A/N: Hello! I finally decided to try something a little different than my usual AU. This is my first (I think?) attempt at doing a NejiTen canon, fully-formed fic. I am slightly apprehensive to post, because in general I find writing canon restraining, but the idea I had caught my attention and I wanted to give it a try. While this fic is canon, it diverges in some places, the most specific being that Neji is alive and I've filled in Tenten's history. This fic will be about seven chapters long, but between each linear chapter there will be an interlude chapter of sorts. Everything is mostly done, but this time around, I'll be adhering to a post schedule. I'll be updating new chapters each Monday, so if you'd like to be notified, make sure you hit the Follow button. Research notes at the bottom, as always.

06/10/2020: Edited for grammar, tense, and some consistency.

- FORGING MNEMOSYNE -

I'm just action

And at other times reaction

All I owe, all I owe

In strides I spend to the finish line

- Nothing to Remember, Neko Case

- one -

It is no secret that Tenten is feeling underwhelmed by their latest mission.

When the Rokudaime had tasked Team Gai with traveling to the southeastern point of the Land of Fire to receive a message from the Hot Water daimyo, Tenten had almost scoffed, but had withheld her argument until they'd left the Hokage's office. "It's just—why can't we get something with a little more grit, you know?" she had said, beginning to tromp down the staircase set inside Hokage Mountain.

Neji had sent her a sharp look of disapproval as he and Lee had followed. Tenten had clamped down on her slew of complaints, waiting until Neji had murmured, "You disrespect the Hokage by saying this mission is beneath you" before snapping, "What is the point anymore?!"

She had squinted as they emerged into the bright summer sunshine of a Konoha afternoon. Irritably, she continues, "All of this traipsing around, acting like nothing more than messengers. Why is he even sending all of us—one person could handle this job easily!"

Lee had raised his eyebrows at Tenten's outburst and opened his mouth to offer a more positive outlook, but Neji had interrupted, gaze narrowed. "We serve the Hokage, which in turn is serving the village. It is not our place to decide which tasks are important and which are not," he'd reminded her sternly. Tenten had rolled her eyes at that and, unwilling to have it out with either of her teammates, had stormed off to pack for the mission without another word.

But now, as they move through the branches of a dense wood, her frustration resurfaces. They'd only been on diplomacy missions for months. After the war, as the world adjusted to a new era of peace, Team Gai would ferry back and forth between nations, carrying messages, escorting dignitaries, standing silent in meetings—a presence of Konoha's power and goodwill-which Tenten acknowledged was more than what most teams were given charge of these days. Still, she finds it all incredibly boring. Her fingers twitch near constantly from the lack of metal and adrenaline. Her life has seen a great decrease in action, and it is an adjustment she hasn't quite made.

She's never considered herself bloodthirsty or violent, not like some other ninja. But there had been an unsettling in the pit of her stomach that had crept up at the conclusion of the war, a slight emptiness that felt too close to purposelessness. It had been gnawing at her for months, and no matter how much she trained with her teammates, or polished her weapons, or went on effortless missions, Tenten couldn't shake it. And it is starting to show.

Tenten pulls ahead of her teammates, rushing to the front of their formation in a burst of chakra, her hand lingering on the pouch at her waist.

"Don't get too far ahead," Neji cautions from behind.

Tenten rolls her eyes and considers pouring on more speed. But with a heavy sigh, Tenten heeds him, shifting to a steadier pace.

Like all their missions lately, this one is simple in nature: pick up a message from the Land of Hot Water and come back to Konoha: straightforward, easy, and uneventful. Tenten wonders why she even bothered to come as prepared as she had.

At midday, they pause their travel through the trees to discuss lunch. Tenten, who would rather get the mission over with, opts for them to keep going until they reach the border that the Land of Fire shares with the Land of Hot Water. But Lee and Neji veto her.

Her sour look earns her an amused smirk from Neji as they drop to the forest floor, deciding to find a clear area to eat and rest. "There's no point in arriving at the border exhausted. We're cleared for two days of travel," Neji tells her, moving past to sit next to Lee.

"Someone sounds like he's out of shape," Tenten retorts. He chuckles, and Tenten sighs aloud, begrudgingly following him.

They eat in contented silence as the afternoon gets hotter. Lee says that he wants to spend the rest of the afternoon walking. Neji readily agrees, and Tenten grumbles. "It'll take us so much longer," Tenten mutters.

"Tenten, do you have something to do back at the village?" Lee asks, raising his eyebrows.

Tenten purses her lips, ignoring Neji as he smugly waits for her answer. "No," she replies, reaching down to rummage through her pack for another apple—but she hadn't packed any spares. She sighs in irritation, her stomach grumbling.

