#erumai writes fic sometimes

[erumai-maadu]

Sakura comes home after the second stage of the chunin exams with her hair short and her face set with grim determination to be stronger.

Her mother is distraught, eyes the choppy bob critically, before letting it go and telling her that it'll grow back quickly. She's young, after all, and her hair has always grown quickly.

But Sakura keeps trimming it, never letting it grow back out to the length that she was so proud of before. She feels freer without it, somehow. Her head is lighter, no longer pulled down by the weight of thick hair and people’s expectations.

It doesn't matter any more when people eye her bruised knuckles, the scars scattered on her body, the eyebags from long shifts at the hospital.

Short hair is more practical for a shinobi, after all. At least, that's what she tells her mother. They've never met the Hyuuga, so it doesn't matter if it isn't necessarily true.

Besides, Sakura isn't Neji, with his impenetrable defenses. She's a brawler with fists that punch through rock and shatter bones, and she cannot afford for someone to grab the hair that would whip around in the devastating blasts left in her wake.

Sometimes, she can still feel the Sound shinobi's hand in her hair, the burning pain in her scalp. Lee and Naruto unconscious on the ground and her weak, useless body trembling in fear.

Other nights, she feels the cold wind, a gentle pinch and a murmured "thank you" on the back of her neck. She sees Naruto's wide smile, a promise to bring him back to her, back to the village. Naruto and Sasuke with their backs to her, always in front, always walking away, leaving her behind.

Sakura trains with a savage ferocity that few can match. She needs to be better, always moving forward, so that some day, she can overtake Naruto and Sasuke.

There are times that she wakes up with a scream caught in her throat, hand reaching for a kunai pouch that isn't there. She gets up and sneaks out, runs to the mountains behind Hokage rock and pummels the rocks until her fists are bloody and her fears are assuaged. The weak little girl died in the Forest of Death, cut out of her along with the long pink locks she discarded.

The weight that was holding her back is gone. She will not be left behind. Never again.

[erumai-maadu]

WIP WEDNESDAY THURSDAY

doing these helps motivate me to write more so here’s a scene from a longfic i’m trying to write!

It is no surprise to any of them that Tenten is the first of their squad to kill.

It happens at the tail end of an ambush during one of their missions. An enemy nin leaps at Lee’s exposed back and Tenten doesn’t hesitate for a second to throw several kunai at him.

Tenten doesn’t miscalculate, always throws true and hits her target, and today is no different.

Three kunai slam into the enemy nin. One lodges in his shoulder, the second deep in his stomach, and the third goes through his throat.

In the cross-section of an instant, his eyes meet hers.

Unerring aim means unerring eyesight, and as Tenten sees the life bleed from his eyes in perfect clarity, she is suddenly acutely aware that it’s her kunai that he’s choking on in his throat.

He’s dead before he even hits the ground, and just like that, the fight is over.

It’s Gai-sensei who brings her back to herself, shaking her gently and calling her name.

She pushes his hand away and staggers to her feet. The last thing she wants is for any of them to pity her, to see her as weak. She pointedly ignores the kunai in the man she killed, and salvages every other weapon that she can.

They make camp and Tenten sits across from her team, staring blankly at the ground as she eats. Lee doesn’t say much, on Gai-sensei’s advice probably, and that only makes her feel worse.

She knows what she’s done. Of course she had been the first one to kill. Weapons are incredibly deadly, and Tenten has heard that lecture a million times before from her mother. She never aims for vital spots when she trains with Neji and Lee, and when Gai-sensei has her practice killing blows, it’s only ever on training dummies that can’t feel.

Tenten wonders if it had hurt when her kunai had severed his spine, and the thought causes her to double over, bile rising in her throat, and she throws herself to the side, vomiting her dinner into the closest bush.

She can feel tears running down her face, and wipes them away furiously. A shadow falls over her and she turns to see Gai-sensei standing over her.

He wordlessly offers her a water canteen, and Tenten takes it gratefully, gulping down half of it before giving it back.

Neji and Lee are gone when she gets back to the fire. Gai-sensei sits down next to her and lets out a long sigh.

“The first time is always the hardest,” he says, and Tenten has never heard her sensei speak so softly before.

“I killed him.” It’s the first time she’s spoken all night, and the words taste like ash when they come out. She can’t fight the sob that rises in her throat. “I just wanted...” She thinks of Lee, wide-eyed in the aftermath and thanking her profusely, and can’t stop the tears from streaming down her face. “I just wanted Lee to be okay.”

“Lee is alive because of you, Tenten.”

[erumai-maadu]

you know, i think tenten will also give them good luck charms for protection like how she gave her tsunade-sama one in sd.

she totally would, with her penchant for fortune telling, she’d handcraft three good luck/protection charms and give them to each of them.

I like to think she gives them to each of her team at different times.

Lee gets his first, after Tenten overhears him telling Gai-sensei about how he has almost lost hope in his dream to beat Neji.

