, and the kenshi pulls a small knife from somewhere and slices the vegetables he’d bought. There’s a comfortable silence while the food cooks. They eat.

It’s the first time Tenten has ever eaten in a restaurant. It’s the first time she’s ever eaten with someone who wasn’t from the orphanage, and it’s the most comfortable she’s ever been with an adult. The kenshi doesn’t snap at her to sit up straight or eat properly like a lady. He just cooks the beef and adds more to her plate when she’s not looking, sipping idly from a dish of sake the entire time.

Eventually, after Tenten has eaten more beef than she’s ever had in her entire life, she sets her chopsticks aside and the kenshi hums:

“Higurashi’s probably done.”

And then he pays and herds her back outside.

The entire affair leaves Tenten feeling disquieted, even if she can’t put a name to the exact feeling. Her chest feels weird, heavy and light at the same time, and she wants to smile and cry all at once. She doesn’t say a word, though, because she doesn’t know what she’s feeling and she’s been taught not to bother adults and not to ask stupid questions.

They walk back towards Higurashi’s shop in silence. This time, they walk side by side, Tenten taking almost six whole steps for the kenshi’s every two.

Tenten’s head feels empty. They’re going back to the shop. She’ll get back her blade, and then… what? Go back to the orphanage? It’s the obvious answer—and there’s no reason she wouldn’t—but imagining it, thinking about it, just feels… empty. Wrong.

Disappointing.

She says nothing when they step back into the smithy. She accepts her treasured blade back numbly, curling her fingers around it and holding it to her chest; the saya has been fully repaired and the newly glossed wood is slinky and smooth under her palms. The kenshi grabs his huge bundle of swords, and then they leave together, because Higurashi snaps and scowls and jabs at the kenshi until he agrees to walk her back to the orphanage since “it’ll be dark soon, you brute,” and “you’re not just going to leave her, are you?”

Tenten doesn’t argue. She doesn’t say anything. She gives Higurashi a half-bow and exits the shop when the kenshi holds aside the thick curtain for her. They walk again, in silence. Tenten bites her lip, determined not to cry when she doesn’t even know why she wants to.

“Manji.” The kenshi says, suddenly, looking down at her.

“What?” Tenten blinks, startled out of her own foreign, unsettling thoughts. She turns her head to look back up at him.

“Name’s Manji.” The kenshi—Manji—glances away, and then back at her. “Yours is Asano.”

Tenten stops dead, right there in the middle of the street.

All she can hear is her heart thump thump thumping in her chest. Asano. Asano. A-sa-no. Manji says it casual and easy as anything, like there’s no doubt in his mind, for all that they’ve only been in each other’s company for a few hours, most of them spent in silence. Asano. He knows who she is, which means that she’s somebody. She has a name—she has a name, a clan, a family.

Asano Tenten. Her name is Asano Tenten.

“You…” She takes a single, clumsy step forward, one trembling hand lifted in Manji’s direction. “You know… my family?”

“Knew,” Manji grunts, with a shrug. “Dead now, I guess.”

Tenten bites her lip, vicious and quick, because now’s not the time for tears. Be like the blade, she tells herself furiously, squeezing the tanto in her hands so hard that her fingers start to go numb; if she never learns about her family—wherever they are, whoever they were—because she starts to cry and doesn’t stop, she’ll never forgive herself.

“But you knew them?”

“Yeah, me and your… grandma go way back.”

“My grandma?” Tenten asks, surprised, because Manji is older than her—by a lot, probably—but not that much. He looks about the same age as the jounin she sometimes sees near the Hokage Tower, when she walks to class in the morning. Definitely not old enough to ‘go way back’ with anyone, let alone somebody else’s grandma.

“Yeah,” Manji swallows. His eyebrows are furrowed and he looks… awkward, almost. He looks Tenten dead in the eye, and asks, “Hey, kid. What’s your dream?”

… Her dream?