Neji's hand nudges hers, offering an orange. Tenten takes it gratefully, her annoyance with him sliding away. "So impatient," he scoffs under his breath, only for her ears.

Tenten unceremoniously drops her orange peels on Neji's feet.

Lee sets an unusual leisurely pace, happy to bask in the early summer sunshine. Neji is detailing the new training regimen he'd worked out with his uncle for Hanabi's lessons, answering Lee's probing questions on how he's started to incorporate more blended taijutsu techniques, slightly altering the traditional Hyuga forms.

Tenten rolls her neck, listening to Neji's analysis of Hanabi's progress over the last six months. It was odd to hear of him speak of training in such analytical terms; it had been a long time since Tenten had heard one of Neji's commentaries on proper footing or hand movement. These days Neji and Tenten's sessions were few and far between, largely consisted of staying in shape, not out of any desperation to master jutsu or technique—those days seemed largely behind them.

Tenten frowns, absently reaching for a shuriken to fiddle with. Why does everything have to change? she thinks, a pinch of discomfort cinching in her chest.

Neji glances at her, as if sensing her mood change, but says nothing, finishing his assessment of some of the younger Hyuga generation's skills. Tenten tries not to feel jealous. A few months after the war, Hiashi had asked Neji to take over most of the clan responsibility in teaching the Hyuga techniques to the younger children, while Hiashi focused on preparing Hanabi for clan leadership. Which meant less time for Tenten.

Not that it matters, Tenten reminds herself for the umpteenth time. We're not genin anymore. We're not Team Gai like we used to be, not since—

A pang in her chest cuts off the thought, her eyelids fluttering as she pushes away the memories: Gai, returning crippled, his limbs loose and drained of power; Lee, tears pouring down his cheeks in anguish, in exhaustion; Neji, bleeding out on the ground, half-dead already. . .

"Tenten?"

Tenten winces and looks up, meeting Neji's focused gaze. She forces a smile to her mouth and teases, "It's been a long time since you critiqued me like that. It sounds like Hiashi-sama is prepping you to be an instructor. Tell me, when are you going to sign up to teach at the Academy?"

Neji lifts an eyebrow, clearly not falling for her attempt to change the subject. Lee, however, jumps at the suggestion. "Neji!" he exclaims, turning to him. "You must! You would be a wonderful teacher! Almost as youthful as Gai-sensei!"

Neji looks away from Tenten reluctantly to frown at Lee. Tenten releases a private smirk and tunes into Lee's excited discourse on how good of a teacher Neji would be, chiming in with her own mocking comments. It only takes five minutes before Neji is heading the front of their formation, stepping farther away so as not to hear.

"He is disinterested in our suggestion, I think," Lee says to Tenten.

Tenten chuckles, thinking of Neji teaching in one of the classrooms. The image leaves her feeling discomfited, rather than amused.

As the afternoon wanes on, Lee grows restless once more. He interrupts Tenten as she's giving a detailed history of the Treasured Tools—an obsession she'd retained ever since she'd handled them during the war.

"Enough chatter!" Lee says, causing Tenten and Neji to glance over at him. Their green-clad teammate is in the middle of performing a handstand. Lee's black hair swings down, exposing his forehead, his dark eyes burning with a challenge. "We need to keep our bodies prepared for the mission! Tenten, Neji, join me!"

Neji tells him a flat, "No."

But Tenten, after walking a few steps, sighs and drops her head, stretching out her hands and straightening her body above her. "Race you," she calls to Lee as she moves her arms with surprising speed. Lee lets out a whoop and hurries to catch up. Neji shakes his head, watching them, unable to help the relaxed smile that rests on his mouth.

Lee outpaces Tenten by several yards by the time they reach their halfway point—a valley with a small lake. Tenten sighs as she lets herself fall onto her back, thankful for the cushioning of the overgrown grass that softens her descent. She stares up at the sky for a moment, sensing Neji before he appears beside her. He looks down at her with a slight smile on his face, though from Tenten's perspective, he's frowning. "Enjoy yourself?" he asks lightly.

"You know how I hate losing," Tenten answers.

Neji's mouth quirks, glancing up to view Lee. "He's doing pushups now. Aren't you going to join him?" he inquires, raising an eyebrow at her.

"Fuck off, Neji," Tenten snaps playfully with a roll of her eyes.

Neji chuckles and moves closer, holding out his hand. Tenten lets him pull her to her feet, eyes lingering on his smug smirk. He pauses for a moment and squeezes her hand once before letting his arm fall back to his side. He turns away, striding through the grass to where Lee is energetically doing one-armed pushups. "You set up the perimeter, Tenten," Neji calls over his shoulder.

With a grumble, Tenten unrolls her large scroll and sets to work.

