It’s genin team assignment day. A class of half clan and half civilian kids are going to become ninja. The academy sensei calls out the teams. Team 3 he calls Neji Hyuuga, Tenten and Rock Lee. The Hyuuga scoffs, the civilian girl sighs and the young boy with bright eyes proudly smiles. Team 3 the sensei calls and that’s that.
They get called by a sunny man with the widest smile and the greenest jumpsuit. Both the Hyuuga and the kunoichi frown but their other teammate smiles wider. They go to training ground 3. Their sensei (because he’s their sensei now) challenges them to never give up. (like there was ever another option)
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And they are a team. They’re a team on paper of course, but that’s just the surface.
They are truly a team in the way they train together, buy their weapons together, in the way they do missions together (in the way they cover the Hyuuga’s blind spot, in the way they carve out their niches and stay there, the way they grow and shift to fit into a formation that is un[breakable]).
They are a team in the way the future-taijutsu master brings their favourite dango everyday, the way the Hyuuga will train with them instead of his clansmen, in the way the kunoichi always has exactly what they need.
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But they are not perfect. They fight, they fail, but they get back up. That is the first lesson they were ever taught and that, if nothing else, they will take to their grave. (Because shinobi never have a lot when they go)
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There comes a point when even all their training (their blood, their sweat and tears) is not enough. (it never is)
Even though they can cover each other's weaknesses to a T, they have not yet mastered covering their own and in the end, it almost costs them.
But their sensei is a jonin, one of the elite and will not let them fail.
And they will not let themselves fail either. (but determination will only get you so far)
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The kunoichi asks her sensei to teach her ninjutsu. He looks at her for a moment before telling her to wait a week and he'll see what he can do.
(She will not rest until they have their bases covered. Because they are good, but taijutsu has its weaknesses and they cannot afford to have every member held down by them.)
A week later there is a silver haired ninja there with an orange book and an air of ozone. Her sensei says he’s one of the best.
She nods, thanks him and the lesson begins.
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One day there is blood, and it’s on the bright eyed boy's hands. It’s expected and yet and yet, it’s not how it was supposed to go. They complete their mission and go home. The boy still smiles just as wide, still laughs just as hard, yet he seems just a little bit less bright.
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The Hyuuga is happier than he has ever been, yet this is not what he is destined to have (they’re too good for him). Fate will not allow him to enjoy this. He wants to wake up and know it’s never going to go away. But all he ever wakes up to is too loud yelling or too quiet silence.
He looks at his face and wishes he could disappear into the nether, that one mission would be his last. But he won’t leave just yet. The world hasn't given him much, but what he has (a smile, an extra kunai, a reassuring hair ruffle) is enough to stay.
Maybe one day it won’t be, but for now, it’s all he needs.
So he gets up despite it all (team Gai always gets back up right up until they don’t).
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A year passes and nothing much changes. They grow into spaces they didn’t know were there. (There’s an elementally charged kunai and a pathway opened and pressure point blocked and someone else dead because they wouldn’t stay down and there goes that rose tinted wonder {who needs that anyway}).
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The chunin exams. Everything they don’t want yet everything they need to go further. (do they want to?)
There’s some kid who thinks they’re good enough to best their resident gateway user and they laugh. He takes the challenge, of course, because he’s still that bright eyed little boy who wants to prove he deserves what he has earned.
(nothing is ever enough because in this world you must always prove yourself again and again and still no one cares until you’re on the floor {and yet, and yet})
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The kunoichi sees a silver-haired shinobi with his team and smiles. She hopes he’s not too late to all their meetings. (She hopes he smiles more)
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They almost complete the second round with no problems (other than the hiccup with the pink haired girl and her team {what was up with that?}) and are confident. (they never claimed to know it all)
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The Hyuuga destroys his cousin. They’d like to say they didn’t see it coming, but that’s a lie not worth telling. They say nothing when he comes back. He doesn't expect them to.