“Perhaps just hard work isn’t enough,” he sobs to Gai-sensei as Tenten walks away, her heart heavy. She hands him a little good-luck charm at training the next day, a carved dragon, quietly telling him that he should never lose hope.

Neji may be a genius, but Lee is a genius of hard work, and she will protect his boundless hope until he achieves his dream. Perhaps it comes from a place of selfishness. After all, Tenten is no genius herself, and Lee’s hope is her hope too.

Or maybe it’s not selfishness, but relatability.

Whatever it is, Lee thanks her with a huge hug and many, many tears. Tenten protests loudly, but deep down, her heart swells.

He always keeps it in the hidden pocket of his jumpsuit, and never forgets to take the charm out before washing it. He shows it off with pride to everyone, much to Tenten's chagrin.

Gai-sensei receives his next, after both Tenten and Lee end up in the hospital after the Chunin Exams.

After Tenten is healed, she finds her sensei standing over a sleeping Lee, tears rolling down his face. He immediately puts on an act when Tenten walks in, but she knows what she saw, and it weighs on her.

The next day, when Gai-sensei pops into her physical therapy to check on her and offer some good old Gai-sensei encouragement (motivational shouting), Tenten pulls him aside. She hands him a small charm she’d made the previous night, a little wood turtle carved with the symbol for luck.

“Don’t worry sensei, the people you care about will always be okay!” She smiles brightly at him as she sets the charm in his hand. “It’s for protection—”

Gai-sensei’s thanks is also in the form of many, many tears and shouted declarations of his sweet lotus flower’s kindness and compassion. Tenten’s response, as usual, is loud and embarrassed protests, and a secret smile muffled in Gai-sensei’s broad shoulder as he hugs her tightly.

Gai keeps his charm in the safest pocket of his jounin vest, going as far as to ask Genma to give him a seal to make sure it never breaks or gets damaged. After all, his lotus gave it to him so he could protect her and her teammates, and he would rather die than let her down.

Neji is the last to receive his charm, after his fight with Naruto in the final round of the Chunin Exams. He sits in the hospital room and tells her about everything, his clan, his uncle apologizing to him, his restored faith in the future.

"I will change my clan," he insists to her. "I will better it, for all of the Hyuuga."

The next morning, through the rubble of a torn-apart and betrayed village, in the wake of the Sandaime Hokage's death, Tenten walks to the Hyuuga compound dressed in her mourning clothes and deposits a small carved phoenix charm in his hand.

"What's this for?" he asks, turning the charm over in his hand and studying it.

"Good fortune, protection." Unlike the rest of Team Gai, Tenten always keeps her stories to herself. For some reason, she finds the words tumbling out of her. "My mother used to make them for me. They were for protection and good luck."

Neji nods. He runs a thumb over the carved bird's wing. "Protecting what?"

"My hopes, my well-being, whatever it was she thought needed to be protected."

Neji finally looks up at her, understanding filtering through his gaze. Tenten turns around, ears burning. "Come on, let's go. They'll kill us if we're late to the funeral."

Neji stows his charm in the pockets of his clothes and jogs after her.

Several years later, when Lee surpasses everyone around him, his taijutsu a shining beacon of his hard work and dedication, he is ever aware of the wooden dragon in his pocket, the way his hope is a reflection of Tenten's. He vows to work harder, to prove to her that she can do it just like him.

He will protect her hope too.

On the battlefield facing down Madara Uchiha, Gai quickly moves the little turtle charm to the pocket over his heart. To protect the village, to protect his precious students, he can do anything.

"Eighth Gate of Death, release!"

As medics work to stabilize Neji in the emergency tents, they find a blood-soaked phoenix charm clutched in his hand.

His full recovery is nothing short of a miracle.

[erumai-maadu]

imagine minato and even kushina being a mentor to tenten if both were alive. that would have been really cool not to mention tenten will even have more knowledge and further enhance her skills in fuinjutsu and space-time ninjutsu.

anon. anon are you in my WIP folder? anon no! get out of there it’s dangerous!

I literally have a WIP of kushina and minato being mentors to Tenten and her being an older sister to Naruto!! I think her being Kushina's student especially is so fucking cool and I would have LOVED to see their interactions in an AU because imagine all the cool fuinjutsu she could have learned?? Tenten-Hiraishin would be REAL and I would be happy.