After dinner, night settles around the three comfortably, and as soon as they roll out their bedrolls, Lee sets off in describing his most recent encounter with a civilian girl, around their age. As Lee begins to extol the girl's youth and beauty, Tenten catches Neji's eye, struggling against the laugh bubbling up her throat. She doesn't miss the twitch of a smirk at the corner of her teammate's mouth.

They let Lee ramble on for what feels like an eternity, with Tenten interjecting questions every now and then, her curiosity deepening over this new development in Lee's life with each answer.

Finally, after the moon has traversed to its peak, Lee releases a big yawn, utters a goodnight, and rolls onto his side. Not a moment later, his resonant snores rise within their small camp.

Tenten smiles fondly at him, raising an eyebrow at Neji. "Things really have changed, huh? A year ago, his greatest wish was to marry Sakura." She sighs, shaking her head, unable to keep the grin off her face. "About time he let that go, if you ask me."

Neji says nothing, letting his silence serve as agreement. Tenten picks at her blanket, thinking. A blush rises to her cheeks. She says with a laugh, "Before you know it, we'll be having people call us 'Auntie Ten' and 'Uncle Neji'."

Neji grimaces. "We're still a few years away from that, I hope," he murmurs, shaking his head.

"That reminds me," Tenten says with a perched eyebrow. "How is Hinata? Confessed to Naruto yet?"

Neji sighs and rubs his eyes. "No. She's too shy."

"Maybe she should go to Ino. For, you know, tips."

Her mouth splits into a wider grin at Neji's focused glare, his eyes narrowed. "Very amusing," he mutters, sounding distinctly unamused.

Tenten chuckles and lies down. Quiet settles between them, and she can hear Neji shifting his weight, attempting to get more comfortable for his watch. Though the world is at peace, old habits die hard for Team Gai, and the duty of keeping watch had fallen to Neji for the evening. Lee's snores continue to break through the night, and Tenten smiles, her fingers fiddling with a loose string on her sleeve.

"You should sleep," Neji says from his post.

"Can't."

Neji considers this in silence, and Tenten shifts onto her back to gaze blankly up at the stars. After a moment, she sits up again and rustles through her scroll, before summoning a bottle of polish and a set of shuriken. She lays them out on her bedroll and sets to work. She feels Neji's eyes on her and says, not looking up, "You can sleep if you want. I'll keep watch."

He shakes his head. "No. I'll stay up with you."

Her lips quirk with a smile, the tools gleaming in her hands. There is a stretch of silence, and Tenten is so preoccupied with attending to her weapons, that she doesn't break her concentration to check on Neji. She assumes he's fallen asleep leaning against the tree, but when she stows away her shuriken and glances at him, he is still awake, watching her steadily. "I find it soothing, to watch you polish your weapons," he says by way of explanation. "It's almost like meditation."

Tenten grins, flattered, as she reaches for a nunchaku. "Well, it's not like there's anything to be soothed from, lately," she says after a pause, her tone tending towards bitter.

Neji waits a beat, then says, "The war couldn't last forever, Tenten."

She sharply tightens the nunchaku; the chain chings from the strain. "I didn't say I wanted it to," she says lightly.

"You want things to be as they were before," Neji deduces, settling into the tree behind him. "To have a reason to stay up and keep watch at night."

Tenten mulls this over. "I want to feel like we have a purpose still. Like we still have something to offer the village," she mutters, heart beating fast at this hidden-away confession. But she and Neji had always had an understanding between the two of them—an awareness of not only each other's physical skills, but of their thoughts and emotions. Tenten almost snorts—after seven years of partnership, good and bad, it's a wonder sometimes to her why they speak aloud at all.

He tilts his head, thoughtful, pale eyes on her fingers as she works. "Must we be soldiers to be useful?" he asks. "Isn't it enough that we're devoted? That we are willing to sacrifice?"

"'Sacrifice is a ninja's greatest gift'," Tenten says, quoting from a philosophy book they'd had to read in their Academy days. While it was a tenet of their livelihood, it had never been a concept that sat well with her. Before Naruto's influence, she and Neji used to have the same perspective on it.

Neji's mouth twitches, not quite smiling. His face softens with familiarity, with affection. "Since when are you a philosopher?"

Tenten scoffs, oiling the wooden handles. "You know I'm too practical for that. It's just . . ." she sighs, setting the nunchaku aside to look at him squarely, "how do we change ourselves, Neji? To fit into this timeline where there is no war, only peace? How do we . . . let go of everything we've been trained to be?"

Neji contemplates her question for a long moment, earnestly holding her gaze. Finally, he releases a small, gentle smile. "Why do we have to let go? Why can't we learn to adapt?"

"You're sidestepping my question," Tenten says firmly, shooting him a look.

