Chapter 7
Tenten’s hand tightens around the handle. She swings the hammer up, aiming a sharp look through the mist where the faint clangs of battle are ringing out, the melody of blades meeting again and again.
Better wrap this up, she thinks, unwilling to leave Kou alone with enemies now that she knows Zabuza is only toying with her.
“With me, Li-san,” Tenten murmurs, her voice barely carrying over the din, “We’re taking the fight to him. Aim to wound, not kill, but defend yourself when needed, okay?”
“Of course, Tenten-chan.” Li replies, the leather of her armour creaking as she stands up straight, her straw hat disappearing into the mist that still wreaths their surroundings.
Tenten takes a moment to unroll a few more scrolls, making sure Yoin is carefully tucked away in her pack, and spreads the others across the ground. Normally, such scrolls would be placed at strategic positions, awaiting an unsuspecting enemy to step on them, but in such a tight space with such poor visibility, Tenten has to settle for placing them at random.
Bai is still fighting, the clash of his and Zabuza’s swords ringing out, oddly muffled, as if the fog had enough mass to dampen the sound. Clearly the result of a technique, and not likely to go away any time soon.
She has to assume the worst – in the mist, they’re fighting in Zabuza’s territory, which means he will likely be able to sense her presence – and therefore discards the idea of taking him by surprise. No, she’ll have to play the only card she has left.
Luckily, it’s one he’ll take at face value.
To him, she’s an untrained child with no combat experience, just some foolish upstart trying to buy her way out of a bad situation.
Maybe he would’ve been right, just a few months ago. But now Tenten remembers so much that’s yet to happen, knows so many things she never could have dreamed of, and feels the same way her future self would.
She has a quick conversation with Li, managing to convey most of her meaning through hand gestures and mouthing the words, not trusting that Zabuza couldn’t use the mist to eavesdrop. After less than a minute, they have a plan ironed out.
It begins with Tenten summoning a manriki-gusari, a thin chain with a small weight attached to both ends. Li covers both the puff of smoke and the noise it makes by swinging her sword, the sound of bells ringing out clearly despite the suffocating fog. Tenten holds the chain loosely, her hand hanging as if empty, and uses her other hand to hold her war hammer more prominently aloft.
Li had already outlined the abilities that she and Bai share, and Tenten hopes her plan to use them will be enough to convince Zabuza she’s more than worthy of working with. Because although she may have come here with no intentions beyond making an ally, now she wants more. She wants Zabuza to think she is more than Tenten, a girl of little consequence with no family name or clan, more than an academy student in over her head. She wants him to see her, her new self with an ANBU mask to match.
Tenten jerks her head, and Li gracefully slips into the battle, her blade seamlessly meeting Zabuza’s as he turns to block Bai’s latest strike.
Tenten takes a deep breath, watching the clash as closely as she can despite the clouds of fog partially obscuring them. Zabuza’s face might be mostly-covered, but the little she can see is slack, relaxed, not tight with the typical tension of battle. The muscles of his arms bulge with every swipe he makes, yet there’s not a bead of sweat on him. He’s calm beneath the onslaught of the two pandas, unbothered by Li’s sudden appearance.
I want that, Tenten thinks, longing squeezing tight in her chest, her throat aching with the weight of the unspoken words. I want to be that strong.
And I will, she thinks, the sound of her own blades’ victory song still fresh in her ears, swords that have yet to be forged, battles that will take years to begin, all hers for the taking. She will be that strong, and even more.
She leaps into the air, swinging her hammer as she goes, aware that the three fighters’ eyes are now fixed on her.
Zabuza turns the blades of the pandas away with a disdainful flick, Kubikiribocho rising to meet Tenten’s unnamed, untested hammer as she falls down to meet him.
And Tenten’s other hand pulls back slightly.
Zabuza hits the ground with a loud smack, his sword still deflecting Tenten’s hammer with insulting ease as she lands upon him.
Bai and Li lay their swords at Zabuza’s throat as he lies back, his eyes just barely revealing his surprise.
Tenten’s chain is wrapped around Zabuza’s legs. When Li swiped her sword to hide the sound of the chain’s summoning, it also activated her genjutsu, rendering the chain soundless and almost invisible.
Tenten had relied on Zabuza underestimating her, taking her full-frontal assault with the hammer at face value, not bothering to look harder and see past her hasty deception.
She backs up carefully, just a touch to the left, and feels the chain in her hand go slack.
Zabuza’s prone form bursts into a rush of water, Li and Bai’s blades hitting the dirt.
Tenten feels a rush of wind behind her.
