A/N: Thank you so much for reading. I've been immersed in a lot of lengthy epics recently, ones that deal with the darker psychological side of being a shinobi. If you haven't read 'Of the River and the Sea' or 'Ghost' or 'Fate of an ANBU' etc. definitely check them out- so much kudos to the authors! A lot of these fanfics revolve around a moment of understanding that the central character is broken, that everyone is flawed, that being a shinobi requires fractating or splintering your sanity. I kinda played around with that here. Oh and slight hints of NejiTen.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. If I did, we'd all be seeing a lot more kitsune XD

Tenten was three minutes from home when the ANBU on the rooftops let two shingles rustle to summon her. She blinked, huffed in annoyance, and changed her course to head towards HQ, pushing the lure of the shower and warm bed away from her.

It was only a mission report, at least. She had hoped to be able to submit the paperwork the next morning as it wasn't critical, but perhaps not.

Her twin tantos shifted along the back of her shoulderblades and the rope dart around her neck rasped quietly as she bounded along the rooftops- two nods to a pair of Chunins she had done target practice with, one empathising eyeroll to Shino who was setting out, and she was there- in the lair of HQ.

ANBU HQ was one of the biggest secrets of Konoha. Not that it existed, there were too many of them to possibly hide its existence, but the manner of its location- how it precisely came to be where it was, and where it was at that moment.

She felt the wards wash over her like oil gleaming on the surface of water, a vague iridescent shimmer on her skin, and the barracks appeared before her, floating above the rooftops. She clambered up the side of a building and swung herself in through the window- this was where Kakashi's and Gai's dynamic entry habits came from, she realised- to fill out her forms and submit to the commander's desk.

ANBU HQ was a miracle of space time teleportation. It moved around Konoha, airborne, and protected by wards. Only a vague sense of which direction to head (Tenten speculated this was induced by the tattoo on her shoulder but Neji insisted he would be able to tell if it was a seal marker, and obviously if the Hyuuga genius said it wasn't then, well, it wasn't. Idiot.) could lead you to the wards, and even then she still wasn't sure how the genjutsu knew to break and let her in.

She let out a rueful smile- in her early days as a Genin a blonde brat from Team 7 had boisterously regaled Team Gai with an account of finding a floating house when he was younger and how he had skived class to run around Konoha trying to find it again. He never had, but it made for a good excuse to waste 3 hours and exercise. They had all thought he was crazy, but the adults had just smiled at each other, quiet in their knowledge. She wondered if she gave that smile too.

The commanders office had two automatic papertrays in its antechamber, one for fresh copies of mission reports, the second for fuckups. They couldn't just chuck the messed up report in the bin, in case enemies or someone else could get a hold of it.

She took her fresh copy and settled into the corner, her swords pressing into her shoulders and absentmindedly wondering if a kunai could etch the words needed in when a pen wasn't readily available in her myriad pockets. There was a pen, eventually, in the inside pocket of her ankle brace.

Tenten made sure to use her best anonymous printed handwriting, giving nothing away about herself as she added the date, the location of the mission, her brief and her team- she checked the box SOLO and left the rank of the mission blank. It was likely it would be changed once she handed it in and she'd rather not duplicate the work. She put a cross in the declaration of consent box and neatly filled in her shinobi license number, smirking. Neji had had a conniption when she wouldn't tell him hers. In fact, nobody knew it but her and the three encoders who worked in the Hokage's office. She was always last to add her license number when Team Gai completed their mission reports, just in case. The less people who could accidentally snitch her number to someone else who could unscramble the codes and connect her license with her whole Konoha ID, the better.

Standing and cracking her knuckles, she nodded to the two other ANBU who had come in to the room. They were masked, and stilled, uncertain. Newbies then. She gave them a wide smile and a dismissive chuckle.

"We do take plainclothes missions sometimes, otherwise our total absence from the ranks would be suspicious and identifiable." That sounded vaguely friendly, a rehash of what she had heard as a rookie herself. They nodded back at her, so Tenten knocked on the commander's door.

"Enter."

The voice was carefully modulated through a sound genjutsu to sound male and neutral, and as she opened the door, a hiss came, as though she was stepping into a vacuum. She relaxed a little as it was just the genjutsu releasing.