"Fine," Neji releases. "You have two options. You either move with the times—with peace, adapt into a kunoichi that's content with paperwork and teaching genin, taking on a handful of missions every few months, or. . ." He trails off, his features shifting to something more serious. "Or you don't. You live in the past-make yourself into someone who would do better, if given the same chances again." He shrugs, frowning as he gazes at the ground. A sudden smirk touches his lips. He looks up to say, "It's not too late for you to become a medic-nin, after all, I suppose."

Tenten grumbles at this answer, pressing her lips together. "And?" she prompts, ignoring his last comment, clearly meant to irritate her. "What am I supposed to choose?"

Neji crosses his arms, resettling against the tree. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"That's not very helpful," Tenten mutters.

Neji sighs in exasperation. "What do you want, Tenten? You've been complaining about the lack of missions, the lack of anything to do since the war ended. This is the way things are, for now, for the foreseeable future. It's been months now-how will you meet this change?"

"I don't know. But I feel . . . stagnant. Like everything in our lives has come to a standstill." She grasps the ninja tool again, examining it. "You have your clan . . . your bloodline training and your little cousins. Lee has Gai-sensei and his taijutsu techniques . . . the new civilian girl. What do I have? What good is a weapons mistress if there are no more battles?"

Her question hangs heavily in the air between them. She flicks her eyes to Neji, heart racing at the concerned expression on his face. She flushes, embarrassed at how bare her thoughts have been laid out before him. "Forget it. Forget I said anything," she says, quickly putting away her tools. She lays down and turns on her side, pulling her blanket up over her shoulder.

Neji says nothing, but Tenten can still feel his eyes on her until she slips, blissfully, into unconsciousness.

In the morning, Tenten wakes to Lee making breakfast over a small fire. He grins brightly at her and whispers, an octave lower than his usual tone, "Good morning! Did you sleep well?"

Tenten nods, pulling her blanket tighter around her shoulders as she sits up; the morning is cool and misty. Her gaze wanders to Neji, who is lying down with his back to them. "What time did you switch?" Tenten asks Lee, nodding at Neji.

"Around two. He seemed tired."

Tenten mulls this over and hopes Neji hadn't spent all night thinking about what she'd said. She's embarrassed enough without her teammate pitying her. Slowly, she gets to her feet and rustles around in the underbrush for more limbs to feed the fire.

Lee is assembling what appears to be omelets, though the eggs are small. Noticing her questioning gaze, Lee says, "They are quail eggs. I found them in the bushes when I was looking for branches to start the fire. Much better than the protein bars we packed, hm?" He smiles happily, pleased with himself, and Tenten can't help but grin in response.

The small fire pops as Tenten adds in a few more branches. The eggs sizzle in the pan—another item helpfully stored away within Tenten's scroll. She crouches next to Lee, watching as he expertly flips the eggs into an omelet. "It's been forever since I had quail eggs," Tenten mutters.

Lee nods, carefully maneuvering the omelet around the pan. "It feels like ages since we have done something like this, the three of us," he agrees quietly. "I miss it. And I wish Gai-sensei were here."

"Me too," Tenten says.

Lee glances up at her, his dark eyes unreadable. "Tenten, I have been worried about you. Ever since the war—"

Tenten scoffs and stands to her feet. "Did you and Neji decide before the mission to corner me or was it an unspoken agreement?"

Lee's mouth thins in disappointment. "We did not discuss anything. But it is obvious that you are unhappy."

Tenten crosses her arms, letting her gaze wander through the trees. "So?"

"We do not like it when you are unhappy," Lee answers simply with a shrug.

Tenten purses her lips. She shoots another glance to Neji's sleeping form, mouth twisting. "I'm just . . . restless. That's all."

"Because of the lack of missions?" Lee turns back to the skillet, thankfully giving Tenten some space to think without scrutiny.

"Because of the lack of everything, Lee. Life is different now."

Lee sits back on his heels, studying the burgeoning flames. Thoughtfully, he replies, "You cannot stop change. You just have to adjust to it."

"You and Neji definitely talked before we left, didn't you?" she accuses, eyes narrowing.

Lee does nothing to hide his smile. He shrugs, meeting her eyes. "You are our teammate. What else could we do, if not check on you?"

As touched as she is by this sentiment, its implication leaves her indignant. Tiredly, she sinks to kneel on the ground, shaking her head. "We're all adults now, Lee. You and Neji have your own lives. You don't need to worry about how I'm living mine."

Lee opens his mouth to reply but halts as Neji turns to face them from a few feet away. He glares at them, bleary-eyed, but says nothing. Lee lets out a sheepish "good morning" and gestures to the eggs he's cooking, an offering of apology for waking him up. Neji nods, still scowling. Quietly, Lee assembles their breakfast, and the three eat it in silence, listening to the birds chirp in the trees.