Plus Kushina would absolutely adopt all of Naruto's friends, and it would take her one look at Team Gai before she declares they're all her kids, and yes that includes you too Gai, get in here.

also have the tiny snippet ive written:

Tenten’s ink brush moves across the scroll, her hands less steady than she would like. Her heart pounds in her throat and her hands quickly grow damp. At this point, she’s barely focusing on the seal in front of her, more occupied with the presence looming over her like a god passing judgment. “You’re not focusing, Tenten-chan,” comes the admonishment, gentler than she had expected. “I’m sorry, Uzumaki-san.” “Kushina-sensei is fine.” She grins down at Tenten, and for a moment, Tenten is struck by just how much Naruto takes after his mother. “Just make sure you keep focused. We can’t move on until you learn the basics of elemental sealing.” “Sorry, Kushina-sensei.” She ducks, feeling her ears burn. Picking up her brush once more, she tries to concentrate on the seal in front of her and fails miserably, hyper-aware of Kushina’s intense gaze. “Relax, Tenten-chan.” Kushina sits in the chair next to Tenten’s and tilts her head to look at her scroll, blazing red hair identical to Naruto’s falling over her shoulder. “We’re not all that intimidating, are we?” “N-no,” she lies. Kushina’s bright laughter brings the Hokage into the living room, a warm smile on his face. “Ah, Tenten-chan, how’s that seal going?” His eyebrows knit. “I wonder if we started you off with something too complex.” Tenten feels her heart skip a beat and fights the urge to leap out of her chair. “No, no! I can handle it, I promise!” She gestures at her scroll. “I’m nearly done, I just need to finish the stabilizing ring and it’ll be set to test!” “Don’t worry about her, Minato, I’ve been watching her the entire time.” She shares a look with her husband. “She’s got a real knack for fuinjutsu." "I suspected as much when Naruto told me about a girl who fought with scrolls of storage seals." He takes a seat at the table next to his wife. "I remember seeing reports of you fight at the chunin exams. I couldn't believe that you were self-taught, with those complex seals. It's been a while since we've seen anyone in Konoha with this much potential for fuinjutsu." Kushina nods. "With the right training you could become like the old masters of Uzushiogakure." Tenten's brush clatters to the table as Kushina leans forward and clasps Tenten's hands in hers. "We're excited to teach you, Tenten-chan!"

[erumai-maadu]

maybe a fuinjutsu chakra type since sealing jutsu are unique compared to most jutsu?

Fuinjutsu Type: yin heavy chakra type, tends to swirl outward from center of body (this is partially why the Uzumaki symbol is a swirl, aside from the whirlpools of Uzushio) and likes to flow out to the fingers, which makes application of sealing jutsu easier. This also means that more often than not, their primary chakra nature ends up being wind or water, since both of those have a tendency to swirl. Wind natured-fuinjutsu type chakra has sharp edges to its swirls and is thinner and rotates faster, compared to water-natured fuinjutsu type chakra, which has a more powerful rotation, but is slower and thicker. Fuinjutsu chakra also bleeds off, making those with this chakra type have lower levels of chakra control.

Chakra Type headcanons

basically i read about genjutsu types and sensorr types and thought hey if this is gonna be a method of classification there should be more categories and then i thought up a whole load a bullshit on chakra theories

Sensor Type: what it says on the tin, chakra user with natural ability to sense chakra. these types tend to have a higher ratio of yin in their systems and their chakra tends to naturally push itself closer to the skin or even outward, though never straying so far as to physically leave the chakra users body. it behaves a sort of extrra sensory organ “attached” to the head. can cause clinical chakra hypersensitivity in extremely sensitive people

Genjutsu Type: type has a heavy ratio of yin chakra to yang, chakra tends to “crawl” outward and over the users skin but is easily controlled by the chakra user. doesnt “fight” when manipulated into another chakra system for genjutsu or medical jutsu. chakra tends to be naturally rather sterile, somewhat weakly presenting as its nature, and is bad for elemental ninjutsu though not impossible to use for it just makes slightly weaker ninjutsu.

Stealth Type: this type has no specific leanings towards yin or yang and tends to be “paired” with a different type. this types chakra tends to naturally suppress itself, which makes its good for stealth, but also is diificult to manipulate for any type of genjutsu or ninjutsu, as it doesnt want to leave the body/chakra system, though its easier for the chakra user to push it around their body to augment taijutsu.

Ninjutsu Type: chakra user with a high ratio of volatile yang chakra that makes ninjutau extra potent. seems to make elemental ninjutsu more “solid” and hit harder for it with the physical nature of yang chakra. volatile nature makes the chakra harder to manipulate finely for things like mediccal ninjutsu and genjutsu. chakra that “bleeds out” through the skin without being used in jutsu naturally tends to behave like its elemental nature, dripping like water, blwing off like wind.

Taijutsu Type: yang heavy chakra type that tends to want to stick inside the body/chakra system of a user and funnels naturally into the limbs and muscles to reinforce and augment the body in periods of high activity and stress, but otherwise doesnt do much beside ciirculate through the system naturally as all chakra does.

there are combination types but you could probably figure that out on your own. bleed out chakra is pretty much just waste chakra that was overproduced leftover expelled through the skin because the body made it but didnt need it for anything

[erumai-maadu]

@bitchnojutsu challenge accepted i’ll start working on it as soon as my finals are done next week!!!!

[erumai-maadu]

hi my name is Chandu and once in a blue moon I write fic

after almost one year (😭😭) One-Woman Army chapter 4, featuring: an explanation of what happened to Hinata, plus the subplots I accidentally added because I do not control this fic, it controls me.

it’s been a while!! (*sweats* it’s been a year holy fuckmst) have some excuses to make up for it. school really kicked my ass but also life happened, medical problems, mental health shit, etc. long story short, it’s been a hard year so this update’s taken forever and a half to make.

