Down the Shinobi's Path

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or anything associated with Naruto in any way, shape, or form. I wish I did though. Nor do I own the song whose lyrics are briefly featured in the first chapter. What I do own is Kareha, Kei, Ren, and any people you don't recognize from the series.

Author's Notes: This is an OC fan fiction. It is going to focus on my OC team. They're a part of the rookie nine of Team Gai's year and thus Team Gai will be mentioned and/or make brief appearances. Other Naruto characters will be mentioned and make appearances later on though. On that note, this fanfic is slightly AU, in the sense that my OC team will participate in the Chuunin exams with the rest of the Naruto characters along with one other minor OC team to even out the numbers. That is about the extent of which my OC team interferes with the canon. Also there might be a mild one-sided GaiOC pairing, I say 'might' because I haven't decided if I want it in this or not. This, along with any other pairings I may add in and whatnot, may change depending on where the story goes. Constructive criticism is helpful and not to mention welcomed. Flames, however, are not.

Warnings: I think I covered most of it in the Author's notes but: slight AU, OC team, maybe mild one-sided GaiOC pairing, violence, and language

Well, that's about it, I hope you will give this fic a chance, and now on with the fic! Enjoy!

"blah" speaking

'blah' thoughts

Chapter 1: One Not-Entirely-Bad Day

One day, one not-spectacularly-beautiful-but-still-sunny-and-bright day, a young boy was having what was turning out to be quite a bad day.

'Why do we have to live so far from the Academy!? Today's the ceremony where we get our teams and I'm going to be late for it! This is all Hiro-nii's fault!' the boy thought angrily as he weaved his way through the morning crowd, which was quite easy for him as he was quite short for a boy his age. In fact, if he thought about it, he was probably the shortest kid in his class. But the thing was he didn't have the time to think about it. That morning the boy's mother had told his older brother to make sure he was awake so he wouldn't be late for the ceremony; his brother woke him up over a half-hour after being told this. As a result the boy had to hurriedly get ready for the day and completely skip breakfast before running out the door. He had gotten a few blocks away only to remember he had forgotten his lunch and ran back to retrieve it, which made him even later! 'Yes, this is definitely all Hiro-nii's fault.'

With that much decided the boy looked ahead at the academy growing bigger and bigger as he drew nearer and nearer to it. Once reaching it the boy stopped hunched over, his hands resting on legs clothed in midnight blue pants, trying to catch his breath. His strawberry blonde hair stuck up in spikes either by gel or made wild by running against the wind. If it was the latter, the boy didn't seem to care as he stood up straight and straightened the white short sleeve shirt with rectangular clasps all down the front that he wore over a long sleeve fishnet shirt. Over both, wide midnight blue straps crisscrossed over his chest before looping behind him, and at the intersection a hitai-ate looped the straps. After, the boy entered the building and hurried to his classroom.

Inside the classroom the boy made his way to the back of the class, halfway there the sight of a girl stopped him. The girl had waist length blood red hair held in place by a black bandana. She wore a long, sleeveless, black Chinese style shirt that was slit up the sides lined in emerald green with a sash, of the same color, tied around her waist, ending in a bow and two long tails. A leg, clad in black Capri-like pants that ended in emerald green ribbon tied in a lose bow, bounced whether from agitation or boredom the boy didn't know. The boy opened his mouth as if to speak to her, yet no sound came. He closed it then opened it again looking, for all the world, like a fish out of water. A boy with chocolate brown hair sitting next to the redhead looked up at the gaping boy briefly before going back to whatever he had been doing. The boy shut his mouth once again with a click of teeth on teeth then bowed his head and turned quickly away before anyone could see his face go red with embarrassment, hurrying to the back of the classroom. 'Well, at least I'm not that late.'

If the redheaded girl had noticed the boy's presence or the fact that he had been trying to speak to her, she wasn't showing it. Her dark blue eyes were focused on the piece of paper on the table top in front of her on which she was doodling. Her leg bounced to the music blaring through her earphones. The chocolate brown haired boy next her to asked her something, but she didn't seem to hear. He frowned at her then reached out and jabbed her sharply in the shoulder with his finger. The girl looked up suddenly at the shoulder poker.

"We live our lives on the frontlines, we're not afraid of the fast times," he said. The redhead stared at him, confused, for a moment, trying to figure out why he had just sung part of the song she was listening to. The boy scowled more as he snatched the wire hanging down from the ear nearest him and used it to pull the earphone out. "I said did you hear me, Kareha."

