ME NO OWN.

Verily We Move Along

Pairings: Tenten/ Neji, Sakura/Gaara, Hinata/Naruto, Ino/Chouji, Temari/Shikamaru, OC/Shino.

Chapter One: A Messed Up Mission and a Whole New World.

It was a peaceful day on the border between Fire and Wind countries and the young kunoichi sitting in the hot spring they had found. The five Konoha kunoichi and single Suna kunoichi had been on a mission that had required the use of multiple kunoichi in an effort to stop a slavery ring run out of a border town. Gaara had requested help from Tsunade and had been given the five girls to support his sister, whom he had been extremely reluctant to put into the situation to begin with. The Sand Princess looked over at her comrades, her friends and smiled as she considered them. The first her eyes fell on was Higurashi Tenten, Konoha's weapons mistress; by far the best weapons fighter in either country. Next was Haruno Sakura, the young apprentice to the Hokage and secret lover of Sabaku no Gaara, the Kazekage. The medic and the Kage had met when Team 7 had come to Suna on a mission and while they had had a bit of a rocky beginning, eventually the two had come together beautifully. Her eyes next found the beautiful, pale eyed Hyuuga Hinata. Hinata was a beautiful young woman and another apprentice to the Hokage, though Sakura was the primary one. Hinata had proved to her father, if not the elders, that she was worthy to be the clan's heiress and her relationship with Naruto didn't really help. She loved Naruto with everything that she was and Naruto, dense as he was, had finally realized both her feelings and his own and had asked her on a date. The rest was history and Temari fully expected to receive a wedding invitation any day now. Yamanaka Ino was yet another woman that she never expected to befriend and whom she had once actually been in a bit of a rivalry with over Temari's boyfriend Shikamaru…until the beautiful blonde had realized the presence of the sturdy young man who had always been at her side. The final woman was not only odd looking, but wasn't even really a native of either Suna or Konoha. Tokara Kiseki was born in Iwa, but after a mission that went horribly wrong she was banished from her home and left to wander when she stumbled onto Konoha territory. She actually stumbled onto Team 9 as they were walking into an ambush that would have killed them. In fact it was only because of her assistance that the team had made it out of that alive and her assistance mostly consisted of throwing herself between a downed Lee and a well-aimed sword. She hadn't bothered to block it, so it had slid gracefully into her shoulder and she had turned sharply, snapping the blade when it caught between her collarbone and her top rib, both of which her diamond hard. The Tokara clan of Iwa was also known as the 'Diamond Bone' clan, a clan of shinobi that had the bloodline that made their bones preternaturally dense. This had the side effect of making the members of the clan extremely heavy, so they wore weights to be able to move faster. Kiseki weighed about two hundred pounds, despite the fact that she was only five foot five and thin almost to the point of unhealthy when she met Team 9. The blade hadn't hit anything vital, but with the injuries that she had already sustained during her banishment the blood loss it caused didn't help her any. She lay next to Lee for a few moments as Neji and Tenten finished off the enemy with the help of the newly arrived Gai-sensei, but forced herself to move before the fight ended. She didn't want to die just yet and she was well aware of the enmity between Konoha and Iwa, even if she didn't agree with it. She wound up leaning against a nearby tree, that being as far as she could get with the blade of the broken sword still in her shoulder as the team finished up the fight. From what Tenten had told Temari that first meeting had not gone very well at all, but Team 9 had quickly understood Kiseki's situation and just what it was that she had done for them and they were grateful enough to take her back to Konoha for treatment. She met with the Hokage, after escaping the hospital three times and nearly hospitalizing six orderlies due to her utter loathing of medical facilities, and the rest, as they say, is history. Kiseki was put on probation for six months and then made a chuunin of Konohagakure. Temari was not yet privy to how Kiseki had nabbed the Bug-nin of the Rookie Nine, but she was willing to bet it would be one hell of a story. These five women had become the sisters that Temari had always wanted, but had never had the opportunity to have since her father had killed her mother sealing the One-tailed sand demon into her baby brother. She had grown to love the women around her; they gave her respite from her perpetually perverted, puppet-master of a brother Kankuro and from her too-stressed-for-words Kazekage of a baby brother Gaara and they understood her like no one she'd ever met (besides Shika, of course).

"So ladies, I guess this mission was successful."

"Yeah, who would have guessed that the rat bastard of a hotel owner was really the one in charge of the slave market? I didn't think we'd shatter the whole kami damn ring; I figured we'd just break off this bit and cause a bit of trouble for the shit heads."

"Kiseki-chan, please don't curse so much."

"Aw Hina-chan, I just call 'em like I see 'em."

Sakura snickered at the smirk on Kiseki's face, all of them wondering just how the strange young woman had managed to worm her way into the stoic Bug-nin's heart, while Ino and Temari burst out laughing at the familiar by-play.

"Okay ladies, time for gossip! Temari-chan, how's the lazy bastard? Are you having to do all the work in the relationship?"

Ino's voice was sly at the end and Temari couldn't help the blush that came to her face.

"Ino! Look, Shika is just fine and what we do in our relationship really isn't any of your business."

So there.

"Well, I heard that a certain Hyuuga finally got something through his stubborn head about his Weapons Mistress…"

Now it was Tenten's turn to blush.

The women had a good laugh at the kunoichi's expense and the easy camaraderie between them relaxed all of them.

Unfortunately it should not have.

XXXX

It was so unexpected that they didn't even have time to brace themselves. There wasn't even the whisper of chakra or even a hint of what was to come as the women walked toward their campsite. They were on alert even though they were only a day out of Konoha, their senses piqued for any sign of an enemy attack, but what happened wasn't really an enemy attack. Kiseki would be their normal first alert, as she was hyper sensitive to all things chakra and even a bit of the ancient magic that had become mostly forgotten as time passed. Next would be Hinata, whose eyes, while not as far seeing as her father's or cousin's, could see in much higher detail. Then would come Sakura, who was very good at sensing chakra and how powerful one would be with it. The women thought that everything was fine and Kiseki didn't feel anything.

Hinata didn't see anything.

Sakura didn't sense anything.

So when the portal opened directly under their feet, none of them realized it until it was far too late to escape.