Halfway through breakfast, an idea pops into Tenten's head. Tentatively, she asks, "Neji, can we visit a hot spring? Since we'll be so close to the border anyway?"

Neji is consulting the mission scroll when he answers absentmindedly, "We're on a mission, Tenten. Not a vacation."

Tenten sighs, savoring the last of the quail eggs in her mouth. Lee sends her a sympathetic smile. Neji, pulled out of his reverie by her silence, glances up at her then, eyes catching on her sulking form. After a moment, his expression shifts, softening, as he says, "Perhaps we can visit one hot spring once we've made our rendezvous point. We'll see."

Tenten meets his eyes and sends him a small, grateful smile. "Thanks, Neji."

As they near the Land of Hot Water, the air thickens around them with steam. Tenten feels her pores open and breathes in the heady scent of tropical steam, filling her lungs with it. The valley they've been walking through has grown hilly, grassy slopes stretching their calves. Tenten takes a deep whiff as a breeze rushes down to meet them. She smiles at the sharp scent of the ocean.

They crest another hill and pause, the border of Hot Water laid out beneath them. There is a fishing village settled below, boasting a tiny harbor and a few thatched roofs where chimney smoke winds out.

"We have arrived!" Lee chirrups, setting his hands on his hips in triumph.

Tenten smiles in answer, glancing from the village to the docks and the thin stretch of beach. A memory swirls to the forefront of Tenten's mind, and she squints, eyes locked, immovable, on the shoreline.

She clutches the kunai tighter in her small fist, holding it close to her chest. The waves in front of her are choppy, the sky an ominous gray. "Mommy?" Tenten says, her voice tremulous with anxiety.

She waits for what seems like hours, but the waves only push and pull, kissing the shore, the tide rising until it is touching her sandaled feet. Tenten crouches in the sand and feels tears rush down, making hot tracks down her cheeks. "Baba?"

She looks up and down the stretch of beach, but there is no one. In the distance, she can see a wooden structure, tethering small boats to land. With a hiccup, Tenten resolves herself and gets to her feet. She takes two steps and then collapses face down into the sand, black engulfing her.

Tenten gasps, her body shuddering as she emerges from the trance, her eyes wide. Lee says over her shoulder, "What is it, Tenten?"

Tenten hesitates, clenching and unclenching her fist, heartbeat thudding in her chest. "I've been here before," she finally murmurs.

She feels Lee and Neji exchange a look at her back, senses Neji's probing eyes between her shoulder blades. They are both eerily silent for a moment. Then Lee says curiously, "When was that, Tenten?"

She shrugs, jittery, brown eyes flitting over the grassy hills below them. To the south there is a small village, walled in, with its back to the sea. Tenten can see the docks where a few ships bob in the water. The same, she thinks. They're the same.

Feeling her teammates' uncertainty increase, Tenten shoves away the pressing thoughts and shoots them both a quick smile. She points down casually at their meeting point and says, "Well? Aren't we going?"

Lee and Neji stare at her, but only let a second pass before joining her to walk down the hill.

The Rokudaime had extended a hand of friendship to the Hot Water daimyo, a gesture of support in the unification of the shinobi nations that he was trying to achieve. Konoha was largely spearheading the endeavor, with assistance from Sunagakure. Due to the evacuation of the Land of Hot Water during the war, and without a large offensive ninja village, Hatake Kakashi had thought it would be beneficial to establish a stronger alliance with the Land of Fire's neighbor. Several weeks prior, the Rokudaime had visited the Hot Water daimyo to discuss a partnership, but the daimyo had seemed uninterested at the time. Kakashi had sent Team Gai to collect an answer, one way or another.

"I wonder what their answer will be," Lee muses aloud, tapping his chin.

"They're too isolationist," Neji says as they traipse down to their meeting point. "They stayed out of the war that threatened their village. Why would they unite with the world during a time of peace, if they would not join us during war?"

Lee hums, thoughtful. "Perhaps the war made them more willing to be more united to other countries, Neji. The war changed a lot of things."

You can say that again, Tenten thinks as they move through tall fountain grass. "Would have been nice if they could have just sent word, rather than have us travel all the way here, then," she grumbles under her breath. Lee is oblivious, taking the head of their formation, but Neji catches her eye, raising a judgmental eyebrow. "You know it's true," Tenten mutters.

Neji shakes his head. "What do you want, Tenten? One minute you're complaining about the lack of missions, and the next you're dissatisfied with having to go at all."

Tenten presses her lips together tightly to ward off a sharp retort. She has no rational response. At least, not one that Neji wouldn't see right through, and she's too agitated to try to dive deep into her feelings to self-reflect. "Never mind," she says, pushing past her friend to join Lee at the front, leaving him behind.

