Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

In the short story it goes like this: Ty Lee is reborn Tenten in a world where children are murderers, lying is encouraged, and information is currency, and this changes nothing.

Tenten learns in an old academy classroom with a blond boy with the ocean in his eyes and the sun in his smile and a clan boy with the night in his eyes and fire in his veins, while a girl born of spring with sakura-petal hair spends her days fawning over a pearl-eyed prodigy in the year above them, and this starts to change things.

Tenten remembers Ty Lee in a world where only one can possibly use four elements and hand signs were never needed and a hundred year war waged and roared under a tyrant—and this changes everything.

Tenten still picks up a rusted and aged kunai from an old training ground and throws and throws until her arm is numb and her hand is bleeding, but she manages to hit the bulls-eye when dusk settles so she does not care. Tenten still begs and begs the elderly blacksmith around the corner of Konoha's shopping district to apprentice her until she succeeds with the victory—however small—an addicting taste on her tongue, and she still makes a small tantō with a flame carved on the handle, and it is atrocious but it is hers, and she still carries it decades later in a small scroll that never leaves her person.

Tenten still weaves and dances, her body an art form of its own. Yet instead of striking and relying heavily on her weapons, reluctantly but still contently taking third place in the art with her teammates ahead, Tenten moves until she has her old flexibility and learns until she can name all the chakra points in a body. (Ty Lee may have bowed to Azula, but let it never be said she was never the best at what she loved.)

(No one beats her after the first month of academy sparring and that makes everything so very worth it.)

And something begins to shift.

When she is four and lonely as only a orphan in the red light distract can be, Tenten wakes to the feel of the ocean breeze on her skin (she has never seen the ocean before?) and tears on her cheeks as she fails to save her sister (but Tenten has never had a sister?).

(This is only the beginning.)

Tenten remembers a ravenette who fitted no more into the mold of a proper high lord's daughter than she had and could kill a bird with a flick of her wrists with a small blade before Tenten could even blink, and a princess who was too cold to wield the fire that burned the brightest but also burned out the fastest and was hailed as a prodigy. She remembers many, many sisters, part of a matched set but without a matched pair—an outcast, but then a happy outcast within a circus where her smile was the closest to genuine than it had been in years.

(Then she remembers the war.)

She remembers the pretty—cold and ruthless—princess ask her—threaten her with a poison-sweet smile—to join her quest of golden glory that would only end in bloodshed and flames. She remembers walking a tightrope, only this was a completely different tightrope that was built on words and lies, that she had to balance on quickly or she would die. Tenten remembers the bodies after the drill during the siege of Ba Sing Se was stopped, and she could never rid her nightmares of the smell of burning flesh when parts of it blew in raging infernos.

Tenten remembers her first kill: he had brown eyes—earth kingdom eyes. (He was only the first of many and she was both relieved and reviled when the killing became easier.)

(She remembers the war.)

When she is five, shinobi visit the orphanage. Tenten stays in the back, brown eyes locked on the ground and body hunched in a mockery of shyness. She dutifully listens to their spiel, and when brown eyes flit towards the instructors, they see a different emblem and remember the justification another dictator gave for a meaningless war. She remembers how no one had blinked an eye at it then, too. 

(She remembers the war.)

Papers for academy registration are handed to the matron and the shinobi disappear, awed eyes and hateful glares both following them long after they've gone as the children gamble their futures with the devil in a village that would gladly sacrifice them because it is ultimately for the greater good. Tenten knows before it is said and done their bodies will be bruised, minds broken, and souls dripping in filth.

(Azula had been a prime example of children pushed too far, too fast.)

(She remembers the war.)

And Tenten knew her choice, for all she despised herself for it. (She had given too much, once, to a home that was never a home. Never again.)

(If the life of Ty Lee had taught her anything it was that war never just stopped, and she would need to be ready when misery and death came knocking once again.

And when it did, she would protect hers.)

(And so a week later the world changes when she sits in a chair that in another life held a girl named Haruno Sakura.)

Tenten remembers Ty Lee. She remembers war and pain and death and loss.

(She so hates what she has become, how it goes against everything she once believed.)

(Truly, what they did to themselves for survival.)

This is the longer story.

Chapter Text

just because you are soft
doesn't mean you are not a force.
honey and wildfire are both
the color gold.
— Victoria Erickson

.....

The world doesn't know it anymore, will never remember it, but Ty Lee is soft.

She is not born soft. She is not shaped to be soft either.

(She is not shaped by the mountains that raise her, the mountains that do not bend to powerful winds but are weathered away year by year by the rain they once dismissed until it's too late.

She is not shaped by the snakes of the court desperately trying to escape the lowlands they inhabit as it floods, or by the lions prowling on their golden thrones, thinking themselves above that which they do not understand.