The biggest thing though has been that I majorly revamped this story. Chapter 1 is completely different (and hopefully far better than the trash fire it was before) and there have been major resulting changes to chapter 2.

The reason is that I published the first three chapters without fully planning out my plot. Chapter 1 was deadass a rough draft that I was like “yeah this is fine post it” (it was not fine). Once I finished coming up with the plot, I had to completely change the first chapter and a lot of the second to reflect that. Now it should all be cohesive and hopefully far better than before! so enjoy!

meanwhile I’ll pray to the writing gods that chapter 5 doesn’t take a whole year to come out

[erumai-maadu]

she soars into the air with her scrolls spinning around her and everything around him fades away. he has eyes only for her. 

her form eclipses the moon, turning into a shadow backlit with silver, near invisible in the night. he watches her gleaming weapons tear into one enemy after another, raining destruction from the sky.

tenten. twice heaven. the queen of the sky flying above the battlefield, a goddess of steel and blood. she has never looked more beautiful to him.

his heart reaches out desperately, weighed down by his love for her. he can feel a cry of her name rising in his chest. as if answering its silent call, she turns to him for a brief instant.

he only wishes he could see the face hidden behind her porcelain dragon mask.

[erumai-maadu]

Listen, a Tenten and Sasuke friendship would be ABSOLUTE CHAOS in both canon and a non-massacre AU, and I cannot believe I never considered this before.

first of all, these two would be the friends that roast each other 25/8 and other people are like "are you sure you two are friends?" and they are, and they care abt each other, but they can absolutely OWN the other person at a moment's notice and will do so without hesitation.

Tenten: *talking about how smart Neji is*

Sasuke: Ah, so he balances you out.

Tenten: *offended* you’re dating Sakura, aren’t you? Pot calling kettle black here.

Tenten: A dumb bitch calling another dumb bitch a dumb bitch.

Sasuke: You’re the only dumb bitch here.

Sasuke and Tenten: *overlapping shouting of how stupid the other is which eventually results in a fistfight*

Neji, standing nearby: why do we like them again?

Sakura, next to Neji: You know, I have no clue. Maybe we’re the dumb bitches here.

second, Tenten and Sasuke do illegal shit together all the time. Like , after the war, after Sasuke gets released, they just casually steal top-secret government documents if they wanna know smth and get chased across the village by ANBU. On occasion, they commit recreational arson to training grounds (and once, the main Hyuuga compound, after getting Hinata and Hanabi out, of course). They've been put in jail multiple times and bailed out by Kakashi and Gai (their dads) because Kakashi is Hokage and assures the ANBU that this won’t happen again, but everyone knows that it will. 

Post-war, Neji and Sakura drink tea together and complain about their significant other’s illegal activities. Sakura ends up having to treat their inevitable injuries and rants at a very pouty Sasuke about doing dumb shit while Neji (now the head of the Hyuuga clan) scolds his fiancee for being irresponsible, but they both know she’s just gonna go back out and blow up more shit.

Also, pre-Sasuke Retrieval, if they had been friends, Sasuke would appreciate that she was the only girl in the Konoha 12 that didn’t act like a fangirl. (that’s not to say that Tenten wasn’t attracted to him at first, but she was really lowkey about it, and after finding out he was a bit of a pissy bitch, she kinda lost that attraction all together.) 

They would train together and Tenten would help Sasuke train to be better with his weapons and help improve his taijutsu, and Sasuke would help Tenten with some elemental ninjutsu and maybe even get her some really good quality weapons because the Uchiha had their weapons custom-made from some really good blacksmith. He can also help her learn to break genjutsu more effectively, which would be a good idea for Tenten to know.  

In a non-massacre AU, former street rat Tenten teaches privileged clan kid Sasuke to break the law, to the collective horror of the Uchiha Police Force, who chase them around the village on a daily basis for doing illegal shit.

anyway a Tenten Sasuke friendship would be too powerful and that’s why Kishimoto didn’t do it.

[erumai-maadu]

hi this is my introduction post

link to my Ao3 where i post all of the fics that somehow make it out of my drafts

[erumai-maadu]

guys GUYS remember my Tenten with Hiraishin thing?

if Tenten has Hiraishin she would definitely mark her teammates so that she can protect them, and when she marks Neji, she puts the mark on his back. The Hiraishin marks never disappear, which means...

Tenten would always be protecting Neji’s blindspot, even after she dies.

[erumai-maadu]

Tenten and Hiraishin

okay so my hot fucking take is that Tenten should have learned the Hiraishin no Jutsu (Flying Thunder God Jutsu). 