One of the scrolls she had dropped earlier sends a warning spike through her chakra system, and she speeds through the necessary handseals in reply.
She spins around, just barely missing Kubikiribocho sailing past her head, and meets Zabuza’s eyes just in time to watch her scroll’s technique activate.
The scrolls that she’d placed on the ground ahead of time were primed, needing only Tenten’s chakra to trigger, and when they did, they sent hundreds of weapons slicing through the air directly above them.
Zabuza’s foot had barely brushed one, but it had been enough for Tenten.
She didn’t hear Zabuza land when he sprang away from the trap, but the mist descended between them at once, as if his concentration had been disturbed.
He’d managed to dodge almost every single weapon that had shot his way, all except one dagger, which had sliced his cheek open on his right side, soaking the bandages in blood. The way he held himself was subtly different from the casual lean he used to employ, he now slumped a little, a hand covering his ribs. It wasn’t much, but it was something. She’d broken more than skin or bone. She could see cracks in his composure.
He cocks his head.
She doesn’t dare move a muscle, not wanting him to take it as a reason to attack. She’d just wanted to trick him, hoping that alone would be enough to impress him, but now, as she stood there in the open, she felt painfully exposed.
Then, Zabuza claps. Just once, his hands making a resounding smack.
Tenten winces at the sound, struggling to keep her grip on her hammer tight, her palm slick with sweat. She feels the tell-tale ache in her muscles signalling that her chakra is beginning to run low.
“Not bad,” Zabuza says, the rasp of his voice grating against her frayed nerves, “You drew first blood. I was holding back, but you knew that, didn’t you?”
For a tense moment, Tenten simply stares back at him, unsure of what he wants to hear.
The truth would have to do.
“I guessed as much when I didn’t die right away,” She replies, a little sheepish.
Zabuza holds his hand out and Tenten tenses, readying herself to leap away, but his sword flies harmlessly over her head. He catches it as easily as a kunai, and Tenten has to fight down the envy that rises within her.
“You’re not a mouse at all,” He says flatly, eyeing her with a cold, assessing look, “No, I think you’re something else altogether. If you’d coated those blades with poison or even a paralytic agent, this fight could’ve ended in your favour.”
“You weren’t the only one holding back.” Tenten shrugs.
“Heh. Real cute, kid. How’d you know I was gonna be here?”
Tenten resists the urge to look away. It’s a fair assumption on his part, and it’s only partly untrue. She did come here expecting someone, it just wasn’t him.
“I told you I’m building a network of information. I found out that this wagon was likely to be attacked, and I figured they might be someone strong enough to be worth recruiting. I’m going to be honest with you – I’m seriously concerned about the future of my village. I know there’s corruption going on beneath the surface, and I plan to draw it out. You’re an outsider with no ties, a missing-nin who could easily be turned against Konoha with enough money, but from what I’ve heard about you – ” Yoin’s words from earlier flash in her mind, ‘freeing Kirigakure… finding his purpose… keeping Haku safe,’ and she knows she’s on the right track, “Your loyalty is worth more than any coin. My village is slowly decaying, and yours is close to collapsing. Join my cause, and I’ll make sure you have enough money to fund whatever it is I know you’re planning to do.”
In less than a heartbeat, he is in front of her.
Slightly too slow, Bai and Li’s blades snap out to meet him.
But he does nothing, simply stands there, towering over her in chilling silence.
Tenten lifts her head to meet his hard gaze, refusing to even blink.
Then in one smooth motion, Zabuza sheaths his blade and sticks his hand out. “Deal.”
Tenten is grabbing his hand before she knows it, feeling the rough texture of his scarred palm against hers, the calluses of her hard work meeting his.
Zabuza leans in close, bending down to reach her level, “Don’t try to make a fool of me, kid,” He warns her, a tense beat between every word, “That corruption you want to draw out of Konoha? It’ll be gone all the same when I burn the whole place down if you cross me. Understand?”
“I’m not the sort to stand on ceremony, so we can dispense with honorifics, but as your employer, I expect you to call me by my name,” Tenten says pleasantly, “Not ‘kid.’”
Maybe it’s dumb to antagonise the missing-nin at such close proximity, but Tenten cannot allow him to make threats against her village without her so much as scolding him. She has to establish her authority early on, or he’ll try to use their collusion against her.
Thankfully, he merely snorts, unimpressed, and shakes her hand, “Suits me. Your summons called you Tenten, but you never actually introduced yourself.”
Tenten can’t quite hide her grimace, “No need. It’s just Tenten.”
No family. No clan. No name.