If someone had asked her the same question even a few years ago, her answer would’ve been to find her family. She had already decided that it didn’t matter why they’d left her at the orphanage, because she was sure that they would love and accept her, once they saw how well she’d grown up. She was going to be a world-famous kunoichi, and who could be disappointed in something like that? She’d dreamt about it all the time, before the orphanage's core competencies classes started their morning sessions, imagining an estate full of people who looked like her, who would love weapons like her, who would love her.

But, that was the kind of dream that every orphan dreamed. And Tenten didn’t have time for those kind of little kid fantasies, not after she got accepted into the Ninja Academy; suddenly, her days were filled with dense history notes and math homework and target practice, and Tenten had found her calling with weaponry. It’s not that she doesn’t want a family any longer; she’ll always hope for them, even fleetingly, in her heart of hearts. And isn’t it proof enough that the mere suggestion of a clan—even from a perpetual stranger—is enough to shake all other thoughts clear from her mind?

She’ll always want to know more about her family, whoever they happen to be (and now, the name Asano thrums through her head, steady and heady and wonderful), but it’s been three years since she started at the Academy and there is nothing more she wants than to prove herself, to prove her skill and her prowess, to succeed and succeed and succeed, even and especially where all the others tell her she can’t.

When she was seven—a year after she’d been enrolled in the Academy—she’d seen two shinobi sparring. It had been a fast-paced battle, most of it too quick for her to even see, but there had been a moment when the two had crossed blades, and that image—of two high-level, masked shinobi crowded in close, swords singing and sparking—has been firmly pressed into her mind ever since, like an irezumi in full color.

She’d been transfixed, standing there at the edge of the official training grounds and she had thought: I want that, more than anything.

The next day, when she had gone to class, she’d asked Izumi-sensei aside during lunch and the two of them had filled out Tenten’s Declaration of Intent form, the one that would let her take any weaponry-focused courses and gave her access to the armory.

“Are you sure?” Izumi-sensei had asked, right before Tenten added her final signature. “You don’t need to declare until your fourth year.”

“I’m sure.” Tenten had answered, and she’d signed the form, and then the matron had undone the seal on her tanto and Tenten had been twice as sure to never let it rest anywhere else but at her side ever since.

And now, Manji—who’s been nice to her, who paid for her treasure to be repaired, who knows her family, who gave her her name—is asking her what her dream is. And Tenten honestly still doesn’t know, not concretely, she still can’t quite grasp the right words, but…

“I wanna be… strong,” She tells Manji. His single eye is inscrutable, and she does her best not to feel embarrassed. Be like the blade, she reminds herself, and she finds her back straightening of its own accord. “I wanna learn how to use every weapon ever and then when I find my clan—”

Dead now, I guess, Manji had said, about her family. Her chest hurts. She sniffles, but she won’t cry. Not now.

“I’m gonna… I’m gonna make my clan famous, even if it’s just me. I’ll adopt all the orphanage kids and the Asano clan is gonna be even more famous than, than those dumb Uchiha or Hyuuga ever will!”

Manji laughs, loud and with a lot of teeth, just like the shopkeeper, Higurashi. A couple of people passing by on the street shoot him strange looks, but he doesn’t seem to notice or care.

“Well, you sure as hell got Rin’s fire.” He chuckles, and it’s not until he wipes at his face with one hand that Tenten realizes that he’s crying.

“Manji-san?”

“Aah, shit,” Manji sighs, clapping his hand over his face and leaving it there. “Say kid, you want some company on top of that?”

“Huh?”

Manji finally moves his hand, and his unscarred eye is still watery, but he’s grinning.

“That blade was my promise to Rin, to look after her family, no matter what. I been told I make a pretty good big brother. You up for it?”

Tenten stares. First at Manji, who just watches her back, with that little half-smile still in place. Then she looks down at her tanto, fingers shaking with how hard they’re gripping the saya.

Her tanto is a promise. Manji—Manji, with his scars and his bundle full of weapons and he knew her family—made a promise that he would watch after her. Her. He wants to be her brother. He wants to.

Tenten’s lip trembles, and she hiccups.