The Hot Water daimyo had sent two representatives of Yugakure with his answer. Their discussion is short, being that it was a simple hand-off, but that doesn't stop Lee from probing the Hot Water ninja about their village. "Your village does not send you on combat missions, is that right?" Lee boldly asks the two ninja.

Beside Tenten, Neji is stowing away the sealed scroll into his pack. She smiles, smug, at Neji's muttered curses over Lee's nosiness.

"We're largely pacifists, yes," says the Yugakure kunoichi, raising her chin proudly. "The Fourth Ninja War proved the need for it, don't you think?"

Lee considers her, eyes wide in attention. "In some ways. In other ways, it is always good to be prepared to defend."

The kunoichi's partner winces. "Most things can be solved without a fight," he says.

"That is not true," Lee replies confidently. "For example, how will you ever get stronger if you do not struggle against an opponent? Victory comes through contest."

"If you have to fight to gain a victory, is it really a victory?" sniffs the Yugakure kunoichi. She waves at her companion. "The Hot Water daimyo sends his regards to the Rokudaime. Bye." And they flash-step away.

Lee watches them disappear and then turns to Tenten and Neji, hands on his hips. "Well, that was an enlightening conversation!"

Neji rolls his eyes. "Those strategy books you've been reading are going to your head," he tells him.

As promised, their mission complete, Neji leads them to a nearby bathhouse, conveniently located by the road on which they will return to Konoha. Tenten is grateful for the brief respite alone, away from her teammates—it will give her time to ponder on her previous feeling of nostalgia.

Being as it's in the middle of the day and a lag for tourist season, Tenten has the bath mostly to herself. She sinks into the water and sighs, inhaling the steam. Absently she reaches up and rubs her shoulder; carrying her scroll tended to make her shoulders ache when she carried it a long time with no breaks.

It takes only a moment for her thoughts to shift to the wave of déjà vu she'd felt near the border, gazing down at the harbor. There was something so familiar about that sight, as if she'd been there before. But I haven't, Tenten muses, resting her head on the edge of the bath. Her eyes stare up at the wood-slatted ceiling, thoughtful. Have I?

She stirs her fingers on top of the water, creating a miniscule whirlpool. She grasps for the memory—of a child holding a kunai, staring out across the ocean. I didn't make it up, Tenten thinks with certainty. But when was this? Before I went to live with Jiichan and Baachan?

Her memories prior to coming to live with the elderly couple are scarce, mere flashes: of a poorly lit room, of hushed whispers and the scrape of metal across stone. Tenten stares down into the water, wondering about her parents.

She'd only been four years old when she'd gone to live with the elderly couple. She'd asked them throughout the years, before they died, if they knew anything of her history, of her real family, but her caretakers had always just smiled and shook their heads. Once, when she was fifteen and a newly minted chunin, Tenten had entertained the thought of asking Lady Tsunade if she knew anything about her heritage. But she'd talked herself out of it, unsure of how to approach the subject. Besides, Team Gai was enough—had always been enough. They were her family, and Tenten had always been content with that.

But this vision, wrenched up from the depths of her memory, had Tenten wondering. Her finger stills on the surface of the water, trying to remember the details of the kunai she'd held. It had been grooved along the sharp edges, an unusual feature for the basic weapon.

Tenten mentally goes through her weapon rolodex, eyes flitting around the room as she recalls each specialized item of her arsenal. But no—she carried no such weapon in her scroll. She sighs in disappointment and sinks deeper into the water. She debates for a moment, the steam filling her nose, before she ducks underneath the water.

On the men's side of the bathhouse, Neji leans back against the wall, watching as Lee practices his arm exercises—hitting imaginary enemies, he presumes. "Neji," Lee begins, spinning on his heel to land an elbow into an imaginary foe over his shoulder, "what do you think that was about earlier? With Tenten?"

Neji avoids Lee's gaze, studying the ripples his teammate makes over the water's face. He shrugs, keeping his face impassive.

"Could it be that she had been there before? As a child?" Lee muses.

"It's not impossible," Neji replies. "But Tenten doesn't remember anything of her childhood prior to coming to live in Konoha with the elderly couple."

Lee nods to himself, recalling Tenten's matter-of-fact story of her childhood years, living with two elderly civilians. They had died when she was ten, after which she'd lived on her own, supported by the couple's remaining meager savings bequeathed to her at their death. "Sometimes I wish we had been closer in our Academy days, so we could watch out for each other more," he says.

Neji drums his fingers on the edge of the bath, studying the wall. "I doubt we would have been close, Lee."

"Maybe. I guess we will never know. You cannot change the past."

"No, you can't," Neji replies softly, thinking of Tenten's expression as she'd studied the bay.