She is especially not shaped by the fire that threatens to burn her, traps her, forces her into a corner. Even the flames are not inescapable, not really, and she had been born with survival as her goal and happiness her hope.)

Softness is, like many things are, defined by the individual, but most agree softness is kindness—empathy—at its core. And, like both, softness is not something that is born. It is learned, a choice. A choice Ty Lee chooses, and a choice she refuses to abandon.

(But war changes—leaves marks on them all, and she is no exception.)

(Most people forget softness does not always mean gentleness. The fur of the tiger is just as soft as a rabbit's, but its teeth are no less sharper for it.)

They are made monsters of in a way only other monsters could make, twisted and twisted until a husk of what once was is all that is left, and by the end Ty Lee becomes a traitor to her own nation and an enemy of others. However masks are her trade, and so she adjusts, hides her doubts, her weaknesses, behind loud laughs and flirty comments and fast jabs, carefully balancing the tightrope of morals and survival, one she is not convinced she never fell off of along the way.

(She is a master of masks before she is ever a master of acrobatics.)

The war's end does not change this, as memories, for all they are normally fleeting, are seared into their brains by the horrors and pains the spirits do not seek to spare anyone from. Wariness and paranoia become household emotions, nightmares more common than sleep. The Fire Nation is no longer a haven for her, and whispers of "pretender" and "outcast" haunt her steps. But while the Fire Nation she lives in now is a but a remnant of what it once was, she still loves it, even if it no longer loves her.

She thinks about the people she has fought and fought beside, the people she passes on the street—had she encountered them at the siege of Ba Sing Se? Had she crossed their path when she had been in the circus? Had she attended school with them, once upon a time ago? These people she passes everyday are no longer friends or even allies, and she so misses having people she trusts at her back, even if there is really no reason have her back guarded anymore.

(Loyalties are fickle things, but if there is one truth she can rely on, it is this: Everyone is too tired of war to continue fighting.)

In the end, she finds comfort in the most unexpected of places with a blind badgermole who commands the earth as if she were one with it, a kind, peaceful monk who wishes to never take up arms again, and a knife-throwing Raven with ice in her eyes but not in her heart.

Ty Lee will freely admit Toph is unexpected: she is not necessarily kind, more likely to find a laugh in a fight or what Ty Lee would label a cruel joke before a funny one, more prone to seek revenge for vindication before justice, and someone she had thought would be more likely to attack before negotiating—and she is very much not soft. But Toph is also brutally honest, not one to dance around her meaning or throw up pretty smiles and beautiful words to cover up the poison in her actions, one sooner to solve her problems with her fists before moving on with little fanfare (She was of the opinion life was too short and freedom too fleeting to waste a moment of either on petty grudges, a sentiment Ty Lee can agree with), and soon they bond over a shared love of cinnamon buns and koi fish and their lordly parent's frustrating attempts to train them in the arts of proper ladies.

Aang, on the other hand, is the surprising result of too much alcohol and too little sleep on a restless night. Neither had ever indulged on much alcohol before as they did that night—and, she suspects, Aang had never indulged on it at all—and they quite literally stumble into each other where, perhaps unwisely, they begin to talk. They talk about their childhood—Aang had once begged Monk Gatsyo for a cat just like the strays that litter the streets of the capital, calico and fast and wickedly sharp, and Ty Lee had once pranked her governess with a bucket of bright paint and sparkles in order to flee her history lessons—their beliefs— Aang, much like herself, is a pacifist and abhors any and all violence and pointless suffering—and even the war. (She learns he nearly killed an Earth Kingdom general out of anger and fear when he threatened Katara's life, and could never forgive himself for how close he came. He learns she killed an Earth Kingdom boy who she couldn't subdue when he attacked after viewing the Fire Nation emblem on her shirt, and could never forgive herself for going through with it. She expects him to leave after her quiet admission, but he only stays and looks at her with nothing but understanding, and they continue to talk into the night.) They learn many things about each other, and even more about themselves as the stars light the sky above.

(Later, she gathers the courage to ask him why he didn't just leave when he discovered the killer sitting next to him—someone who violated one of his most sacred laws. He responds, a wisdom and knowingness in his pale gray eyes that reminds her she is speaking to a boy with hundreds of lifetimes in his head, "Your hands are still no more bloody than mine." Ty Lee breaks down then, and it is the first in a long time tears fall from her eyes.)

(There's something to be learned from being stripped down to nothing you once were.)

Mai is a different story all together. They share a bare bones connection, one forged of war and hardships, of going against everything you believe because of expectations, because of survival. (Mai was never a violent person despite being prepared to do whatever she must. She was efficient and practical and sometimes cold, but Ty Lee thinks she feels more than any of them sometimes. The senseless destruction of the war had scarred her more than she would ever admit, but their sacrifices had cemented a hard-won friendship that even time would not break.) They had grown up together, true, but oddly enough it is the war that ensures they will stay together.