To her surprise, there’s a glimmer of approval in his eyes when he steps back to get a better look at her, “Not some hotshot clan kid with a kekkei genkai to cushion your fall, huh? Just some kid with a couple of blades and the guts to do something with them… yeah, you’re no mouse. You’re a spider, just starting to weave your web. Very well, Spider-sama. I’ll work for your cause for as long as it’s mutually beneficial.”
Well, she thought, Spider’s better than kid.
“So, what exactly are you expecting from me?” Zabuza asks.
Tenten does her best to lay it out in as concise yet informative way as possible – the possible corruption in Konoha, the potential depths that it might reach, her need for a man on the outside who could reach things she couldn’t.
“I’ll have more specific requests for you another time,” Tenten says, “And I’ll send payment when you fulfil them.”
“How will you do that without the village tracking it?”
“You complete the job and send me proof, plus your location. I’ll send my summons to you, and they can carry the payment,” Tenten says, improvising on the spot. She hadn’t expected to find herself recruiting anyone in the literal sense, having assumed that this would go the same way recruiting Ino had – the only payment needed there was a motivational speech.
Zabuza eyed the pandas with a dubious look, “They don’t seem the stealthy type. I’m not giving up my location to a kid I barely know. When I finish your little chores, I’ll send someone to pick up the payment, and they’ll bring the ‘proof’ you need. How’s that?”
“If you think they can slip in and out of Konoha without attracting any attention, sure,” Tenten says, hoping she’s not inviting a pack of missing-nin to invade her village while running her errands.
Tenten glimpses a shadow of movement beneath Zabuza’s bandages, a smile flashing like a shark under the surface.
“They can do it. And… just so you know, I’m not a fool. You wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble and put yourself at risk just to recruit some sellsword if you didn’t have a pretty good reason to tackle this ‘corruption.’ So, what’d they take from you?”
Tenten closes her eyes, remembering the grief that pierced through her at the sight of that pale, lifeless face. There’s still no name, no voice, no memory but that one, terrible moment, and yet it sits with her every second of every day, hollowing out a space in her ribcage. She doesn’t know if ROOT have anything to do with the Hyuuga’s death, but right now they’re the only enemy she can blame. Without that, her grief would be without direction and could turn inward, only hurting herself.
She remembers curling up in a dark room, the piercing ache in her stomach only intensifying with the dawning realisation that it would never go away. It hurts it hurts it hurts.
“Everything,” She replies, her voice hoarse.
He nods, “I thought so.”
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Bai and Li leave without a fuss when she dismisses them, seemingly unconcerned by the presence of a missing-nin. She thinks it might be because they trust her judgement, which would be a novel thing for anyone other than her mother.
Zabuza is tall. He towers over Tenten as she gathers up her scrolls from the ground, tucking them away carefully. She tries not to let it intimidate her.
I’m the boss now, she thinks, I’m the Spider. I might be small, but I’m not weak.
She touches her choker, hoping Bai and Li have told Fang what happened so he doesn’t have to worry. Without his chakra, she never could’ve summoned the pandas in the first place, and without them, she has no doubt Zabuza wouldn’t have taken her seriously no matter what she did.
“The men fighting my teammate, the Demon Brothers,” Tenten begins, gratified by the way Zabuza’s head tilts curiously at her knowledge, “Can you stop them from killing him?”
“They won’t. Their orders were to distract the guard with the wagon while I sealed away the loot. Since I haven’t done my part yet, they won’t have finished theirs.”
“Why wouldn’t they just kill him?” Tenten asks, swallowing hard at the thought.
“The guy who hired us for the job is small-time, frightens easily, twitches at the thought of pissing off one of the Hidden Villages, let alone the biggest one. Killing a Konoha shinobi for a wagon’s worth of merch just ain’t worth the rest of you hunting him down. How’d you know who I was working with?” Zabuza tacks on the question with a casual air, not even looking her way, but she senses the underlying tension.
“They’re a part of my web,” Tenten replies.
“Am I?” Zabuza stares down at her, his eyes blank, impossible to read. He might be seconds away from snapping her neck or bored out of his mind. She just can’t tell.
“Yes.”
Zabuza takes a moment to consider her reply, tipping his head back to look up at the overcast sky, “Is that so. Tell me something about myself. What does the little spider know about the Demon of Kiri?”
Tenten lets out a shaky breath. The temperature has dropped since their fight ended, and her sigh forms a visible cloud between them.
“I don’t know details,” She admits, “Just the broad strokes. I know you want to free your village. Find your purpose. And…”
His eyes narrow to thin slits, piercing through her. She feels flayed by his gaze, completely exposed and vulnerable.
Something tells her saying the name ‘Haku’ would be a very bad idea in this moment.