An hour later, Team Gai emerges from the bathhouse thoroughly wrinkled, their skin pink, expressions at ease. "Have a nice bath?" Tenten asks the boys, securing her scroll on her back again.

"Yes! It was invigorating. The perfect remedy to rejuvenate youth!" Lee exclaims, pumping his fist into the air.

Next to him, Neji stiffly nods. "Yours?" he asks her, pale eyes studying her.

Tenten pastes a smile onto her mouth, but says nothing, setting off down the road.

They pass their afternoon journey in companionable silence, all eager to make as much ground as possible before sundown. Neji is expected at the Hyuga compound in the morning to resume his training with Hanabi and Hiashi, and Lee had mentioned something about getting tips on a technique from Gai-sensei. Realizing this, Tenten's mood darkens somewhat, her schedule less full.

They settle in a grove not too far from where they camped the previous day, though the darkness feels thicker around them as the shadows deepen. The fire crackles merrily in the center of their camp, but the wood is damp, causing Tenten to keep up constant encouragement. After a few different tries, Neji tells her to forget it—the effort isn't worth the profuse amounts of smoke it produces.

It is Tenten's turn to keep watch. Neji is awake, meditating, when Lee finally drifts off, his loud snores permeating the night air. Neji opens his eyes and without hesitation, as if he was simply picking up an earlier conversation, turns to Tenten and says casually, "What was that? Earlier?"

Tenten blinks and glances down at the kama she'd been fiddling with. One of the rivets had broken, making the blade too loose to handle during a fight. She'd been absently trying to fix it, but now her hands still in her lap, sifting through her thoughts. "I don't know," she says. "I felt something. Like a pull."

"To the harbor?"

Tenten nods, giving the tool an experimental swing. It wobbles in her fingers.

Neji does not reply for a moment, eyes thoughtful as he studies her. Then, he says, "What did you remember?"

Tenten exhales, leaning back against the thick oak she'd settled at. She hated trying to put her thoughts into words; it was one of the most difficult mental exercises Gai-sensei had put them through during his tutelage. Tenten had never made great progress in the skill.

Neji waits patiently for Tenten to begin, still seated in his meditation pose. As crickets begin to chirp around them, Tenten finally murmurs, "I remember being on a beach. That beach. I had a kunai. . ." Tenten's forehead creases, recalling the details. "I was looking out towards the waves, but I couldn't see anything. It was too bright . . . and then, nothing. All darkness."

"How old were you?" Neji asks in a soft tone.

Tenten shakes her head. "I don't know. I was. . . It was a real memory. Not a dream. I was—I was in my own head."

Neji shifts, relaxing a little into the tree at his back. He contemplates; Tenten can trace a thread of curiosity in his usually inexpressive eyes. "You must have been young then," he says carefully.

Tenten shrugs. "Who knows? You know I don't remember anything prior to living with Baachan and Jiichan."

Neji is quiet, brushing a hand along the forest floor to pluck a blade of grass. He turns it over and over in his hands. "Do you miss them?" he asks gently.

Tenten smiles. "Yes. I wish they'd been around to see me graduate."

"I'm sure they would have been proud of who you've become," Neji says, not meeting her eyes as he studies the strand of grass between his fingers.

Tenten's heart clenches in her chest, thinking of her sweet-faced caregivers. Their deaths, while not unexpected since they were older, had caught her off guard at ten years old. "Yeah," she shrugs.

Neji lifts his gaze, pausing before saying softly, "What do you think it means?"

Tenten shakes her head, giving the tool an experimental swing. The blade protests, nearly pinching her fingers. "I don't know, Neji," she sighs. She lifts an eyebrow, throwing him a questioning look. "There was a kunai I was holding, but . . . it's not one I recognize from my catalogue. I don't know where I got it, or what happened to it." She withdraws one of the standard kunai she keeps on her person, gesturing to the blade. "It had furrows here, on the sides. Hand-forged, if I had to guess. It wasn't a child's size, either, like some of the ones we practiced with at the Academy. It belonged to someone else."

Neji mulls this over, studying the kunai she is holding out. Finally, his eyes meet hers. "But who?"

Tenten jerks her head in answer. "Your guess is as good as mine."

With that, Neji bids her a goodnight and slips into his bedroll, his back facing her. Tenten entertains herself for a few hours by repairing several of her weapons. But as the sky shifts from black to deep indigo, Tenten's hand wanders again to a kunai. Her thumb runs along the edge, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to feel the sharpness of the blade. She tiredly lets her head fall back against the trunk of a tree, exhaling. She lucidly recalls the memory of a girl standing on a shore, looking out at dark, tumultuous waves. Tenten clutches the kunai a little tighter.