Others worm their way into her close circle as well, if to never quite to the same extent or the same way as the previous. Suki's begins when the warrior marches up to Ty Lee and drags her to a training field by the arm, grip unrelenting, a bemused Ty Lee to stunned to protest—"For a rematch," she says, a secret grin on her lips; Ty Lee will never admit it, but Suki saves her from a dark place with her un-judgemental words and understanding glances, letting Ty Lee pull her into a spar with no complainants where they would fight until both were bruised and bloody but smiling when it is all over. Zuko remains distant even as he stays polite, but she knows they will only ever view each other with Azula-tinted lenses—she will stay Azula's lapdog and he will stay Azula's brother. Their shared affection for Mai keeps them civil—and once more she bemoans the effects of Azula and her father, as she thinks they would have become good friends in another life—but over time an easy camaraderie is built between them, perhaps one not necessarily strong, but steady and flexible enough not to break. Eventually, even the water siblings Katara and Sokka overcome their initial discomfort and speak with her. Katara never becomes closer, and Ty Lee knows she will never stop associating her with failure, with weakness, and cannot fault her for it, but they get along, for Aang if no one else. Sokka, however, much like Suki, offers kinship and the three non-benders become a common sight despite being enemies only months ago—at least, as much as two reluctant sides can become enemies towards one another.

(None can be truly afraid of each other when they have all been pushed to their worst and understand all to well the grey areas of war.)

Yes, the world forgets there was a time when her hands were calloused from handsprings and round offs instead of throwing knives and fist fights. It forgets there was a time when her throat had only ever been raw from laughing in blissful naivety instead of screaming because the person who had just died in front of her was a friend—. It forgets there was a time where she had cried and cried when the turtleducks in the pond had died and laughed herself sick when Mai came home to bright pink walls and tried to strangle her with her sash. It forgets there was a time when she had been happy, when she had been kind and sympathetic and true.

It forgets all of that is still buried beneath the scars and blood.

(On her better days, Ty Lee likes to think she herself might even one day remember she was still all of that, still soft.

She never does.)

When Ty Lee dies, it is a sudden and peaceful thing. She isn't very old, at least, not compared to when child-Ty Lee expected to die, but to battle scared-Ty Lee she is already much older than she expected to be. At seventy her heart simply gives out in her sleep, and perhaps many will view this as proof of all her sins. ("The spirits have deemed her guilty and as such punished her appropriately.") Others might prove more sympathetic. ("Too much grief on her heart, poor that, simply couldn't go on.") She hopes Mai and Aang and Toph won't cry and knows she will miss them, will miss Sokka and Suki in different ways, but she isn't sad because she is so very grateful that she no longer must deal with hateful glares and choking nightmares.

(There is a relief in death.)

But then brown eyes open in another world as a screaming, red-faced infant is brought into it and Ty Lee's life isn't quite over—at least, not fully. Ty Lee is dead, but her soul is not.

(Truly, spirits can be cruel.)

Tenten is both everything and nothing like Ty Lee: Ty Lee hates the loneliness, Tenten likes being alone. Ty Lee loves acrobatics, Tenten loves acrobatics. Ty Lee hates liars, Tenten will lie if it means protecting those she loves. Ty Lee prefers snowy days, Tenten prefers thunder storms. Ty Lee is soft, Tenten...Tenten is not.

Oh, yes, physically—physically Tenten is all chubby cheeks and round limbs and baby fat. She is short, fat legs struggling to take two or three steps, a pouty face unwilling to do more than gleefully smile and giggle. She is pudgy hands that grab at anything within reach, and brows that furrow when fingers fail at holding the object. And as she grows older, nothing truly changes. She becomes more coordinated, says her first word, then her first sentence. She takes her first steps, injures herself for the first time, even has her first tantrum. Yes, physically Tenten is all soft.

But Tenten also has hardened eyes that are less innocent than Ty Lee's had ever been and a smile that shows a bit too much teeth to be all sunshine. She isn't interested in coloring books or playing dress up or even playing ninja tag with the other children. (A man is murdered over a suspected drug deal gone wrong close by and she doesn't even flinch when she smells the rot or sees the bloody mess of organs outside the man's body. She somehow knows she's seen worse.)

(Ty Lee is soft, but Tenten has never been.)

.....

Her first memory as Tenten is her mama's laugh. It is loud and unapologetic and slightly obnoxious and it feels right. She thinks her laugh is the brightest thing that lights up their small apartment, and she knows she fell in love with her mama then. She doesn't meet her new father until she is two and hiding behind her smiling mama as she opens the door and a man she had only ever seen in pictures comes through the door.