“Aww, c’mon, don’t cry. Jeez, you got that from Rin, too…”

“Shuddup!” Tenten gasps, wiping furiously at her face. “I’m not crying, you—you big, dumb brother!”

Manji makes a noise, and when Tenten looks up he’s crying again, not even trying to hide it now, but he’s still, still smiling. He reaches out with one hand and it falls to rest on top of her head, somewhere between a playful ruffle and calm grasp. It’s the best thing Tenten has ever felt in her life.

“That’s honorable big dumb brother to you, punk.”

Chapter Text

Manji walks Tenten back to the orphanage, one hand fallen to Sukehiro Amatsubaki’s tsuba out of habit and the other on the girl’s head.

They garner a few looks, some curious and some suspicious, but the hell if Manji cares. The world’s only gotten weirder since he last bothered to pay attention; shinobi have replaced kenshi, and they’ve got a buncha weird ass abilities to go along with it.

Hell, in his day, the chakras were some shit Yaobikuni kept blabbin’ about whenever he dropped by. She’d sworn by ‘em, told him that if he would just balance his chakras, so much of his suffering could be avoided. Bah. Now, these shinobi are runnin’ around breathin’ fire and controllin’ oceans and shit.

(… Fuck, but he sounds old.)

When he’d seen Rin’s tanto sitting on Higurashi’s counter top, he’d almost dropped his swords on his own damn feet. He hadn’t seen the thing in so long that he’d almost convinced himself that it had never happened: Rin, that Kagehisa asshole and his Itto-Ryu, Kagimura, that crazy bastard Shira, any of it. All of it.

But there it was, and there Tenten was, and damn if she wasn’t a spitting image of Rin. Younger than he’d ever known her, but the similarities in their mannerisms are downright uncanny. It’s good, though, that she isn’t Rin, isn’t really like Rin. The last thing Manji wants is to unload all of his baggage on a kid because she happens to look like that girl he once bled and fought for.

Tenten’s different, for all that she has Rin’s face, for all that they cry the same. For one, Tenten isn’t nearly as spoiled, which is hardly something he’s glad for, because the girl’s an orphan. She didn’t even know her family name. And—more importantly—where Rin took up the blade to avenge her parents, Tenten seems interested in blades for a different reason. He could almost call it a simpler reason, maybe even purer. She wants to master them, to master herself, to make something of herself and her clan, even if she’s its only member. Her reasons aren’t mired in blood and hate and duty and vengeance, the way Rin’s were.

Girl’s gutsy. She looks and acts like Rin at her brattiest, but she’s got that Makie woman’s drive, with a helluva lot less damage.

“Hey, Manji-nii?” Tenten pipes up when they’re only a couple yards from the orphanage’s front gates. God, she’s already started with the nickname; at this rate, she’s gonna have him wrapped around her little finger before sunset.

“Yeah, kid?”

“What if they don’t let you… what if they don’t let me go with you?”

Manji stops walking, and Tenten stops too, her little head trembling under Manji’s loose grip. Manji crouches down, and remains that way even when Tenten doesn’t turn around to face him.

“What makes you think that’ll happen?”

Tenten shakes, but doesn’t speak.

“What,” Manji says, voice light, “You think I’m gonna let anybody stand in my way now that I found you?”

Tenten sniffles, and one scrawny arm comes up to wipe at her eyes, but she still doesn’t say anything, and she keeps her face turned away from him.

“Hey, kid.” Manji tells the back of Tenten’s head. He loses the joking air, because even if he doesn’t know what’s got her so scared, she’s Rin’s somebody, which means she’s as good as his little brat of a sister.

“Do you see this sword?” His hand falls from Sukehiro Amatsubaki to grip the other tachi at his side. Tenten peeks over her shoulder timidly, like he can’t see or hear her tears. She nods, haltingly.

“You wanna know its name?” He waits for her to nod again, before he draws the blade a few inches. “This is Imo-no-Kami Tatsumasa. Now me an’ Tatsumasa here, we take our promises real serious. Anybody tries to get between you and me, and we’ll tear this whole damn village down if we gotta.”

