It was funny watching the way other people's teams worked. Ino had first noticed it during the Chunin exams, there were so many different types of people thrown together in a group and expected to make the best of their team mates. And these were people that they had to trust with their lives when they were given more complex missions.
Ino had come to think she was relatively lucky. She had known Shikamaru and Chouji before, and while she didn't particularly like them in her days at the academy she had known, from the generations of their families, that they could use their skills and work together.
She just wished they'd give a little more pizzazz in their missions. Even a half hearted cheer when they'd finished a mission would be better than they did now they both had a surprisingly laid back attitude for someone who was trying to have a career as a ninja. And Asuma wasn't exactly one for motivational speeches, or for having much motivation himself until he was forced to get serious about something.
And then there were the others.
She had seem glimpsed of Team Eight in practice and was now enough of an acquaintance of Hinata's that she'd smile and wave at the other girl whenever they met. So Ino had seen that Kiba had enough enthusiasm for Hinata's team, Shino especially, and Ino's own team combined. There was something in his arrogant determination that reminded Ino of Naruto but whereas Hinata spent her time talking to Kiba in a soothing manner when he was agitated to try and get him to be more level headed as soon as Naruto was in the vicinity of her she turned bright red and clammed up completely.
Everyone knew now that out off all of the teams put together Team Seven was the most surprising. And now she had to give Sakura some credit for actually surviving on that team, Ino often thought that with the people Sakura was saddled with she, personally, would have gone crazy months ago. Despite being able to spend time with Sasuke, their team seemed to go through more crap than any other.
Except maybe that team from Sand, she couldn't imagine what it must feel like to be stuck on a team with that crazed red-headed boy, Gaara something, although by all accounts he had mellowed out now. Ino couldn't quite imagine that though especially after watching his fight with Sasuke in the arena, and then there was what he had done to Lee.
As well as being the most surprising, Ino had found that Sakura's team were also the most interesting to watch. Their teacher was worse than Asuma when it came down to it, he was even more infuriatingly easy going and seemed to think that his carefree attitude was something good, to be admired even. Although it probably didn't help that the other teacher, Gai, the craziest of them all, kept saying that Kakashi was cool. Ino was convinced that it had probably only boosted Kakashi's ego to unfathomable heights.
Ino had seen Team Seven standing on the bridge waiting for Kakashi to turn up when she was going to and from her own team meetings, it seemed that Kakashi was always hours late and then turned up all nonchalant with a poor excuse. Ino had heard Naruto and Sakura complaining about it, Sasuke had never commented on it.
She didn't think she'd ever seen Sasuke complain about something. He had just put his head down and got on with it, or rather put his head down and excelled at it. He was the best in their year and it riled Ino at first that he had been placed with Sakura and then Naruto of all people.
Although, she had been grudgingly impressed at Naruto's persistence in the Chunin exams, taking on first Kiba and then Neji, two ninja's she was convinced were much more skilled than Naruto was and then he had gone on to win it.
Even Sakura had given her a good fight during the preliminaries something Ino had found galling especially as it seemed as if Sakura was going to one up Ino by training under Tsunade now.
And then there was Sasuke, someone who it hurt to think about now. Ino had honestly resented Sakura for winning the spot on Sasuke's team but now she was happy to be with Shikamaru and Chouji as Sakura was now left devastated on a broken team.
Sasuke had disappeared into the night and the attempts to retrieve him had only left Ino's own teammates battered and neither of them would talk about what had happened on that mission. Even Kiba, who would usually boast about his prowess on missions and his overcoming the impossible was subdued and didn't reveal anything when he was pressed about it.
Sasuke's leaving had broken more than just Team Seven and broken they were. Ino had seen Kakashi hanging out at the memorial stone more often than usually when she had been running to her own team meetings.
They had more of them now, as Shikamaru and Chouji were unusually motivated, to a point where Ino almost missed how lax they had been previously, but she had tried to understand what they had gone through. Even if everyone who had been sent to retrieve Sasuke were set apart from the rest of them for now. As if they had seen horrible things that had made them older, wiser, or maybe even just more careworn than the rest of them. They had the same world weariness that their teachers, who had fought through some of the Great Ninja Wars had sometimes.
Naruto had left to train for god knows how long and then there was Sakura left, looking both determined and frail. Broken hearted and stubborn, her former best friend, who she had bonded with one late night after she had been training with Tsunade and they had agreed that Sasuke's silence had only made everyone misjudge him and not know what was going on in his mind. Sasuke was a genius, yes, but that meant that no one had understood him.
Except Naruto, Sakura had said and Ino was forced to agree with her again. Yes, Naruto, who had surprised them all once again and was determined to keep fighting for Sasuke's return. He had promised apparently, to bring him back no matter what which gave Ino a grudging respect for him, this had gone beyond the Chunin exams which had been, for a time, their only concern as they focused on trying to pass. It had been where Team Seven had been deliberately sought out as targets.
That fateful exam where Sasuke had emerged in the Forest of Death bloody and victorious against their Sound attackers and yet somehow at the cost of something Ino couldn't place. The person who had won that day wasn't the Sasuke Ino had known, or thought she'd known. It hadn't been that Sasuke any of them had known prior to the exam and yet it had been Sakura of all people that had pulled him back to himself.
Unfortunately it hadn't worked a second time. Sasuke had left without looking back once. Leaving Sakura behind him, leaving Naruto and Kakashi too without a word. No reasons, no explanations, nothing.
Four people put together in a team at random. And yet they had all formed an unbreakable bond, it had been stretched thin over the years, and Sasuke may have attacked it with a huge metaphorical pair of scissors but Sakura, Naruto and Kakashi were prepared to go into the snake pit to rescue him, everyone knew that, they just hadn't had the chance to prove it yet.
Although everyone put together on a team had learnt to love and trust their teammates no matter their flaws, it was different for Team Seven and everyone knew it. They had all become damaged it some way, Sakura never felt good enough, Sasuke and Naruto had both faced different horrors growing up and Kakashi was always mourning his lost comrades at the memorial.
They were all broken and somehow they all managed to fit together and Ino fervently hoped that Naruto's persistence and determination as well as Sakura's could bring Sasuke back to Konoha. She'd quite like to see them together as a team again. Bickering and nagging each other until they became better, it just seemed to be the way all their teams had improved.
She wanted to see them standing on the bridge again, Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto, Sakura and Naruto complaining about Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke bickering as they waited for their teacher.
Ino may have fallen out with Sakura for a while but she wished she hadn't been put through all that. She wished Sakura had been put on a team that was ordinary like hers. She was, with Shikamaru, Chouji and Asuma, part of a hard working team, they did their bit for Konoha, they worked every mission assigned to them but they were just like any other team sent out of Konoha, just like any other Ino-Shika-Chou team before them.
And Sakura, poor Sakura, had been placed on the team that was extraordinary and it seemed like all of them were paying the price for that. But, if anything, it would be an extraordinary team that would be able to bring Sasuke back.