He is young and could perhaps be called more pretty than handsome with round, honey light eyes and shoulder length blonde hair. His face is almost tired looking but Tenten notices it lightens considerably when he sees them. She doesn't know what to think about that. He walks closer and Tenten doesn't like him near her mama—hers—so she glares as fiercely as the tigers her mama had told her about to warn him to leave. Unfortunately, this only seems to make him come closer and look at her in amusement. Tenten huffs. She's trying to be terrifying! He should only be looking at her with fear and terror!

"Hello, Tenten-Chan. My name's Toshiro and I'm your tousan. I'm so happy to see you." His smile is a minuscule thing, barely large enough to make out, but his eyes sparkle with fondness. Tenten scowls.

"Prove it," she demands and crosses her arms. He might be her father—possibly—but she hadn't seen him until now, and her mama always said not to trust strange men.

His lips quirk more at that. "Prove what? That I'm you tousan or that I missed you?"

She flounders for a moment in the way children do when they've been asked a too complicated question. Finally, Tenten crosses her arms and jerks her chin up the way her mama does when she's trying to make a point. "T-That your my tousan, of course!"

His eyes are still sparking with amusement, and Tenten really wants to slam the door in his face the way her mama does to people she doesn't like (Tenten can always tell who those people are; her mama gets a too smug look in her eyes when she does it). "Well, your mama has told you I'm your tousan, hasn't she?"

"She could be wrong," Tenten replies immediately, immeasurably proud of her argument. Mama is always telling her anyone could be wrong no matter how smart they are, so even though her mama is one of the smartest people ever, she might have gotten her tousan mixed up with someone else. She nods her head resolutely. Yes, that is entirely possible.

At that, her mama interrupts. "Well, as much as I hate to cut in on this touching reunion—" at this her brown eyes sparkle with mirth and fondness for the two. "—perhaps we can go inside? And Ten-Chan, this is your father. I'm rather sure I haven't mixed them up," she adds, gently teasing. Tenten's face flames red in embarrassment. She had said that last bit out loud, hadn't she? She pouts.

.....

Her tousan is around more after that, and she comes to learn that he doesn't laugh much, nor does he really smile. He does, however, tell the funniest jokes and has the best poker face and sneaks her desserts when her mama looks away and eventually she learns to love him too, even if her mama will always come first.

Her tousan is still gone for long periods of time—a merchant, her mama tells her, though she is more interested in a stuffed tiger at the time—but mama does tell her stories while he's gone. Apparently, Tenten has the same stubbornness as her tousan and gets the same furrow between her brows when she gets frustrated. They also hate anything too spicy and are rather fond of the foreign dessert called cinnamon buns. (Normally, she would love to hear these stories, except her mama always seems to find a way to embarrass her, too, and Tenten isn't as interested in listening after that.)

Her mama also disappears for work at rather odd hours, and she later finds out she is what civilians call a shinobi. She tells her she protects other civilians—something Tenten apparently is—and guards Konohagakure from outsiders that might wish to harm their safe haven.

"Konoha is the reason we're safe—you're safe. Shinobi like me make sure you'll always be safe by protecting the village."

(Tenten secretly nurses a small desire to protect starting that moment, but something holds her back from fully committing to the life of a shinobi.)

(It wouldn't be until many years later, but she learns to be a shinobi is to protect through killing. She doesn't care much for the notion after that.)

Despite their busy hours, Tenten still sees her parents plenty, and they never falter in their love for her. Rarely do they miss anything truly important, and when they do, they more than make up for it by spending as much possible time with her, and she never sees them without being told "I love you" at least once.

She feels loved.

(Of course, it doesn't last. When she is four, she is told her mother died in an ambush during a patrol mission, and her father during a trip to Sunagakure later that year.

The memories begin shortly after that.)

.....

Tenten is placed in an already over-flowing orphanage.

It is a small, dingy thing, looking on the verge of collapse, located in the part of the village that her parents made her swear to never go near. The caretakers are overworked and understaffed, but they try, and that is all that can truly be asked of them. Dozens of kids come and go every year, and rarely do any get adopted or become more than part of the yakuza or a yuujo (or, if they were lucky, an orian). Surprisingly, most are sympathetic to her plight, perhaps because many share similar experiences as her, and are quick to show her how to survive.

"We're Red Light street rats," one says with a too-sharp grin as they place a much gentler pat on her head. "No one's gonna look after us, so we do it ourselves."

(She soon learns orphanages are only for civilian kids—never clan children. They are always taken in by relatives, no matter how distant, and Tenten doesn't like the churning bitterness and envy that sparks in her gut, swirling putridly, so she never strays into those thoughts again.)

(She also learns there is...something—someone—lurking in the shadows, someone that takes the kids that show too much intelligence, too much promise. They're always Red Light street rats who the Police Force announce as runaways after mere days of investigating, and Ty Lee learns why orphans look after each other here. To the rest of the village, they are insignificant, worthless. Try as others might, though, no one, even those with connections in the yakuza, can find a lead on who the kidnapper is or where they take the children. It screams one thing and one thing only: Shinobi. And shinobi are people even the yakuza is too wary of to poke around, and so the kids become nothing more than a memory, a lesson. It is a sad reality, but they are masters of survival and learn to simply blend in better, to keep their heads down, and make sure no one else joins the missing.