It is early evening when Team Gai returns to Konoha. They hike up to Hokage Mountain and deliver the daimyo's scroll to the Sixth, who lazily peruses its contents while Gai's three students wait for their dismissal. Hatake Kakashi waves the message loosely in the air, his one exposed eye amused as he considers the ninja before him. "A refusal. I expected as much," he sighs. "Thank you."

Team Gai bows and exits the office. Lee trots off almost immediately to go catch up with Gai-sensei, extracting a promise from Neji and Tenten that they will all eat together soon. With their teammate gone, the two remaining members set a leisurely pace through the village.

"You have training with Hiashi-sama and Hanabi, right?" Tenten poses as they pass by a market. She makes a mental note to go grocery shopping later, thinking of the disarray in which she'd left her kitchen.

Neji nods. After a moment, he catches her eye, an eyebrow raised in question. "I can meet you in the morning to train, if you like."

Tenten scrunches up her nose, recalling Neji's new schedule. "Don't you have meditation with your cousins in the mornings?"

Something pulls at Neji's mouth, his jaw twitching. He looks forward again, eyes sweeping out to the street in front of them. "I can ask someone else to do it tomorrow."

Tenten tries to wrest the meaning from his words, but she fails, unable to comprehend what would lead Neji to exchange his clan responsibilities for a morning training session with her. "That's okay," she brushes off. "I understand how important that is to you. We'll train again when you have more time. I was going to try and work on some machinery techniques by myself anyway."

She is watching him from the corner of her eye, searching for a clue, but Neji gives nothing away. He nods once more, easily, and breaks from her side, holding up a hand in farewell as he takes the path to the Hyuga compound.

Feeling slightly off-kilter, Tenten shrugs it off and bounds up the stairs to her apartment. Once inside, she waters her plants, grabbing the jar she keeps out on the balcony to collect rainwater. Baachan had always kept flowers on the windowsills, though her green thumb was flighty. Tenten couldn't begin to count how many times she'd pass by the line of pots and see withered and parched leaves. Humming to herself, she drenches the plants, turning them to even out the sun's exposure.

This done, she takes a quick shower and makes ramen for dinner, slurping up noodles as she stands in her kitchen, staring into space, thinking. She finishes, washes her dishes, and strides to her bedroom, yawning. Tenten settles into bed and stares, heavy-lidded, up at the ceiling. The beach rushes back to the forefront of her mind, the feel of the too-big kunai an imprinted memory on her hand.

In a rush of realization, Tenten sits up and throws off her covers. She strides to a corner of her room and pushes aside a variety of scrolls, a package of unsealed explosive tags, and an amalgamation of weaponry and accessories. There, sitting on the floor, is a small wooden chest. It had belonged to Baachan and Jiichan, given to Tenten upon their deaths. She'd only opened it once before, nearly ten years prior, the day of the elderly couple's funeral. Tenten recalls little about the contents—an array of photographs, Baachan's pressed and dried wedding bouquet, a smattering of Jiichan's childhood artifacts. But there is a touch of something else grazing Tenten's consciousness, nudging her to remember, remember, remember.

Tenten throws open the box and dumps the contents onto the edge of her mattress. Out tumbles a dried bundle of flowers, Jiichan's marbles, a few cards from well-wishers, and the photographs. A heavy metal object scrapes against the wood of the box as it lands on Tenten's bed, covering Baachan and Jiichan's smiling faces in their wedding picture.

Heart thudding in her chest, Tenten plucks the kunai up and studies it. There are the strange, almost crude, grooves along the edges of the blade—pulled straight from her memory. The handle's wrappings are threadbare and old, almost crumbling beneath Tenten's tight grip. Tenten edges a thumb along the kunai's edge and is struck by the feeling of familiarity. "Where did you come from?" she murmurs, head buzzing.

The kunai lies in her palm, gleaming with a secret.

Notes:

- "Mnemosyne" is the name of the Greek goddess of memory who birthed the nine muses. It is also the name of a river in the Greek underworld, that runs parallel to the River Lethe - the river of forgetfulness.

- I've taken several liberties with timeline, since past time periods I'm dealing with in this fic are not detailed within canon. This fic takes place in the summer after the Fourth Ninja War. Tenten is 19, Neji and Lee are 18.

- Most of my canon info I got from Narutopedia, since it's been ages since I've read/watched Naruto. I have done my best to re-read through relevant parts. Please excuse my inaccuracies!

- Baachan = Grandma, Jiichan = Grandpa

- A kama is a scythe.

Readers, I hope you enjoyed and that you're excited for the journey ahead. I hope you are well in this time of uncertainty in our world, and that you and your loved ones stay safe and healthy. If you want to connect elsewhere on the interwebs, that list is on my profile. Let me know if you have Thoughts! See you next Monday. :) -KNO