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Tenten found out she had sharp senses when she was only five years old.
She'd been able to dodge the vase her drunken father had thrown towards her and her mother's way even without seeing it.
It was more of an instinct, maybe? But she knew somehow that she'd heard the throw and every inch of her screamed for her to move away from where she'd been standing, crying her pretty eyes out.
Her Uncle had seen before he was able to stop his raging brother. He decided to enroll Tenten to the Academy. First, because she looked like she had the skills. Second, she'd always been interested with his profession, delighting in stories and eyes sparkling when he showed her moves and his weapons. She particularly loved the stories about the female sannin And third was because he didn't want her to end up with someone like his abusive brother. He wasn't going to let Tenten end up broken like her mother. She would become a strong and fine kunoichi. maybe become as famous as the Slug Princess, if she worked hard.
The second time Tenten found out she had sharp senses was when her Uncle started to teach her about shurikenjutsu. Every red target he'd made for her, she had hit with amazing accuracy. He was so proud of her, he'd let her purchase her first set at six years old. It had been expensive and he was only still a lowly genin. Money was hard to come by. They weren't a rich family. They were poor civilian foreigners, immigrants from the last war, and he had been the first and only shinobi their family had seen. But when Tenten threw his kunai with such deadly grace for the third time that first day, he knew it would be worth it.
The third time Tenten found out about her senses, she was barely reaching seven years old.
Uncle Chen had just died in a mission and her father had started drinking more. In the process, he became scary. He seemed forever rageful and he never stopped until Tenten's mother was out cold in the floor. Tenten's mother hid her under the kitchen sink everytime he came stumbling home, smelling of strongly booze that overpowered even the smell of the damp, cold and dirty cupboard. Overpowering the disgusting smell of cockroaches in there. She would never forget the way her father smelled, even years after.
This night, she smelled of something weird in the air. The hairs in her arms rose with the sudden rush of fear running through her.
It was still raining, as it had been for almost five days and nights.
She crept out of the thin futon she shared with her mother and unto the tatami mat until she reached the window.
The storm was strong and terrible. The wind blew savagely and the rain poured so angrily that she could not really see anything outside. A deep rumble from the skies made her jump and pull away from the window.
She crawled back to her mother.
"M-mama? Mama..."
She wanted to shake her mother harder. But mother was fast asleep. And Tenten couldn't bring herself to shake her anymore once she spotted the purple-black and mottled yellow and green bruises on her arms, remembering how hers had hurt when her own father had given her some not too long ago. Faintly, Tenten could see outlines of tear tracks down her swollen and bruising cheeks. The cut on her lip earlier had stopped bleeding, though.
Tenten could still smell it. The strange smell made her fearful and she quietly opened the fusuma that led out to their small kitchen that served as their living room as well.
The smell grew stronger and Tenten felt her hands lose their feeling and inexplicably she started to run out just as a louder and deeper rumble came, shaking their house.
Her hair started to stand on end, and she felt a tingling in herr skin. Her ears picked up a "kee kee" sound of some sort.
There was a brief flash of light and Tenten felt as if she had been grounded again when she accidentally touched a small open wire her father had been working on when she was younger, only this time, it was a hundred times more and then she blacked out.
Her subconscious woke her up as soon as they brought her within thirty feet of the hospital. It had the same smell that made eher want to vomit when they asked Tenten's family to come see Uncle Chen before he died. She could never forget how it seemed to attack her nose even from a very long distance. She knew immediately that she was being taken to where sick people go.
She doesn't forget.
Being shinobi honed Tenten's senses even more so.
Which was good, she supposes.
It helped her escape with her life and it helped her save not only her teammates, but almost countless of people too.
Most days, she appreciated such a gift. Instincts were important but so were skills and extra senses.
Kiba was always proud of himself for his heightened sense of smell and at times, Tenten would agree. (The chuunin exam was definitely not one of those finer moments.)
She didn't really spend much time in the company of the other girls in Konoha 11. After all, there was little in common she had with them except that they loved their vilage and friends and fought to protect it as fiercely as they can.
Sure, they were friends, but with Neji, Lee and Gai-sensei, she had more than enough. Her team was already quite a handful. And Gai-sensei's training schedule kept her from hanging about as most of their friends could. Not that she really meant her complaints about it. Everything Gai-sensei asked had worked to her advantage, after all.
She didn't mind. She couldn't be someone like her idol but she would definitely make a name for herself by her own right. Sakura can go ahead and be the new great healer. She would be the Weapons Mistress of Konoha. All smoke and sharpened steel, leaving blood in her wake.
She thinks that her own legacy wouldn't be as amazing or talked about as much as say, Hinata turning around her clan to a new future. Or Sakura's healing prowess. Or Ino's success and legendary battles with the InoShikaCho.
But in the end, the feeling of saving lives, protecting her home and finishing missions sticks best.
Neji certainly doesn't care about those things. And to her, that matters most. His opinion matters most.
Not that he had any less opinion of her in any way other than some improvements she could make during their trainings. But he was always proud of her, always even more in love with her.
She revels in her own rewards from him, too; soft and sure touches, warm kisses, sticky sweat, flushed bodies and few words of love and silent but sincere promises of forever. A man of few words as he is, she can't help but feel her heart skip beats even if he only called out her name.
Neji was not one to say anything if he didn't feel there was a need to. And yet here he was, almost night after night, calling her name in a way that made her knees weak, telling her she was beautiful like a prayer, thanking her, for loving him.
And what's not to love about Hyuuga Neji, really?
Her senses tucked each simple and special memory deep in her mind for safekeeping. She was always so good with that.
She keeps them and breathes them all in.
With Neji, there is nothing more she needs. Nothing more she could ask for.
And so when the prodigy dies, everything, every single one just lingers all around the feared Weapons Mistress of Konoha.