But someone always does.)

Tenten struggles to adjust, but she learns. She learns to help wash dishes, how to sweep and dust, how to sleep on a ratty and threadbare mattress. She learns how to deal with screaming children, how to calm crying infants, how to be alone. Tenten learns how to be an orphan and everything begins to look plain but better than the apathy that had taken hold of her after her parent's deaths.

(It is here she learns about the Academy, the only escape for Red Light kids like her.)

Then the nightmares start.

She dreams of raging infernos intent on hurt and salty tears and bloodied hands. She dreams of torn throats and manipulative princesses and impossible choices. She dreams of war and death.

On many nights she wakes up throat raw from screaming. Fortunately—if there were such a thing—the caretakers seem to believe the cause to be the stress from her parent's deaths and new living situation and not from the—nightmares? Memories?—that have begun to haunt her now-restless nights. Unfortunately, her screaming has also had the effect of waking up the infants and other small children until nearly everyone in the orphanage is crying; the caretakers did not care for this at all, and eventually one of the other older children had given her a journal and pen—likely stolen—and told her, "Write down your thoughts and nightmares. It will help." A part of her is sorry for the growing eye bags under the caretaker's eyes, but she cannot find in it herself to truly be sorry for the interruptions, not when she had seen a man taken apart by water and ice like it had occurred right in front of her—

(There is very little innocence left after this.)

(When she is five and the Academy instructors come to scout potential talent, Tenten thinks of her mother's words and the dreams. Her hand doesn't shake as it signs the waiver that will effectively control her life for the next eleven years.)

.....

Tenten joins the Academy more war worn than most Academy teachers in charge of her education. There's a heaviness in her gaze that belies the lightness in her steps, a quiet watchfulness in her eyes that contrasts the loudness of her words. She is a civilian—worse, a street rat—in a room full of to-be nobles with superiority complexes so large they made the dream-fire princess's look as small as a mouse, however, and so she slips under their radars with but a dismissive glance and upturned nose. (She is a child raised by the stain of Konoha, even if she hadn't been born to it.)

Except one.

Tenten is one of five civilian born in her class. Each come from middle-class families looking for fame, and undoubtedly the children have been told to become friends with the many clan heirs in the class, or, even better, marry one. They dress primly, brightly colored and ignorant to the point of stupid, all soft curves and nothing sharp to them. If she looks at their hands, she will find no calluses, and if she looks at their arms and legs, no scars. In class, they scribble furiously, trying to catch up with their shinobi-raised classmates leagues ahead of them. With physical training, it is much worse.

But the clan children are very different.

Aburame Shino is quiet with bugs in his clothes and on his skin and a buzzing as his near silent cry. He says maybe a few words every week, even with the teacher's prodding. Even other clan children avoid getting too close, at the civilian born whisper "creepy" and "weird" behind his back. She thinks they're rather stupid. Quiet does not always mean meek. Unassuming does not always mean weak. He reminds her of a preying mantis: ultimately odd but harmless to the ignorant with hidden edges and powerful jaws and all seeing eyes to the knowing.

Hyūga Hinata is a budding flower closer to wilting than to blooming with impossible expectations wearing down her small shoulders. She is quiet, even more so than Shino, but it is a different type of quietness; where Shino is silent in a way that screams "look away" and "dangerous," Hinata stutters over every word and hunches into herself, crippling shyness and no confidence dripping off of her every action. Her eyes never meet with anyone's and her fingers twitch and fiddle nervously. (Tenten privately thinks she should have been named after a flower that grows in darkness better as opposed to one that needs the sun.  This life is not meant for the light.)

Chouji Akimichi has loyalty flowing through his veins and determination filling his heart. A gentle soul in truth, but fiercely devoted to his loved ones when riled, and he never strays from the Nara or Yamanaka. Had she not seen it first hand, she would have assumed the boy to be completely unremarkable despite being a clan heir, but while slow to defend himself, he would help out a stranger in a heartbeat.  He's also never seen without a snack. Civilian kids—and minor clan kids—mock him for his weight, but Tenten thinks they should count themselves lucky he has not grew his fangs yet. He will have power and influence throughout the village even if his Shinobi career amounts to nothing—which she thinks unlikely—and making an enemy of a powerful individual over something as childish as appearance is rather stupid.

Ino Yamanaka is not a flower, fragile and harmless; she is ivy, quick, resilient, and seeps through the cracks any leave behind without warning. She is friendly and social, everyone knows her and most owe her one favor or another. Unlike others, she doesn't try to hide her temper or her smiles, but when Tenten looks closely, the smiles turn stiff, eyes a bit too cunning, and her words always seem a bit too personal. Ino hasn't quite mastered her masks yet, but Tenten doesn't think for one moment she won't grow into a force, after her clan hones her skills more.