"Tenten." The commander was sat, blank mask upturned towards her, his fingers poised mid air as though sketching out a floor plan of a building to himself, and he dipped his head at her. She nodded back and proffered her paperwork- he didn't need to look at it to know it was a completed mission brief. There were only four types of forms he really dealt with; New Recruit, Death Confirmation, Mission Report and Evaluation.

He gave it a quick perusal, raising his eyebrows at one point, glanced up at her, then returning to finish the sections on Compromised Perameters and the declaration of consent box. She waited, thinking of her shower and bed. He opened his mouth and her eyes lit up, just waiting for the words 'shinobi dismissed.' The lip curled, the teeth came together and- "Shinobi sent for immediate Evaluation. Dismissed."

She froze and fought very hard to maintain an even expression. Goddamnit people can you not see I'm stinky and sweaty and pretty exhausted? But orders were orders, even if she didn't quite understand why she needed one for this mission she turned and set off for the hospital.

Konoha's hospital sprawled before her but she ignored the hustle and bustle of the main entrances in favor of the window that led to a janitors closet with a well oiled easily pickable lock. It took her seven seconds to push down the handle and escape into the halls of the Shinobi wings. It was easier to keep them separate from civilians- PTSD and twitchy impulses and frankly horrific injuries made neither party comfortable in their brief interactions. She skidded into the second floor reception and waited neutrally for the girl there to notice her.

"ID?" She asked, polished nails clicking on the surface of her desk. Tenten showed her and settled down in the corner of the room until her name was called, idly taking note of the other occupants and their probable cause of injuries. It was nice and kinda warm in here, she was tired enough to consider a cat nap, just a resting of the eyes, a slow exhale, relaxing of her chakra to passive observation...

"Tenten?" The receptionist called her and she blinked wearily, chakra surging automatically. "In Room 5, honey."

She trudged off down a corridor, knowing her way around. The door was heavy and it took a little more than ghost pressure to press on the handle. There was already a practitioner inside, presumably a med-nin. She hoped it would be Kiki or Ayamako, or even Tsuobaha, the wizened woman with wonderful lined but expert hands. Damn she'd fixed her shoulder in like, milliseconds or something.

Instead she got the warm smiling gaze and pink hair of Sakura, who gestured and asked her to plop on the patients bed. She did so, noting that the mattress was nowhere near as squishy as hers. They made small talk for a few minutes before Sakura actually went to look at the paperwork she had had run over from HQ- the specifics required for her evaluation etc. She plopped down in the consultants chair and squinted over the clipboard.

Sakura went pale and looked back up at Tenten with alarm.

"God are you ok?!"

Tenten waved a hand at herself loosely, "I mean I'm in pretty good shape, little chakra-depleted and I bet you can smell me from across the room, but y'know."

Her smile wavered when Sakura didn't respond in kind.

"What did commander say? Am I in some shit? I got back within the time limit so he can't bust my ass for that!" Sakura blinked once, twice, and it looked like she was holding back tears. Tenten instantly became concerned and reached out to hug her.

"... Is it something to do with the boys? They've got their hearts in the right places but I know Sai causes you trouble all the time, I swear I wouldn't be able to cope if I didn't have Neji as the stuck up voice of reason."

Sakura flinched and drew back from her, and scribbled something frantically on the clipboard. She finally spoke but her voice was hoarse, like she didn't quite trust what she was saying.

"So, so... So how was the mission?" Tenten thought that was an obvious topic change if ever she saw one but she didn't want to press her friend when whatever it was was so upsetting. She hummed thoughtfully, soothing tones in her throat.

"Welllllll, there was an old raven in the watchhouse for a bit and he quite liked to chase bits of dust particles. Oh, and the bread in this village was amazing- I'll bring some back next time I promise! It had like chia seeds on the top and drizzled with honey and the dough was levened just right and plaited- so sweet it just melted in the mouth. The innkeeper was a bit stingy though, how's everything been at the hospital?"

"Oh, just fine." Sakura's mouth tightened. "Was the target hard?"

"Nah, just an old bastard with fingers in too many pies, probably part Akimichi in his past life," she laughed. "So, whatcha got me in for?"

Green eyes widened and she was gripping the pen a little too hard, like trembles, and more scribbles on the clipboard. A deep breath and...

"I have you in for a Psych evaluation."

Tenten cocked her head to one side placidly. She'd had one of those when she joined obviously, and she thought there might have been one as part of her Evaluations six months ago but honestly? There was so much testing going on she wasn't sure which bit fell into where.