Some info about Hiraishin: It is a space-time ninjutsu, and was created by Tobirama Senju. Each person has a unique seal formula that they can apply to any object by touching it. The mark never disappears (even after the user dies), and there’s seemingly no limit to how many marks can be placed. Once the mark is placed, the user can teleport to a mark’s location, regardless of distance. Anything the user is holding or is linked with the user’s chakra will teleport with them, but that would likely require additional chakra. Users can also teleport objects to a different location than them, or teleport an object without teleporting themselves. The technique is also commonly used with projectile weapons like kunai to give the user an escape or another location to teleport to.

One quick disclaimer: The most we saw the technique used was with reanimated Minato during the 4th Great Ninja War, and he had infinite chakra in his reanimated state, so that may not be the best example for the jutsu’s limitations. I’d assume that the further away the formula mark from the user, the more chakra required to move to it, and the larger the extra object one is trying to teleport, the more chakra it consumes (think about the chakra consumption from trying to teleport another human, compared to a giant boulder, compared to a Tailed Beast Ball like Minato did during the Nine-Tails attack).

Now back on the topic of best girl Tenten: The Hiraishin would fit quite well with her fighting style. Tenten is a mix of ranged and melee fighter. She tends to start off fighting at a distance, launching weapons at enemies, and then getting in close and finishing them off. Hiraishin’s projectile style would work out well for her. She’d start by launching a bunch of kunai from a scroll at the enemy, like her usual opening move, except all of them would be marked with her Hiraishin formula. Once those land, if there are any enemies left (because just regular old kunai are deadly too), she can pull out another weapon, teleport to the kunai closest to the enemy/enemies, and start fighting in close range. 

Also, as a weapons’ specialist, Tenten isn’t limited to using just kunai with the Hiraishin. Shuriken and maybe thicker senbon work too as projectile weapons. We’ve never seen it, but Hiraishin’s formula can potentially be applied to any weapon, so why not on the end of the chain of a kusarigama? Instead of having to draw an enemy in with the chain in order to stick them with the sickle, she can just teleport to the end of the chain where they’re being held and kill them. Using paper bombs also becomes a million times easier since she can teleport away so she isn’t caught in her own explosions.

Tenten has also trained with Gai, Lee, and Neji, so you’d better believe her taijutsu is good. Tenten can likely hold her own against a master after Gai’s training, and probably knows a few Gentle Fist moves from sparring with Neji quite often. So in a combat situation, if she (for some reason) didn’t have any weapons on her, Hiraishin can be applied by a touch of the hand, so she could use a bastardized version of the Gentle Fist to apply her seal formula onto the enemy/enemies. She could apply the seal formula on multiple areas of a person’s body. By doing that, she can teleport in close to the enemy, beat them with some taijutsu (probably using Strong Fist at that point), and then teleport onto a different side of them to beat them up from a different angle. If fighting multiple enemies, she can teleport between enemies at any given moment, effectively occupying the whole group.

Giving Tenten Hiraishin would also even out the huge power gap between her and the other ninja in the series. Since pretty much everyone in the Konoha 12 has at least one very powerful technique, Tenten, with her normal human scale powers seems very weak in comparison. I’m not saying this’ll make her equal to Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, or hell, even Lee, but at the very least she’s on a tier equal to Neji, or InoShikaCho.

Edit: IT WAS ALSO JUST BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION, BUT IF TENTEN HAD HIRAISHIN, SHE COULD HAVE FUCKING SAVED NEJI, BECAUSE YOU BETTER BELIEVE SHE WOULD MARK HER TEAMMATES WITH THE FORMULA SO SHE COULD COME TO THEIR AID AT ANY MOMENT

Also the image of Tennie teleporting around the battlefield to fight a whole division of an army by herself is just such a cool visual.

Imagine Tenten arriving at a battlefield against a ton of enemies and releasing a horde of various projectile weaponry from a scroll like she normally does, but these projectiles are inscribed with her Hiraishin formula. They fly forward, and hit trees and the ground, and some of the kunai and senbon and shuriken find their mark on enemies. One of the surviving enemies lunges at her, and Tenten just vanishes in front of their eyes. She lands next to one of her kunai, and unseals a weapon or five. Teleporting from kunai to kunai, she slashes at enemies with her multitudes of swords, knives, chain whips, and other weapons, too fast for anyone to even react. In minutes, a horde of enemies would be dead bodies rotting on the ground.

We were fucking robbed.

[erumai-maadu]

@rock-n-roll-lee here’s the nejiten oneshot you bullied out of me (jk ily and I wanted to write this for you hope you like it)

Modern AU, established relationship, fluffiest shit I’ve ever written.

word count: 1351

warnings: none

---

“Tenten? Hey, Tenten, wake up. We’re at your apartment.”

The sound of Lee’s voice pulled Tenten out of the haze of sleep. The chill of the window against her cheek reminded her that this, unfortunately, was the real world, which meant she had to get up to get back home. Opening her eyes, the harsh glare of a street lamp immediately assaulted her vision, making her squint.

She let out a little groan as she slowly sat up, her body aching. “Sorry about that,” Tenten mumbled, bending down and rummaging around for her bag. “Didn’t mean to fall asleep.” Not finding it, she reached into the back of Lee’s truck, feeling around blindly in the dark.