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The kunoichi loses. It’s disappointing because she knows she lost fair and square (the other competitor had the winning technique and the kunoichi was not ready for her). She'd do better next time. She has to.
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The sand bastard happens. The fucker. No matter how many times the taijutsu specialist forgives and forgets and says he’s fine, it will ever rid the burn of hatred for the boy.
They will take the fire to their graves (some sooner than others)
(Later when that same boy will lead them to war, they will stand with him. Not because they have forgiven or forgotten, but because they are bigger than their feelings {they have to be})
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The months in between the two rounds are long and tedious. (The bright eyed boy is still comatose, still dying, it’s impossible for any of them to think of anything else. They try anyway)
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The Hyuuga is confident in himself and so is the kunoichi. They watch as he gets defeated by the blond boy. (he has never been happier)
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The invasion happens in a flash. There are important things happening all around and they can feel the world shifting and tilting and rearranging and it's all meaningless to them now but time as always, runs its course. (There is blood and bodies and {the bright eyed boy isn’t here, is he safe? what’s going on??} ninja and everything is almost too much but at least two parts of the whole is here and that’s enough {but as always, it almost isn’t})
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The Third Hokage is dead. It’s a revelation that hurts, despite never knowing the man. But soon there are other hurts to smother it like a possible war and never be a ninja again (those persist past the time in which you could laugh it off).
They still go on missions (they’re missing a limb) and they’re still a team (that will never change), but there’s a divide, a dissonance, caused by the fact that they may have to amputate and that is something they all know in their blood and their bones they will never truly recover from.
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The blond boy comes back with a miracle that comes in the form of the Fifth Hokage. With her, comes a chance, a hope (comes scathing words said out of fear {they still almost sink the taijutsu specialist’s optimism} {it's one of the only things he has left})
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He’s healed and now they can all breathe again. (It’s still a long way to go but, well, what do they have if not time?)
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The Uchiha runs, and the Uzumaki, the Nara, the Akimichi, the Inuzuka, the Hyuuga follow. (So does the gateway user, but that comes later)
They come back bruised and bloodied and empty handed and the kunoichi is there with bandages and salves because she’s always there and what would they do without her?
(The blond boy with eyes so bright they burned leaves the following day)
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They pass the next chunin exams (compared to the shitshow of last time, it’s almost too easy to fully trust it). Everyone from their little group of Konoha nin do.
(the Konoha 12, they say the next generation of power {the next generation of war})
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They live the way they do and try their best. They become jounin along the way (there's still too much blood).
The Konoha 12 (or 11 if you're the kunoichi and the Hyuuga) are a staple in their lives. They take missions together, they eat together, they fill roles that never existed before and somehow, somehow, they’ve carved new niches and new friendships into their hearts. (They’re still different teams with different lessons written into their bones and that will always keep them from sinking into each other’s souls the way that they do with their team.)
Two years pass in a flash and look, the bright eyed blond is back (and here comes the chaos {it always comes back})
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They are sent to Suna. The red haired boy who is now Kazekage has been captured and this is bad bad bad. The Akatsuki have already taken so many others. This is just another pin in a hat except the hat is almost full.
They fight themselves, they help so little it hurts and the medic comes out with the proclamation of a dead Akatsuki member and a dead Kage.
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Except no, not a Kage because death can be cheated if you’ve lived long enough. (They’ll never have that)
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The blond jinchuriki fits into the Konoha 12 like he had always been there
He fits into the cracks with a practiced ease and cements himself so deeply that when he says not to kill the Uchiha after all he’s done, only the pink haired medic doesn’t listen {but that’s another story.}
(The former ROOT agent fits nicely as well and soon they have 12 without the need for someone who never wanted to be there anyway.)
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The lull before the Akatsuki’s attack is one of grief and anxiety. (team 10’s sensei is dead {they all will mourn} and that’s that {the Nara makes sure of it})
Then the attack that everyone knew about, had been dreading comes, and the village is confident (they always are)
Then everyone dies.