"Sure thing! Ask away," she smiled.

"Any sleeping problems recently? Any headaches?"
"Nope and nope."
"Any periods of fogginess? Any memories recalled which are warped or appear somehow distant?" "Um, I got drunk at Chouji's a couple weeks ago. Does that count?"
"Do you do that a lot?" Sakura shifted, and something like hope flickered across her face.
"Get drunk? Like I'll do it for a birthday or a promotion or something- to celebrate. You should know, you're normally there, heh." She grinned in camaraderie, wryly amused, but the hope faded again.

They continued from there, Tenten answering no that she did not smoke, excercise excessively, dream strangely or have trouble holding her hands steady with a glass of water when she was thinking about loud noises and bomb shells. Sakura made her recite her shinobi license number, rank and village several times over, and then everyone she'd known who died. The list was long, and she found herself realising how lucky she was to have had Gai Lee and Neji survive with her til now. She was less amused when it started getting more personal, asking her how many people she'd slept with, did she have any fetishes, what was she obsessive about, what outlets she had. Tenten just shrugged.

Sakura was staring at her with something akin to incredulity and a touch of fear. She wasn't comfortable- out of the Konoha 12 she had never been the flashy headliners like Kakashi, Sasuke or Naruto, or a constant scrapper like Ino or Kiba. She wasn't a genius like Shikamaru or Neji, nor was she important politically like Shino Chouji or Hinata. She was clanless, like Lee, like Gai, like Sakura- but they had fought their way forward to places of renown, Taijutsu masters and Medic-Nin to surpass Tsunade respectively. If anyone deserved to be looked at like that, it was them, not her.

"You really don't, do you?" Sakura breathed. "You have no idea..."

"What?"

"Tenten, you wrote down in your mission report that you killed children."

"Two eleven year olds, boy and a girl- oh, and a four year old. I had to torture them first, one was a honeypot trap and the other two actually held all the answers needed to assassinate the target."

"And...?"

"And, what?"

Sakura put her clipboard down and ran her fingers through her bubblegum pink hair stressfully. She was frowning and trembling, as though she couldn't believe what was right in front of her. Like she couldn't believe Tenten, who was right in front of her.

"I really don't- don't believe this. You tortured and murdered in cold blood three children and you have no trauma, no aftershocks, no suppressal, no- no nothing!"

"Is that unusual?" Tenten wanted to know.

"Very! Everybody's got a fix, got something to cope, some way to try to be sane or rationalise themselves, but- but you... Nothing! I just don't understand how!?"

"Well does that make me some kind of a psycho then?" she asked, looking down at herself doubtfully. "Also I'm pretty sure lots of people I know are doing ok."

Sakura snorted, fingers still twisting through her locks of hair. She spoke absently, as though her mind were far away, still considering the new information, running through the lists of her existing database.

"Lets just forget the patient-medic confidentiality agreement, ok? Kakashi is always late because he's at the obelisk talking to ghosts of his dead teammates. Gai bullshits on about the springtime of youth because he's compartmentalised his capacity as a serious shinobi- you should know. Neji believed all actions were predetermined by fate to cope with the tragedy of being branded. Sasuke's- we all know what he was like, crazy, repressed pole up his ass and fixed on revenge. Sai had to murder the boy who was raised as his brother and had all emotion scraped out of him- Kiba has turned into a pugnacious combatant, he picks a fight with anyone these days after he was ordered to run and left two Chunins to be Prisoners of War. Shikamaru sleeps all day because his waking mind can't handle the fact his decisions send entire platoons to their deaths. Would you believe it, Hinata has a drinking problem."

"And you? Naruto?"

Sakura smiled sadly, and looked ancient and childlike all in the same moment.

"I'm hiding out back here in the hospital, where I can convince myself that I'm always working for the best, to heal and create and repair, and Naruto...ano, Naruto made a deal with a kitsune to house its soul and power in return for his own. You know, I think he might be the most broken of us all."

There was silence for a moment while Tenten digested this, and she reached a hand up to thumb along the metal chain of the rope dart around her neck. It was a comfortingly familiar weight against the strange revelations that her makeshift family and cohort might not be as together or sane as she thought. A quiet stirring occurred to her and she softly asked what Neji's fix was now. The pink haired medic gazed back at her with a look that said far too much about their current relationship, more than Tenten was willing to review right now.

