[Author's note

I highkey wrote this in one sitting so it's not the best but yeet.

Popping out oneshots so I can better my writing style yeet. Welcome to the first of many. Plot holes for life.

Enjoy. Or try to, I guess lol]

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Tenten's parents died before she learned how to speak.

Their names? She wasn't told. How they died? She never knew. All she remembered was waking up one day in a house with cracks in the ceiling and creaks on the wooden floor, staring up at a tower of a strange woman who reeked of cigarettes and sewers.

"Ugh, I can't believe they lumped me with this shit."

That was the first and last time her caretaker ever spoke to her.

-----👁️-----

Four years later, Tenten is eight and it's her first day at the Academy. Parents adorn their children with love, showing off their pride in face splitting grins. Tenten stands in the middle of the all the happiness and watches.

How many times has she imagined what it would feel like? To have parents that take you out for food and give you hugs and tuck you in at night and just love you?

"Attention students!" Tenten's daydreams come to a halt, and she turns to look up at the man...Iruka, was it? "Today is a ceremonial day!" Tenten doesn't feel ceremonial, she feels alone. "Because today you are all officially on your way to becoming shinobi!"

Everyone around her cheers, though Tenten sees the way some adults smile forcefully or avert their eyes. "I'm proud to be your teacher, and I hope each and every one of you get the best out of your education. And remember! If you ever need anything, I'll be here."

-----👁️-----

It was a flimsy speech really, and all of what Iruka said was just recycled half assed crap, but Tenten didn't know that.

So the next day she was at Iruka's office bawling about how nobody will ever love her.

All Iruka did was give her a pat as flimsy as his speech.

She felt stupid for expecting more.

(Oh, how stupid she was.)

(To think that someone actually cared.)

-----👁️-----

Tenten is nine and still alone.

She tries–she really does–to befriend the kids her age, but no one gives her the time of the day. They talk to her and they laugh together and Tenten believes that everything is actually going fine, until they decide to play a game without her or do a sleepover without inviting her.

Every time she gets pushed aside like she means nothing.

(She begins to believe that she does.)

She's idly walking through the playground to find someone to try to make friends with when she spots a group three guys and one girl; Umi, Hikiro, Setsune and Kaito. Tenten perks up, calling Umi's name and waving wildly, sure that they'd remember the girl  they played a game of hide and seek with.

She won the game. It was the most fun she ever had.

(Truth is, they almost forgot to find her and Tenten hid for two hours till they remembered, but Tenten didn't know that.)

Umi stops swinging and stares blankly at Tenten as she runs towards them.

"Hi guys! What's up?" What else could she say? How does socialising even work? She hoped her smile looked happy enough, like how the other kids usually smiled.

"Uh..hi?" Kaito is the one that answers, and he gives a half smile and a stiff wave. Tenten is too excited to read the cues.

"Wanna play Tag like we did yesterday?"

"Erm..." Umi trails off and looks at Setsune confused.

Tenten's smile falters.

"Sorry, when did we play tag with you?" Setsune blinks rapidly as he tries to remember, then it clicks and his eyebrows shoot up. "Oh yeah! Wait I remember... you're uhm, that girl from yesterday!"

The others mutter a stream of "oh"s and "ah"s, sounding as dry as desert scales.

(It would have been better if they punched her.)

"Sorry but, we don't really feel like playing tag today." Kaito smiles. "Thanks though, uhm... what's your name again? Sorry, I forget things easily."

Tenten didn't hear that.

All she heard was "you're easy to forget."

-----👁️-----

The air was suffocating Tenten in the truth of her deeds. She looked down at her hands, touched the cut on her left cheek.

She laughed at the irony of the past.

"Guess they'll have to remember me now."

-----👁️-----

At ten, she sees Naruto get the whole village's scorn for ruining the Hokage Monument.

"Brat!"

"Punk!"

"Furry!"

"Garbage!"