Shikamaru Nara has deer eyes and a lazy slump. He skips school more often than not and sleeps most of the classes he does attend. But when he is called on to answer a question, he always knows the solution to the problem. Tenten finds his gaze hides a sharp inquisitiveness, and he is the one who manages to catch her analyses most. In the brief moment of eye contact, he looks sharp and calculated, a strategist prodigy in the making—he looks so much like Sokka
did when he was about to change the world without even trying and something in her aches. (She won't admit it, but she avoids him. He reminds her too much of the ghosts than haunt her past.)

(Sometimes, when her thoughts wander, she thinks of the shadows following his steps that he never quite manages to hide. How long, she muses, can you walk in shadows before you become one with them?)

Kiba Inuzuka is loud and wild and rambunctious and perhaps more suited for a world a little less grim. His partner Akamaru is always hidden in his jacket or coat—and she really finds it unfair than she couldn't have been born into a clan surrounded by dogs—and Kiba always lands himself in trouble for pranks or skipping. He has some of the worst grades in the class, but his spars prove his instincts and punches are no worse for it; he reminds her of a jackal—something feral in soft skin.

Sasuke Uchiha has the night in his eyes but fire in his veins, a star in a midnight sky. He is a brightness hidden beneath a cool exterior, a genius but not quite a prodigy, growing up in the shadow of a brother to large for one person to outgrow. As they become older, he becomes more cold and biting when he realizes this is one mountain he may never surpass, but his spirit stays burning. (Oh, she wants to say, don't you realize? A mountain will never submit. Sometimes the best way to conquer a mountain is to go around.)

Naruto Uzumaki is sunshine and radiance and hides an ocean of hurt and loneliness. He's an orphan, but Tenten saw his last name in The Clans of Uzushio and thinks he has a bigger past than any truly know. The clan kids treat him as one of their own, even if they exclude him more than the Aburame, but they do not shun him to the extent of the civilian kids. Tenten knows what the adults whisper about him: "monster," "demon," "fox." They had grown up in the same orphanage until they were six, before he was suddenly moved to his own apartment without warning. He had always been loud and rambunctious, smiles just wide enough to be noticeably fake, but never truly malicious. They never became friends, but her heart hurts a little more every time she sees his blue eyes dim.

And in the end, it is not the deer boy with laziness in his posture but intuitiveness in his eyes that looks underneath her mask first as she initially believed, but the blonde with stars in her eyes and flowers as her language.

The day Ino Yamanaka approaches her with a too wide smile and a bounce in her step, Kunochi classes are in session.

They occur thrice a week, and everyday brings new and old faces as the girls are swapped around in a never ending game of shogi. Ino Yamanaka is smiled at for her tasteful flower arrangements but never for the way she is always the first to plant the kunai in the center of the board during weapons training. Hinata Hūga is praised for her graceful tea-pouring skills and advanced herbal medicines but never for the way she puts half the children on their backs within the first few seconds of a spar. Tenten is complimented for her exquisite stitches but never for her quick slyness that has won her every race she's ever participated in.

(They are women—Kunochi—after all. They are pawns, good but never great, meant to provide support to the men—true Shinobi—to be pretty, and nice, and silent.)

(Shinobi are more accepting of non-traditional roles than civilians, but it is still not near enough.)

This session focused on flower arrangements—"Make a bouquet to represent your mood," Yuma-sensei chirped—and Tenten angrily plucks random flowers, deciding to pick a mood based on her collection closer to the end of class because she cannot find it in herself to truly care.

But then Ino Yamanaka approaches and looks at her with baby blue eyes, chubby cheeked seriousness on her face and holds out her hand, none of her usual (fake) cheer in place. "Here, add this to your boquet." It's a pretty flower, bright yellow and eye catching. An alstroemeria, she dimly recognizes, meaning friendship, as well as good fortune and prosperity.

She glances at her with sharp eyes, caution and wariness swimming in their depths. She is not trusting of this girl, no matter her age or her sparkling eyes. She's seen those pretty blue eyes look at others with barely hidden distain, seen her string classmates along like puppets with silky words. Ino Yamanaka is a threat, and Tenten will not dishonor her by pretending otherwise. (The small part of Ty Lee inside her shudders at the amber eyes she can see underneath those blue ones. This girl is not Azula by any means, but she is closer than she has any right to be.)

"It's very pretty."

"Of course it is! My mother grew it." Ino grins, still holding out the flower, seemingly unwilling to abandon the brightness of her voice for this conversation even if her eyes are chips of ice, and Tenten's head tilts in realization.

