A/N: I’m finishing the series with Tenten, because she’s my favorite. Got a problem?

And I just realized that I have a one shot out there that’s longer than all of these drabbles put together. Kills me dead, dude.

Disclaimer: Tenten is a free spirit! None can own her! I think.

Character: Tenten

extraordinarily regular

Tenten spins in the wind, her eyes narrowed as she calculates the velocity of her foe.

(she’s her own worst enemy)

The thought makes her sick enough to snarl, and angry enough to summon and summon and some all the blades she’d need to outfit an army.

Her clone stands across from her, and they pant in synch, before she’s had enough and throws a javelin at her carbon copies head.

(it’d be kinda weird to see her own brains splattered across the ground)

She jumpsducksweaves and spins, attacks, destroys—

She studies while she moves, disgusted at the predictability of the way she fights. She’s one of those self-taught ninjas, one of the ones who should have some sort of flair or irregularity, but for the most part are stuck with mastering the basics.

Anyone can throw a kunai, Tenten thinks, and chucked it forcefully, Anyone.

There were a billion people back in China, all of them having the same face as her. There were a billion people in China who’d think she was extraordinary for her fights, a master of their techniques. They wouldn’t be put off by her name or her accent, by her clothing or hairstyle.

She’d left her family back in China. She’d left everything.

The microphone in her ear buzzes with Lee’s yelps and Neji’s curses, and Tenten swerves at the last nanosecond to avoid being impaled by an arrow. She breaths in the air, and tries to think of her weaknesses.

She had left China to become a ninja, and she didn’t regret that. She had been following the footsteps of Tsunade, her idol.

It was

(foolish)

such an

(unrealistic)

ancient dream.

She wonders then, if it would have made any difference. If she wouldn’t have needed to struggle quite so hard to keep up with Neji and Lee, who were so different but so alike, and maybe could have been someone at the top of the game, instead of them. She’d like to fight Sakura one day, maybe just to see how much of a difference there is in their strength, and to fantasize over what might have been.

She brings the bo stick down on her clone’s hand with a nasty crack, and was promptly thrown into the river.

Underneath, Tenten grins savagely, as the water dragons whisper in her ear. She remembers China, where everything was beautiful.

Like an aquatic phoenix she throws herself back out and into the fight, whispering to her teammates.

Her teammates.

Tenten doesn’t have a home.

(but this is where she belongs)