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Except they don’t because the blond haired boy of fire and joy has done something (no one who wasn’t there will ever know what) and now they live.
(the entire village is still a wreck)
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Life settles into a new normal of too many missions and too much damage. But all around they feel the world shift and tilt and rearrange again and they try to figure out how to read the changes but that is a skill only the gods have (and they’re still as mortal as can be)
(And then there’s foreign nin in their village and a war on their doorstep)
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They aren’t in the same units. It’s expected, but it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t awaken the need to be close enough to protect each other’s blind spots and the instinctive distrust of all the foreign nin. But Konoha suggested this alliance and they have to set an example.
(Examples are the first to die)
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The kunoichi fights and fights and fights. She goes on despite everything. That's all she can do.
(Many fall to the Chidori in those days and people will chalk it up to the Copy-nin, but those on the battlefield could swear it was a brunette that wielded it.)
She picks up a fan full of feathers and chakra and power. Power is good (power is all she needs).
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The Hyuuga stays close to his cousin and her team. The Konoha 12 always fight best together after all.
(He stays with her, in penance for all the times she needed him)
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The gateway user stands beside the pink-haired medic he calls friend and smiles, all shinobi sharp and she smiles back, the same sharpness present.
They may face many threats but at the very least, he won’t go down alone.
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Then, the jinchuriki join the fight and that changes everything. Soon there aren't factions, just all ninja, scrambling for some sort of way not to die. There’s another Uchiha and those are stakes flying and oh god, that’s what your heart breaking feels like.
(even so they keep on fighting, because rule number 1, is and will always be to never give up {it was inscribed in their bones and dissolved in their blood all those years ago and even when their bones are dust and their blood is all dried up, it will persist})
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[they’re training one day when Lee asks, out of the blue, if they think he can fulfill his goal of becoming a successful ninja without the use of genjutsu or ninjutsu.
Gai-sensei says that Lee’s bountiful youthfulness and willingness to persevere would allow him to reach new heights.
Tenten is adamant as she always is in her belief that Lee’s strength shouldn’t be measured by what other people’s standards of ‘ninja’ were.
Neji just huffs and says that he is already a successful ninja and if fate hadn’t stopped him yet, he would continue to be.
And that belief, above anything that came later, meant more than Lee could ever say]
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[Tenten wanted to be just like Tsunade when she was younger. Still does in some ways, but it’s toned down with time and the ability to know the woman other than as words on a page.
It still hurt though, when she saw Sakura and Ino and so many other people understanding healing in a way she never could. But she likes to think herself lucky that she can do what she does, rather than what she can’t. (She had the best example of the importance of it after all)]
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[Neji and Tenten are laying in the grass while Lee lays comatose in the hospital. Naruto said he would find someone that could heal him. Neji would usually be more skeptical, but Naruto had showed him that fate wasn’t all encompassing, that the seal on his head didn’t mean he couldn’t be happy (what an odd thought)
And he just felt like, maybe, just maybe he could be at peace with the fact that he would never be fully free, but he could do with what he had. His teammates did that well enough.
I don’t want to just be a sacrifice for the main branch, he says, not expecting a response, just wanting to put it out into the world, to make the conviction feel real.
Tenten turns to him, leans on her hand and simply states well, you were always too good for them anyway, with the conviction of someone who felt the truth to what they were saying in their very bones, like the answer had always been carved into their soul.
And with that she stands up and extends her hand towards him, a hundred things left unsaid and a thousand more things to say. He chuckles and shakes his head good naturedly before taking it.]
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The Hyuuga swore that he wouldn’t die for the main branch. But in the end he dies for his cousin, not his clan, not for any predetermined thing and he thinks that might matter more than anything. (he just hopes that his cousins, his friends, his team are happy and alive after it all)
One, two, three. In, out. He never breathes in again.
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