Yamanaka is budding a network, it seems, and Tenten to meant to be one of her weak sheep, meekly following the blonde's every whim. Irrational anger sparks low in her gut, but then she actually thinks...because maybe, just maybe, she sees her. Sees the animal behind Tenten's mask, sees how Tenten surges like lighting striking the heavens and the earth in her rage, nothing able to withstand her might or hold her down—

(She is a civilian orphan. She is not meant to survive, but survive she will. This alliance will only help, and that is all that matters.)

(Because it is significant, so very important, to note she was given a flower symbolizing friendship. Yamanaka is honest, brutally so, in very thing she does, willing to bend the truth but never outright lie, and she knows the meanings of flowers in a way that will never let her make a mistake.)

"I see," Tenten says, and she does.

Inwardly, Ty Lee cringes at the Azula comparison her mind is quickly drawing, but the Tenten in her—bloodthirsty and hungry for recognition—only feels a grim satisfaction. She is an orphan and clan-less with no ties to anyone prominent and doomed to die willingly for people like the blonde across from her, but she has never been very good at accepting her fate.

(She will not accept the path laid before her; she will fight, and she will thrive.)

Tenten takes the flower, gently twirling it around in her fingers.

A smile curls her lips. "I look forward to this friendship, Yamanaka-san."

Yamanaka's answering smile is more a smirk and no less gleefully dark. "So do I."

Needless to say, Kunochi classes become much less tedious after that.

.....

Years pass and she and Yamanaka have become allies—rivals, even—and it may be the best time of her short life yet. Yamanaka does not step around her thoughts, does not mince her words, and it is a nice change to be challenged for once by something close to an equal. The blonde gives her a crown of flowers wrapped around barbed wire, and Tenten threads poison ivy into a purple tie for her to wear. Both place small doses of poison in each other's tea, and try to see who will realize first.

(She isn't quite on Tenten's level yet, but she proves good enough to keep around.)

Tenten revels in the chaos.

And then they are halfway through their Academy years and she is paired against Sasuke Uchiha in the sparring ring.

He is considered a prodigy. (It means nothing.)

She does not care. (It means everything.)

Masks may have once been Ty Lee's art, but Tenten has has no care for the mind games that are now Ino's forte. So when Ino pretends to act half in love with the Uchiha because she wants to win the twisted little love game that will end in nothing but heartbreak for everyone else involved, Tenten sits back and watches as she bats delicate eyelashes and giggles and squeals. She frowns—in annoyance or disappointment or disgust she does not know—when the Uchiha falls for the badly planned honey-traps, stomach churning putridly. It's even worse because he is Clan-raised and should know beauty is just another weapon for people like them, that no female pushing the Shinobi tract would give that up for some boy, even one with a pretty face.

An arrogant, self-important little boy still who blushes and smiles softly at that, always looking and staring at her like an idiot. Useless, even if he finally seems to be growing claws.

(Except he's not, and she knows he can be great, if only he could see it.)

But this time is different. He is colder than usual, glaring at any light provocation, snapping where before he would glance away shyly, engaging with Uzumaki's ridiculous accusations where before he would ignore them with practiced stoicism.

Uchiha is practically comatose during their fight, all his normal passion absent. Tenten scowls and knocks him to the ground in a more brutal fashion than usual, too irritated to care about the potential consequences. Both reluctantly form the Seal of Reconciliation when their sensei quickly calls the match to a halt, and she huffs.

"Thank you for the match, Tenten-san."

Tenten fights a sneer as she glances backwards from where she had already began moving towards the building. "If you could even call it a match; I expected better."

He flinches, and she pauses. He's a boy—but he also acts like the Fire Nation prince from her dreams, the one that learned from his family's mistakes and tried to do better at every turn, and maybe this is what coerces the acknowledgement from her lips.

"Next time, do as good as we both know you can do...Sasuke."

His soul flares with some of that spark again (and everyone knows it only takes one stray spark to ignite a wildfire).

.....

She meets Lee on the riverbank right outside the Uchiha Compound.

He is beating down a wooden post, all rage and sadness and no technique or efficiency. An unquestionably sad sight, she's sure.

"If you're hoping to harm yourself, you're doing a great job." Tenten flinches at her own voice, surprised to realize she was speaking when she should be walking away, why didn't she walk away—. The boy flinches too and whips around to face her—and wow, those are really big eyebrows—and then internally scolds herself for her rather rude thoughts. Honestly, she was supposed to be the socially adapted one.

A few moments pass and he simply stands there, hunched and fidgeting, eyes darting back and forth, while Tenten shifts on her feet, unable to think of anything to say, and the wind dances through the trees.

"I'll, erm, just leave," she manages to get out, and promptly turns on her heel to do just that, and makes it to the edge of the clearing before her traitorous thoughts force her to a stop. His face...you know that defeat quite intimately, something traitorously whispers. But it isn't my problem, she counters weakly, she knows it's so damn weak, so just fucking walk, Tenten, walk away dammit, and she means to do just that, but her body won't listen to her. And leave that on your conscious? You know yourself too well for that.