“You value loyalty more than anyone would expect from a missing-nin.” She steps forward, meeting his gaze with more confidence than she feels.
“I told you,” He replies, something almost satisfied in his voice, “Not a mouse.”
Tenten allows his words to warm her, just a little.
“Your partner doesn’t know why you’re here,” Zabuza says, dark eyes flickering over to where Kou must be, “Will he suspect anything if you survive this without a scratch?”
Tenten takes a deep breath. They both know the answer to that. The chances of no-name, clanless Tenten surviving an encounter with a notorious missing-nin without even having a kekkei genkai or summons – that they know of – is impossible. At best, she’d be suspected of hiding her abilities. At worst, a possible traitor.
“I need you to take off your headband and hide your sword.” Tenten says quietly, making her mind up. Zabuza cocks his head, his thin brows raising a little. “You need to look like a common bandit. Someone I could potentially hold off for at least twenty minutes.”
“If you want me to do something, Spider-sama, I’m at your command,” He replies, mirth lighting up his eyes. Oh great. The mere idea of Tenten being in charge is funny to him.
Tenten squares her jaw, channelling her mother at her most ‘the-customer-is-always-wrong’ state, “Zabuza, I shouldn’t have to phrase a command for you to recognise it as one. Do it.”
Zabuza stretches his arms above his head, his sword shifting ominously with the movement. Tenten glares at him, more annoyed by the wordless threat than intimidated.
But then his hand comes back down, now holding an unfurled seal, and the sword vanishes in a mighty puff of smoke.
“Right away, Spider-sama,” He says, the bandages on his face stretching as if pulled by an invisible grin, “And how will you pay me?”
Tenten feels sweat begin to bead at the back of her neck despite the cold temperature. Every second that goes by is another second she’s supposedly holding a bandit at bay on her own. She wants to seem like a prodigy only if she’s earned the title, not from deceit.
“We already agreed on the terms of our arrangement.” She replies, pulling her own scroll taut across her body, almost a shield. “I control your wage, so I expect good work and a respectful attitude. Anything less is worthless. Now remove your headband.”
Zabuza does so, inclining his head in mock-respect.
Tenten accepts it as her due. Even if he doesn’t mean the gesture today, one day he will.
Now for the most unpleasant part.
“Let’s put on a show, shall we?” Zabuza says cheerfully, pulling out a kunai.
Tenten tightens her grip on the scroll.
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Zabuza drops the mist slowly.
They’re fighting now – Tenten at full intensity, Zabuza barely exerting any effort at all – and for a moment Tenten loses herself in the flow of battle, her kunai clanging against his with jarring force.
Then Zabuza murmurs, “Ah, looks like I underestimated your partner.”
Tenten risks a glance.
She can barely see Kou’s figure, his back to the wagon, the civilians huddled inside. One of the Demon Brothers lies on the ground, either dead or unconscious. The other is drifting back towards the treeline, his arm hanging limply at his side, clearly injured.
Kou had taken one out and disabled the other, all while staying close to the wagon and protecting the civilians. All while Tenten played spymaster with a criminal.
Pain bites into her gut without warning.
A foot planted in her stomach sends her flying across the clearing, landing poorly on her shoulder. She’s too exhausted to even make a sound, but she’s rolled close enough to the wagon that it doesn’t matter. Kou’s face is within view, pale and tense.
“Tenten!” Kou shouts, dispensing with the honorific in the midst of battle.
This would probably be enough, but Zabuza had insisted Tenten needed both the realism of a lethal blow, and the experience of enduring severe pain in a high-stress situation.
Tenten had agreed at the time, but now, lying on the cold, damp grass waiting to feel pain like she’s never experienced before, terror seizes her.
It doesn’t matter.
Zabuza’s aim is true, and the kunai sinks into her stomach, just above the spot he’d kicked her.
Being ready for pain can’t make it hurt less.
Tenten cries out, her voice high with genuine panic.
The sky shifts above her.
She’s in someone’s arms, their chest obscuring her vision, the scent of lemongrass wreathing her in an unfamiliar yet warm embrace.
The world upturns, agony flaring with the movement, and Tenten finds herself shaking with silent sobs.
The arms beneath her change to hard wood, cold and unyielding. She’s trembling all over. There’s a warm trickle of blood seeping through her shirt. The sensation itself is frightening, the feeling of something so vital spilling out of her uncontrollably, like she’s a pricked wineskin.
I’m scared, I’m scared.
She can hear the faint sound of flesh smacking against flesh, grunts of pain, twigs snapping underfoot.