Everywhere she goes, it's like someone has something to say about the blonde boy with whiskers, and she doesn't get it. Why is he getting so much recognition for being a bad person?

What's so special about Naruto?

(What's so boring about her?)

The next day she tries to cause chaos like he does by stealing some masks from a store. The owner chases her down before she can get far, gives her a smack across the face, and leaves.

No one talks about it.

(Not until four years later when the shop owner has a 'i  met the girl once.' conversation with Sakura.)

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"So you did all of this for some attention? You fucking psychopath."

"Yes I did it for some fucking attention. Was I a horrible person for wanting someone to actually give a shit?"

------👁️------

At eleven years old Tenten decides to be a weapon user.

Well, there isn't much of a choice, for it was either weaponry or messenger bird keeping, according to the academy counselor who said that Tenten has absolutely no talent whatsoever in any of the three main jutsu.

She also said it must've been a mistake to pass her and  Tenten would never amount to anything in life.

Which hurt, but Tenten's eyes didn't fill up with tears like they used to. Instead her teeth clenched and her face scowled–then she left the office with a slam of the door.

She's tired of hearing the same shit but in different words.

Now she sits on a stump in the training grounds, waiting for her sensei to show up along with her other teammates.

Neji's condescending glare makes Tenten hate herself more than usual, and Lee's determined aura makes her wonder why she lacks so much.

And when Gai does show up he immediately takes a liking to Lee, the kid who only knows how to use taijutsu, and once again she's forgotten.

She leaves the training grounds earlier than usual, slipping deep into the forest, finding a hard boulder and punching it repeatedly till her knuckles bleed and all she can see is red.

-----👁️-----

"What did everyone else have that I didn't?" She asked, fists clenching. "What the hell made everyone else so damn special?"

----👁️----

Tenten is thirteen when Naruto graduates from the Academy.

The word on the street is that he and Iruka are all chummy chummy, like they're brothers...or like Iruka's a father figure.

Tenten almost laughed aloud when she heard it.

The same Iruka with the heartless pat. The same Iruka that didn't bother asking questions when Tenten's caretaker never showed up for Parent's day. The same Iruka that looked the other way every time Tenten gave him a sad hello.

The same Iruka is now treating someone else to ramen and care.

Why? Tenten thinks as she climbs up the tree. Why Naruto? She loses her footing.

Why not me?

She falls hard on her back. Gai tells her to do it again and she tells guy to go fuck himself, then storms off.

Tenten goes home to her room and destroys anything she lays her hands on. And when she's tired of causing damage she screams, shattering whatever piece of hope she had left in her.

"WHY DOESN'T ANYONE LOVE ME?"

She doesn't show up for training the next day. No one bothers to check up on her.

-----👁️-----

"I didn't do any of it out of pain or retaliation or anger." She spat. "I did it out of fucking spite."

-----👁️-----

One year later, Tenten is fourteen, and her caretaker is having a heart attack.

The woman–what's her name, even? Tenten isn't sure, she thinks it starts with a K– hacks like she's spewing out her guts, clutching her chest as if it will explode any second. She writhes on the floor and all Tenten can think of is how roaches look when you turn them on their back.

(What is she supposed to feel at this moment?)

"You know..." Tenten takes a seat on the dining chair, right next to the dying woman.

(Is she supposed to care?)

"I don't think I even know your name." She says, wondering if the woman can hear her with all her coughing. "You have other relations right? I hope you do, cause no way in hell am I paying for your funeral, fucking bitch."

-----👁️-----

"I learned something new that day..." Tenten sighed, feeling the wave of content as she recalled the moment that woman choked for air, trying to take another breath.

"When a person who did you wrong dies, all the pain they caused goes along with them."

-----👁️-----

Tenten is fifteen when she's charged with mass murder.

They ask her why someone like her would kill her sensei, her academy classmates and ex teacher, and even attempt to kill a jinchuriki.

She looks up at Ibiki through her sweat soaked bangs and whispers:

"No one will ever forget my name now."