“No problem. After all, anyone would be tired after what you did today. You were so awesome, Tenten!”

“Aww, thanks Lee. You did really well too!” Finally finding the strap of her bag, Tenten hauled it into her lap, wincing as her muscles protested the exertion. “Kami, I’m gonna be so sore tomorrow. I’m gonna have to skip out on our daily run.”

“I do not blame you. I think I’ll do the same, honestly.”

“Yeah, I get that.” She smirked at him. “Gives you an excuse to spend some quality time with Gaara in the morning.”

Lee flushed bright red at her implication and sputtered a bit before regaining control of himself. “Speaking of significant others, Neji comes back from his trip in a month, right?”

Tenten sighed, mood immediately soured. “Yeah, but he hasn’t texted in days.”

“What?” Lee demanded. “He hasn’t texted? That is very unlike him! You should call him and inquire what the matter is.”

“Tried that. Went straight to voicemail.”

“Seriously?” When she nodded, Lee yanked his phone out. “I’ll call him right now. If he picks up, he’s in for it.”

“Don’t bother.” Tenten waved her hand dismissively. “I’m too tired for this shit. I’ll try Hinata’s phone tomorrow.”

Lee’s eyes were filled with concern. “Are you sure, Tenten?”

“Yeah. It’s okay, Lee.” She smiled at him. “We know Neji. He’s probably just busy with some job that Hiashi-san gave him. Honestly, I’m pretty sure he’s trying to work Neji to death so he doesn’t have to hand the company over to him.”

Lee nodded, concern still etched into his expression. “I suppose. Let me know if you need anything at all, Tenten.”

“Thanks, Lee.” She opened the van door and stepped out, shielding her eyes from the brightness of the streetlamp. “Have a good night.” The door slammed shut, the noise echoing through the empty street in the dead of night.

“You too, Tenten. Don’t forget to stretch and get a good night’s rest. You earned it.” Lee shot her his signature Nice Guy Grin. “Congratulations on winning gold.”

They waved goodbye and Lee drove away as Tenten scanned her key card to get into the apartment complex. She painstakingly made her way up three flights of stairs and finally reached her door after what seemed like ten years. Fumbling with her keys, it took her three attempts before she managed to unlock her door and step inside. 

In a haze of exhaustion, she removed her shoes and dumped her bag somewhere on the ground, the medal inside making a loud clank as it hit the ground. Shuffling into her bedroom, she flopped down on her bed and let out a sigh of contentment, already half-asleep.

“Tenten.” A deep male voice came from behind her, startling her awake. Who the hell was in her apartment? Shooting up, she looked for the source of the voice and found her gaze locking with a pair of lavender eyes. The breath rushed out of her.

“Neji,” she breathed, not daring to believe this was real. “What are you doing here? Aren’t you in America? You’re not supposed to be back for another month.”

“I asked Hiashi-sama for early leave. I missed you so much.” He smiled, stepping closer. “I also wanted to watch your tournament, but my flight was delayed. I got here about ten minutes before you did.”

“Is that why you haven’t texted for the past few days?”

He nodded. “It was a hassle, trying to get Hiashi-sama to approve my absence, and then he tried to shove as much work as he could at me before I left. I’m sorry about that.”

“Don’t be. I totally get it.”

“I’m going to take a shower.” He took another step forward and slipped his hand into hers, squeezing once. “Join me?”

“Neji I don’t have the energy for—”

“Not like that. We’re both too tired for that.” He let out a warm little laugh and squeezed her hand again. “Just getting clean. Then we sleep.”

“Okay.” She allowed him to pull her up and out of bed.

A short shower later, they dressed and dried their hair, Neji gently removing the tangles from the rat’s nest she called hair in a way only he could do.

(“Don’t call it that!” he admonished. “Your hair is beautiful, just like the rest of you.” He pressed a gentle kiss to the back of her neck.)

Neji’s hair, of course, was smooth and silky with minimal tangles, even after two days of airplane travel because the universe was unfair like that.

“Frickin’ Hyuuga and their magical hair.”

“Magical hair?” Neji asked, his voice full of amusement.

“Two days of airplane travel and like three minor tangles? That’s the definition of magical hair.” She ran the comb through, marveling at the easy slide. “You’re like Rapunzel or something.”

“Does that make you my prince then?”

“Obviously. I’ll ride in looking all dashing and handsome and save you from the tower and take you on a wild adventure.” She yawned, exhaustion crashing like a wave over her. “Well, maybe we can go on a wild adventure tomorrow. For now, I need to sleep.” She stood up with a sigh and took a step in the direction of the bedroom, but Neji hadn’t moved an inch. Turning back to him, she frowned. “Neji?”

“In a way,” he started slowly, “I suppose you did save me from a tower.”

She stared at him for a moment. When his meaning finally became clear, she let out a soft huff of laughter. “Huh. Well, I suppose I did.” She walked over to him and pulled him up, planting a small kiss on his mouth that was more smile than kiss, in all honesty. “You’re such a dork, Neji.”