She begins to realise the muscles of her body are tightening, her hands forming claws where they lie against her chest, her legs uselessly seizing up. It all hurts, like someone is pulling a cord and her muscles are slowly being crushed. Her jaw lolls, her tongue feeling fat and swollen. She can move her head, but just barely.
The pain of the stab wound is gone, but in its place is a ceaseless fire coursing through her body.
“Miss?” Someone whispers near her. “Miss, you’ll be alright.”
Tenten thinks she might be crying.
And then Kou is there, his handsome face peering down at her. He gives an encouraging smile, but she can see the effort it takes him.
He holds a tiny bottle to her mouth, tipping her head up to let the cool liquid slide down her throat. It tastes of nothing at all. Tenten lets it happen, her hands heavy and awkward. For two breaths, he holds her head against his stomach.
“I’ve got you, Tenten,” Kou says.
She tries to speak, but her jaw won’t cooperate, and her tongue lies flat in her mouth.
She loses time, the world around her changing with every blink. Sometimes branches are overhead, other times she can see stars, tiny pinpricks of light shining down on her.
What happened? She wonders.
She swallows. The tonic tasted of nothing, not like what Fang would have given her. Fang would have read her a poem and cuddled up to her. Fang wouldn’t have left her lying cold and rigid, every beat of her heart sending more and more warmth spilling out. Why isn’t she empty yet? Is it possible to grow colder than this?
“…’m dyin…?” She slurs, head lolling.
“No, you’ll be fine.” The same voice from before says, the brightness sounding false and too loud to Tenten’s ears, making her flinch. “The shinobi-san is taking us to safety.”
Shinobi.
Tenten isn’t one, not yet. She’s not even a genin. She’s nothing, nothing at all.
***
Hello, friends!
*Katy Perry voice* Do you ever feel ~~ like a wineskin ~~ stabbed by a kunai ~~ slowly bleeding out?
Fun fact! Tenten’s experience is based on my own! (I have yet to be stabbed by a kunai, but I was briefly paralysed from the neck down while all my muscles tightened up and contorted. Please be glad I left out the fact that her butt hurt the most lmao. It’s like when you hold up your own body weight, but for hours, and you can’t put yourself down, and it’s your entire body, and ow why does your butt hurt so much) Mine was from a bad reaction to meds, Tenten’s was from allowing a missing-nin to stab her with a kunai coated in something ~~
I don’t know if shinobi would use wineskins tbh, but the image stuck in my head and I had to write it out.
Zabuza thought he was being too kind here, allowing Tenten to experience a horrifying first near-death encounter, all while an ally is nearby and ready to help. That’s better than having someone genuinely trying to kill you, right? Ah, Kiri.
I should probably address the elephant in the room, which is that I haven’t updated fanfics regularly in forever. Tbh it’s a combination of lack of interest in Naruto, forgetting all the plot I’d planned (and already written), forgetting all Naruto trivia and facts and thus having to research, and real life getting in the way.
Also I’m twenty-eight now!!! I’m like the crypt keeper!! It’s incredible how old you can get without gaining a single ounce of maturity, it’s almost a gift. My country’s first lockdown started a week before my 27th birthday, and then our most recent lockdown started right before my 28th. The government forbid me from ageing outdoors D:
You should also know that I originally planned to have Zabuza just punch Tenten but then he was like haha what if I severely traumatised her instead, wouldn’t that be fun? And I was like okay, the mummy man makes a good point. Also I kept forgetting that Zabuza’s mouth was covered by bandages. It’s so hard not to write about someone’s mouth during conversations!! What is he doing!!! Smiling??? Mouthing the words to Baby Shark??? WE’LL NEVER KNOW
Also if Kou was alone, he would’ve killed the Demon Brothers fairly easily, but he 1) wanted to keep them alive for questioning 2) wanted to keep them away from the goods and the civilians 3) was distracted by his small academy student friend going missing 4) kept getting messed around by Zabuza’s naughty mist
I had my first vaccination last week!! I’m a huge wimp when it comes to pain, so I was pretty worried, but it genuinely didn’t hurt at all. I was like… uh. Did you… miss?
I hope you’re all doing well. And if you aren’t, I really hope things improve quickly. Remember to be kind to yourself no matter what.
The original end of this chapter: ow, getting punched kinda hurts. Oh, Kou’s okay? And the civilians? Nice lol let’s go home
The actual end of the chapter: I am wineeee ;;;;; and I spill
Quick poll for fun: What’s your MBTI? (if you don’t know, google the test and do it! It’s fun!)
I’m an INFJ, the rarest of unicorns. Like Obi Wan Kenobi. And Hitler.