And fucking hell, she knows she has too much of a bleeding heart even now, especially for little lost things, so she turns and marches right back over, hesitance and awkwardness shoved deep inside. If she does this, she'll at least act like she knows what she's doing. He hasn't moved since she interrupted him and flinches once more as she purposely makes her way towards him.

"Alright, look, I can't just stand here and let you injure yourself because you have no technique." And really? She hadn't meant to make him hunch in on himself further! Where was all of Ty Lee's people skills when a girl needs them? She resolutely ignores the fact that she's not Ty Lee anymore, hasn't been in a long time, because she's totally dealing with that, thank you very much.

(No. No, she isn't.)

(And damn, if Yamanaka is Azula, then this kid is Zuko before he gained his confidence booster.)

Now that she is actually looking at the kid closely, she can see the eyebrows are the most defining feature but the bowl cut he sports may just be worse. His clothes are, well, not rags, but certainly worn, and dirts stains and blood dot his skin. Orphan, she hears from a mile away, and something in her breaks ever so slightly more.

"Ok," she starts, "you have to actually use correct forms when punching or you're just going to hurt yourself like we learned in the academy—you're in the academy right?" She barely waits for his shy nod before continuing, "So, start out like this—" she slips into the basic kata stance she's been learning from the upper years and slides forward. With a silent prompting, he follows.

Ah, that reminds me. "What's your name? I'm Tenten."

"L-Lee. Rock Lee."

Turning, she offers him a small smile, and it's like spring smiles back at her when his lips lowly twitch upwards in response.

(And history shifts ever so slightly.)

.....

Tenten manages to apprentice to an old Uchiha blacksmith that no longer lives within the compound. He's grouchy and cold and arrogant with hard eyes and even harder words, and Tenten utterly adores him.

She pesters him for weeks before he finally caves into her wishes, reluctance and irritation coloring his every action.

"You get one chance," he tells her, "You won't get another."

The work is both boring and grueling, but Tenten loves every minute of it. She runs errands, reads the most boring books over different techniques and different weapons, and sits and watches him work for "visual learning" without making a sound. He's trying to get rid of her,  find a small slip up so he can wash his hands of her, but she wants this, and a determined Tenten is a stubborn one. So she smiles and acts even more chipper and makes sure she follows his orders to the letter, not even exploiting any loopholes she finds.

Grudgingly, the blacksmith, who she finds is called Kenji, lets her stay and slowly, she thinks, even begins to like her. After two years have passed and he discovers she is in the Academy, he even starts letting her practice with the prototype weapons.

"Here," he tosses a her a bland bladed fan, yelling when she fumbles, "Don't drop it, girl! Are you daft? Pick it up and tell me how it works."

(Their conversations always seem to carry this format, and it's her personal mission to get him to do more than yell insults or respond with 'hn.')

(On the bright side, she's now fluent in Uchiha and it's always amusing when she manages to fluster Sasuke by translating his "hn's" into sentences.)

She doesn't know why she is drawn to weapons, doesn't know why throwing knives bring out a wistful fondness for all that she is rather bad at using them, or duel dao swords put her on edge, nerves lighting on fire in a nervous itch, or war fans make her blood rush with excitement and heart sing with anticipation.

(Oh, but she does know. For all that she is not Ty Lee, it seems there are some parts of her unwilling to die.)

.....

Tenten is not Ty Lee.

Ty Lee was blunted edges with no violence in her soul. She still believed in the good of the world, was willing to fight but never to kill. She was sunshine and bubbliness. Ty Lee was soft.

Tenten is sharp words and cutting glances and violence is all she sees so violence is what she must be. She does not believe in any good, and she will kill if she must. She is not sunshine and bubbliness and she is most definitely not soft.

(Tenten thinks it's telling that her eyes are no longer the light grey they had once been. Eyes are the window to the soul, and Tenten's soul is no longer Ty Lee's, not truly.)

But Tenten is also not not-Ty Lee.

They are loyal, they are skilled, they are cunning. Both will protect their precious few to their dying breaths, and neither will bow before a challenge.

Tenten is just Ty Lee taken to a more ruthless extreme; she will see the world burn to reshape it into her mirror.

(And in the end, it is this that changes the world more than anything. )

.....

Tenten is four-going-on-seventy with impossible memories and no clear path forward.

She is a nameless nobody orphan in a world where children are killers and those with any semblance of a moral compass are easily killed. She is not meant to exist, she is not meant to survive, and she is most certainly not meant to actually live.

But—this? This is okay. Ty Lee has made miracles—happiness—out of less before, and Tenten can learn to do the same. This isn't even a challenge. This is nothing.

(This is everything.)