Neji laughed and stood up, gently tugging her in the direction of their bedroom. She gladly followed him, throwing herself on the bed and snuggling under the covers as quickly as she could. Neji switched off the lights and slipped in next to her, wrapping his arms around her and drawing her to him once again.

“I’m glad you’re back.” She shifted even closer to him, letting her forehead rest on his neck. He smelled like lavender, from her soap. The scent reminded her of the color of his eyes, which was part of the reason she preferred that soap in the first place.

(She’d been using lavender-scented soap since middle school, but he didn’t need to know that.)

“It’s good to be home. I heard you won gold in the competition?”

“Yeah, I did. It was super hard, though. Remember Karui? The girl from Kumo? I fought her in the finals. I just barely won.” She was probably slurring her words, but she couldn’t bring herself to care.

“Ah. No wonder you were so tired when you got home. Lee dropped you off, didn’t he? I saw his truck outside.”

“Yeah. That green hunk of junk is hard to miss,” she grumbled.

He laughed, the pleasant vibration of his chest lulling Tenten further to sleep. “It certainly suits him, I suppose. It matches his jumpsuit too.”

“Mmh. It does.”

Neji let out another soft laugh and pressed a soft kiss to her forehead. “Ah, sorry for talking so much. Go to sleep, my love. We will talk more in the morning.”

“G’night. Love you.”

“I love you too, Tenten.”

[erumai-maadu]

people of the world I need your honest opinion. how high do you think Tenten's alcohol tolerance is?

[erumai-maadu]

An ANBU Headcanon

There are two types of ANBU missions and a different level of ANBU to go with each one. (I’m specifically talking about Konoha in this, but this can probably be applied to other villages too.)

So ANBU handles deep-cover, ultra secret missions that require a high level of skill in stealth and secrecy that a regular jounin doesn’t have. 

There are some missions that need that level of skill just because they’re difficult and complicated. This is the mission type that most ANBU get, and while they do range wildly in difficulty, they tend to more difficult than what the average jounin can handle. The world can know that Konoha was the one that ordered that mission and nothing will come of it. These are assigned to the first ANBU level.

Then, there are those super-duper top-secret missions that Konoha might not want the world to know about, like political assassinations, long-term deep-cover spying, most kinds of sabotage, causing the political destabilization and eventual collapse of a town/village/country, and other such missions. These are assigned to the second ANBU level.

Level 1 ANBU: For the first type of mission, Konoha just needs some highly trained ninja with specialized infiltration training to go in and fuck some shit up. Internal ANBU stuff, like top-secret missions within the village are usually handled by these guys too. This is the level that Kakashi, Itachi, Shisui, and most well-known Konoha clan shinobi that make ANBU are in.

Level 2 ANBU: For the second type of mission, if Konoha doesn’t want the world to know it’s involved, it can’t under any circumstances use a shinobi from a recognizable clan. This means any clan with a hiden (clan-specific) technique is not an option for these missions. That means the Uchiha, Hyuuga, Inuzuka, Aburame, Nara, Akimichi, Yamanaka, and probably a few others I’m forgetting cannot be allowed on these missions. Their jutsu are too recognizable, and anyone with half a brain could connect the dots and put two and two together and figure out it was Konoha ordering that mission. Also, there’s a high risk of capture, and at that level of mission, the shinobi are ordered to kill themselves upon capture to avoid information being extracted. Major clan shinobi aren’t disposable, so the clan would probably protest if they found out that’s what happened, and then the village would have an internal issue on their hands.

That’s why the second level of ANBU consists of soldiers from ROOT and shinobi from clans that don’t have a hiden jutsu. They’re disposable since those clans are usually smaller and don’t hold much influence, and have a lower chance of being recognized. These guys don’t wear the ANBU tattoo because, again, they can’t have their village identified under any circumstances.

ANBU all start off as Level 1, but once certain ones who fit the qualifications for Level 2 become good enough, they’re assigned Level 2 missions and their tattoo is removed in a rather painstaking process. They’re given generic blank masks in the case of an assassination, but if they’re planning to frame another village/nation, the according mask, temporary tattoo, and hitai-ate are acquired.

And finally, if anyone’s wondering why Kakashi, who isn’t from one of those large clans that have hiden jutsu, is in Level 1 ANBU, it’s because of his frequent use of Chidori and borrowed Sharingan. both of those became so widely recognized that even when he was wearing a mask, people could tell it was him.

feel free to use and add on.

[erumai-maadu]

The Hokage Guard Platoon and Flying Thunder Formation

Here I explain (at great length) my personal headcanon on Genma, Raidou, and Iwashi’s chakra types and why it takes all three of them to do the Flying Thunder God jutsu. The explanation gets a bit long, sorry.

A while ago, I wrote a long post on how Tenten should have had Hiraishin no Jutsu and how good she’d be with it. You can find it on my blog if you’re interested (tagged under “back on my hiraishin bullshit”) because Tumblr’s a goober and won’t let me link it.