Tenten makes a choked off little gasp, and then suddenly he’s got a face full of teary-eyed kid, and shit, how old is she? Younger than twelve, probably, but it’s not like Manji’s ever been good about this sorta thing. Tenten’s still sniffling and gulping too loud and generally trying not to cry and doing a poor job of it, but there’s a trembling, tentative smile pulling at her lips. It’s almost cute. Gross, but kinda cute.

“Really?” She asks, her little squeak of a voice made even more nasal by her tears. “You would?”

“I ain’t no shinobi, kid. Right now, you’re the most important person in my life, and the hell if anybody tries to stop me from keepin’ you safe.”

Tenten’s whole entire face wobbles, and Manji barely raises his arms in time as she throws herself forward, blubbering and snotting all over his yukata.

“N’body ever said that to me before,” she whispers into his chest, and she sounds so damn small that Manji doesn’t even care about all the snot and tears and shit.

He straightens out his legs, ignoring how his knees pop as picks her up—she feels too light, do they even feed their orphans in this damn place?—and she hiccups, but her hands are latched onto the front of his yukata so tight, it’s a wonder the cloth doesn’t rip.

“You an’ me, we’re gonna be just fine, kid.” He tells her. It’s a promise he damn well intends to keep.

Manji takes Tenten to the Hokage Tower. There’s the usual bustle of shinobi reporting in or leaving out on missions, and Manji maneuvers his way up to the main office, on the top floor.

The looks here are a little more subtle, but Manji’s spent too much time getting his ass kicked all up and down highways and running from those persistent bangashira bastards not to know when somebody’s staring at him. Tenten, at least, doesn’t seem to notice, still grinning like a loon. She’s fuckin’ adorable.

“Got an appointment,” he tells the secretary. She smiles back blandly.

“Of course, Manji-san,” she says. “He’ll be with you shortly.”

Manji grunts, hikes Tenten higher on his hip and then goes to sit down.

He’s left sitting on his ass long enough that Tenten has buried her face into his yukata and started snoring before the secretary calls out, “Hokage-sama will see you now, Manji-san.”

‘Shortly’ his ass. Manji gets up, careful not to shift too much, and goes up the short set of stairs into the office proper.

“Aah, Manji-san, how very prompt of you.”

Manji doesn’t much like Sarutobi Hiruzen, mostly because between the overbearing smiles and the sharp stare, he falls somewhere between… shit, between Kagimura and that Burando fucker. Ugh. No fuckin’ wonder the old man makes Manji’s sword arm itch like hell.

Still, the time of the kenshi has long since passed, and shinobi are fucking weird; Manji needs another group of tenacious, overpowered fuckers after his ass about as much as he needs a lobotomy.

“Yeah,” Manji eventually grunts. Sarutobi’s eyes are hawk-sharp and it takes all of Manji’s willpower not to draw Tatsumasa when those eyes settle on the top of Tenten’s head. “Change of plans.”

“Really?” Hiruzen smiles genially, like he doesn’t already know, like he hasn’t had an entire troupe of shinobi shadowing Manji since he first stepped foot past the gates two weeks ago. “I had no idea you were interested in adopting.”

Manji shrugs, and wishes he had his pipe. “She’s family. Who knew.”

Hiruzen’s gaze sharpens even further, and Manji wants to bare his own teeth in response.

“Oh?” The word is smooth and so fucking baited Manji can practically taste it.

“Yeah. So I guess I’m stayin’ a little longer than I thought.”

That definitely takes the old bastard off guard. Manji watches Hiruzen pull out his own pipe and light it, and man, Manji has never wanted a smoke more in his life.

“Wonderful,” Hiruzen murmurs, a little half-smile on his face as he puffs away. And yeah, Manji bets he thinks it’s great: it’s keeping him in Konoha, under watch for longer. It’s pretty annoying, but getting Sarutobi to let—feh, let—Manji takes Tenten out of his fucking weird ass ninja cult would kick up way too much of a fuss.

These shinobi, Manji is coming to realize, are a serious pain in the ass.