First
First
The first one is not, somewhat surprisingly, Lee, in sheer skills perhaps the weakest of them all, or Naruto, who can’t seem to think even half a step ahead of anything.
The first one is Neji.
There have been lots of firsts for the rookie generation. First to get married (Kiba, in what is later determined to be a shotgun wedding), first to reproduce (Shikamaru and Temari, though, ironically, they’re the fourth ones to get married - ostensibly because, in Shikamaru’s words, it’s ‘too troublesome to plan the stupid wedding’), first to join ANBU (in a rather spectacular turn of events, Ino), first to leave ANBU (Tenten, after being sent on a mission to assassinate an entire household, down to the very last child. Legend has it Neji crippled the man who assigned it to her so badly that he had to retire altogether).
There’s another first, of course, but nobody wants to think of that one - it’s bad luck to speak of it out of turn, say the jounin, and the chuunin simply go pale and stutter and change the topic. It’s a nice little fantasy, that it won’t happen sooner or later, and the rookies are content to dwell in it and ignore all evidence that they’re wrong.
And then one day Genma and Neji leave on a B-rank mission, and a week later Genma limps, staggers past the gate and into town, and he’s old and tired and wounded and clutching a hitae-ate and a set of dog tags in his hand like they’re the most precious things in the world to him, and it doesn’t take a genius to do the math.
Shikamaru’s the first one that sees him, the one that calls for the medics from the hospital, and he sits Genma down by the gate and grabs the dog tags and feels a cold, sinking sickness coil in the pit of his stomach.
Tenten cries when he tells her, and screams, and she punches him in the chest as hard as she can over, and over, and over again. And the rookies all hug her and hold her and make her and her children so much food that some of it rots, and they tell her that things are going to be all right even though things can never be all right again.
Because the thing is, Neji was the first. And just like they all got married and had babies and joined ANBU and got fucked over, sooner or later, one of them is going to be the second. And sooner or later, one of them is going to be the last.
The first one is not, somewhat surprisingly, Lee, in sheer skills perhaps the weakest of them all, or Naruto, who can’t seem to think even half a step ahead of anything.
The first one is Neji.
There have been lots of firsts for the rookie generation. First to get married (Kiba, in what is later determined to be a shotgun wedding), first to reproduce (Shikamaru and Temari, though, ironically, they’re the fourth ones to get married - ostensibly because, in Shikamaru’s words, it’s ‘too troublesome to plan the stupid wedding’), first to join ANBU (in a rather spectacular turn of events, Ino), first to leave ANBU (Tenten, after being sent on a mission to assassinate an entire household, down to the very last child. Legend has it Neji crippled the man who assigned it to her so badly that he had to retire altogether).
There’s another first, of course, but nobody wants to think of that one - it’s bad luck to speak of it out of turn, say the jounin, and the chuunin simply go pale and stutter and change the topic. It’s a nice little fantasy, that it won’t happen sooner or later, and the rookies are content to dwell in it and ignore all evidence that they’re wrong.
And then one day Genma and Neji leave on a B-rank mission, and a week later Genma limps, staggers past the gate and into town, and he’s old and tired and wounded and clutching a hitae-ate and a set of dog tags in his hand like they’re the most precious things in the world to him, and it doesn’t take a genius to do the math.
Shikamaru’s the first one that sees him, the one that calls for the medics from the hospital, and he sits Genma down by the gate and grabs the dog tags and feels a cold, sinking sickness coil in the pit of his stomach.
Tenten cries when he tells her, and screams, and she punches him in the chest as hard as she can over, and over, and over again. And the rookies all hug her and hold her and make her and her children so much food that some of it rots, and they tell her that things are going to be all right even though things can never be all right again.
Because the thing is, Neji was the first. And just like they all got married and had babies and joined ANBU and got fucked over, sooner or later, one of them is going to be the second. And sooner or later, one of them is going to be the last.