So I’m writing a fic of it (because of course I am), and in it, Tenten’s gonna find one of Minato’s kunai on a mission, find out what it is, and eventually learn the Hiraishin no Jutsu. As I was plotting the fic out, I hit a problem, because there was no one to teach it to her. Sure, Tenten could learn it on her own, but no one’s perfect, and she should have a teacher so she doesn’t have a fuck up of epic proportions and accidentally time travel or teleport into the void and die, which is exactly what Gai is going to tell her in the fic with less profanity.

Originally, I was gonna create an OC to do it since there’s no one else to teach her. Minato’s out, because he’s just a little dead, and Tobirama is not only dead, but also a jutsu hoarder and would never teach anyone. So then I was stuck, because those two the only ones in Naruto who know the Hiraishin. Or so I thought.

Because then, I had a fucking epiphany and realized Genma Shiranui also knows it.

The Hokage Guard Platoon was taught a minor version of Hiraishin by Minato. It consists of three tokubetsu jounin: Genma Shiranui, Raidou Namiashi, and Iwashi Tatami. During his reign, when they served him, Minato taught them the Hiraijin no Jutsu, or Flying Thunder Formation Technique (imma just call it Hiraijin). Hiraijin works the same way as Hiraishin, but it takes all three of the tokujo to do it.

So then came another problem: why does it take all three of them to pull off that jutsu?

(Everything after this is my theory and headcanon)

In the manga, I think Kishi just wanted to hype up Minato’s abilities and say “hey look he can do something that takes 3 regular ninja to do, so he’s pretty strong!” and I replied, “fuck that, that’s a horrible explanation” and sat there for 40 minutes staring off into the middle distance trying to come up with a better explanation. Here’s what I’ve got:

Genma, Raidou, and Iwashi had the wrong chakra type and they couldn’t stabilize their individual seals.

Important Note: when I say chakra type, I don’t mean nature transformation, I mean what type(s) of jutsu someone’s chakra is suited for. I found this amazing headcanon list of chakra types which I used as reference, so read it because I’m basing everything after this on that. (I reblogged it and added one to it and it should be a fairly recent post on my blog if you want to see it. Credit goes to @deepest-dope and this hellsite once again won’t let me link the original post so fuck tumblr.)

(this paragraph is canon information) Back on topic, Hiraishin and Hiraijin use a seal formula as the “lightning rod” to which a person teleports (hence the name). The way Hiraishin/Hiraijin works is that the seal formula contains a bit of the user’s chakra sealed into it (that’s why the jutsu should also be classified as partial fuinjutsu; it uses a seal to work) and the user just reverse-summons themselves to their own sealed chakra.

Seals have to be balanced, according to canon, so I headcanoned that Genma, Raidou, and Iwashi had the wrong chakra types for the Hiraishin seal, so their individual seals were too unstable (I’ll go into more detail as to why in a moment). When they did a joint seal and each one of them sealed a bit of their chakra into the same seal, it balanced, hence the need for all three of them to make the technique work. Using that list of chakra types, I just picked which ones worked with each of the three.

Genma: I headcanoned him as a stealth chakra type. This means his chakra is light and naturally suppresses itself, which is not good for Hiraishin, because he can’t sense the location of his own seals.

Raidou: He’s a taijutsu type (I’m pathetic and picked it out just because he’s skilled with a sword and we don’t see many jutsu from any of these guys). His chakra’s heavy and doesn’t really like to go out of his body, so putting it into a seal is a hassle. Even worse is that taijutsu type chakra is yang heavy, which is the exact opposite of the chakra used for sealing (yin chakra), which makes the seal even more weak and unstable by himself.

Iwashi: Also a stealth type, so he’s got the same issues as Genma, even though he’s also a sensor (I know he isn’t in canon, but this whole post is me saying fuck canon anyway). The sensor type chakra does give him the benefit of being yin heavy, which is good for seals, but useless if he can’t sense it because of its natural suppression tendencies.

So, seeing all these issues, Minato, fourth Hokage and seal master, pondered on how to fix it and came up with an idea. A group seal that would balance itself because each person’s chakra type was so different from the others’ chakra types.

Raidou’s heavy chakra is balanced out by the two other light chakra types. Iwashi’s sensor type chakra is yin heavy, while Raidou’s taijutsu chakra is yang heavy, balancing those out. Genma’s stealth chakra is balanced between yin and yang, so it won’t affect that ratio. The taijutsu chakra and sensor chakra will cancel out the self-suppressing nature of the stealth chakra, so they’ll be able to sense their seal and draw themselves to it.

So that solved that problem. Yay!

So a quick question I’d like answered for my fic: How do you think Tenten and Genma’s interactions would be based on what little we know of their canon personalities? Chaotic and full of craziness? Snarky and full of back and forth quips? Casual and friendly?

If you guys have any criticisms or additions for my headcanons, I’d love to hear them! Thanks for reading this monster of a post!