"Sooooo... Am I crazy or something? Coz I feel kinda fine. Don't think I'm gonna attack anybody on a kill switch or anything, yeah?"

The medic scanned her top to bottom, as if searching for clues more than the last half hour could give her. Green eyes finally settled, uneasily, back at the clipboard in her lap.

"You are completely, totally sane. There is no hint that you have just undergone traumatic experiences, or that you are using a coping mechanism to overcome any psychosis. I have to sign off on this Evaluation and send it back to your Commander."

"Great. Thanks. Can I go home and shower while that happens? I'd really quite like to hit the hay for a bit" She was waved off, and Tenten gleefully bolted out of the room, hollering a farewell over her shoulder and promises to meet up for coffee with the girls sometime soon. Clean water would be amazing right now- she could feel the soil and dirt on her calves rubbing on her skin every time she took a step, and her toes in her sandals still squidged slightly with old musty rainwater. Her hair was coming undone so she hastily took it out and repinned it on her way.

Home, home, home at last!

Neji wasn't there, she noticed absently, his indoor slippers still by the door. Stripping off felt amazing, like peeling off old skin, a small death and rebirth. Her weapons were discarded with more care- contrary to popular belief, Tenten didn't have a deep emotional connection to her weapons but it was always prudent to treat them with respect and handle with caution. If she wasn't paying attention, she'd slice her hands open. Her numerous pockets and pouches and straps for scrolls and steel were left deposited by the bathroom door, and she dove into the shower, enthusiastic and naked.

The hot water felt like heaven on her skin, the shampoo and soap smooth and fragrant, the conditioner left her hair gorgeous. Using a fluffy towel after was almost deliriously wonderful, and she trotted across the apartment, plumes of steam escaping the bathroom behind her, and dropped the towel to plunge into brushed cotton sheets, warm and inviting. Sleep claimed her within instants.

She was awoken several hours later by a gentle shifting outside her window. An owl-masked ANBU, perched on the sill, merely gliding his gloved fingers along the glass back and forth to get her attention. She sat up and bolted out of bed, uncaring of her nudity, pulling on kit and vests and pockets, still warm and foggy from sleep in a daze that took her many years to perfect. This time, she took her own mask (she debated about its creature to this day, the others thought it was a stoat or a weasel. Personally she was inclined to say more Otter, but whatever. Wasn't like she got a callsign to validate anyone's opinion.) and vaulted out the window to follow him. Owl-ANBU led her along street paths and her gut instinct told her that they were headed in the right way for HQ's current location.

They crossed over the barriers again, and this time they were closer to a main door with descending steps. Tenten scaled a drainpipe and leapt onto the stairs, the Owl-ANBU following. She knew it was either a mission or the results of her Evaluation. Both of which meant Commander's Desk.

It was just past dusk and HQ was largely empty, so she went straight to his door. Owl shifted behind her and waited, politely enough, until she was permitted to open it.

"Tenten." The voice exactly the same as earlier. She nodded her head at him and stood at attention in the office, awaiting orders.

"Have a seat."
Surprised, Tenten looked around to realise that there were in fact two chairs behind the door (she'd never been here to sit down before so had had no need to realise their presence.) and dragged one over to in front of the commander's desk, sitting obediently. His blank mask considered her a moment. He was never one to mince words.

"Sakura Haruno has submitted her report for a Psych Evaluation. Can you confirm it was Sakura Haruno who saw you?"

"Yes sir," she acknowledged.

"Her report contains evidence to suggest you showed a... certain mental fortitude which frankly shocked her. However, in ANBU, we have need of strength in all its forms and I have a job offer for you, a promotion if you will. There is just one question first," he paused, eyes gleaming behind the blank mask at her, "How do you sleep at night?"

Tenten considered what she had learned from Sakura, and considered the man before her. She thought of Neji, and Gai-sensei and Lee, and the way her mother had beamed quietly when she said she wanted to be a strong kunoichi just like Lady Tsunade. Tried to draw the pieces together and come up with an answer beyond a flippant 'like a baby'.

"I guess not everyone is lucky enough to have a guilty conscience."

She could feel his beam from across the desk. His hand stretched out- a deal, a hand shake.

"Tenten, you're exactly what Konoha needs."

A/N: Thank you for reading! Please leave me a review or PM me any commissions, I'm always looking to improve :)

~featheredblades