"Uh, was I supposed to?" Kareha joked as the boy let go of the wire and crossed his arms over the green camouflaged vest he wore over a black short sleeved shirt and glared at her. "I'm sorry, Kei! I really am! Please say it again?" Kareha begged in an effort to appease her best friend's annoyance with her.

Kei let out an exasperated sigh, "Jeez, Kareha how do you expect to be a good ninja if you can't even tell someone's there because you have your music on too loud and you're always in your own little world? What if I had been an enemy? It would have been all too easy to kill you."

The girl pouted at him, "No it wouldn't," she muttered, then said louder, "and I'm not always in my own little world; I so knew you were there."

"Suuure, just like how you knew that shrimp was standing there trying to talk to you," Kei teased.

Kareha frowned at the name calling, "Don't be mean, Kei," she scolded with a punch to his arm. "And don't change the subject either. Tell me what you said."

Kei smirked at the redheaded girl, ignoring her punch, granted she hadn't punched him that hard or at least not as hard as she usually punched him, and changed the subject again, "So do you think we'll be on the same team? I asked my dad how this worked last night and he said that they team you up in a way that balances out the group or something."

Kareha's eyes narrowed at him, 'He's doing this just to annoy me; he has to be!' A part of her mind suggested that this might be what he had said earlier, but judging by the look on his face it probably wasn't.

She opened her mouth to reply but stopped suddenly at the sight of a black haired boy with particularly thick eyebrows standing before her, "Good morning, Kareha-san!"

"Er…G-good morning, Lee," Kareha replied with a cheerful smile; she could feel Kei's highly amused grin on the back of her head. 'Damn him, getting enjoyment out of watching me squirm! I'll kill him for this!' But before she could begin killing him something occurred to her, "Lee, why are you here? Today's class is only for those who passed the exam."

"I did pass the exam, see my hitai-ate?" came Lee's reply as he helpfully pointed to his forehead protector, he seemed proud of himself.

'How'd he manage that?' Kareha mused, 'Maybe the same way I passed the cooking portion of the kunoichi classes. Or maybe he just stole the hitai-ate.' For a short moment Kareha became lost in thought of all the possible ways Lee could have gotten his hitai-ate without passing the exam, none of which were likely or even possible for that matter, before snapping back to reality, cheerful smile still plastered on her face; if there was one thing she prided herself on from her kunoichi training it was her acting skills, "Ah, that's wonderful to hear!" 'I guess.' She gave one last bright smile to Lee before turning back to Kei, with a glare when she found he was still grinning, hoping Lee would take the hint and leave. "I don't know but we'll probably find out soon because Shizuka-sensei just came in the room," she finally answered while glancing at their teacher who had indeed just walked into the class and called for silence.

When everyone had settled down Shizuka smiled and began speaking to his excited soon-to-be-former students, "Starting today you are all real shinobi, but you are just rookies compared to others. The hard part lies ahead." The man smiled in amusement as his students excitement grew then fell with much complaining and groaning at the last bit he'd spoken. He waited until they quieted down again before beginning once more, "Soon you will be assigned duties by the village; so today we are going to create the three-man teams. Each team will be given a Jounin sensei whose instructions you will follow as you complete your assigned duties. Now I have tried to balance out each team's strengths."

Cries of disappointment and indignation sounded throughout the room. Kareha was not one of them, she was sitting in her seat with her fingers crossed, silently chanting 'Not Lee, not Lee, not Lee…'

Shizuka ignored this as he began reading off the names, "Cell one: Misaki Aihoshi, Tanaka Kaoru, and Fujimoto Makoto."

"Awwww!" said a girl with short dark-blue-almost-black hair in a ponytail, Aihoshi, in disappointment. Some of the students laughed at the exclaimation.

Some minutes later Shizuka called out, "Cell eleven: Rock Lee…"

Kareha's eyes went wide and she chanted harder, 'Not Lee, not Lee, not Lee…'

"Hyuuga Neji…"

'Not Lee, not lee, not lee…'

"And Sato Tenten."

'Safe!' was Kareha's relieved thought as Shizuka began reading off cell twelve.

"Cell thirteen: Akiyama Kareha, Himura Kei," Kei and Kareha grinned at each other as they gave each other a high five, "and Nakamura Ren."

A boy who was really quite short with strawberry blonde hair spiked up and pale ice blue eyes at the very back of the classroom suddenly looked up and over at Kei and Kareha just as they turned to look at him. 'Well, maybe it wasn't such a bad day after all,' he thought with a shy little smile.

So, what do you think? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it anything? Do you not know? Review and tell me. I know the beginning is kind of slow and nothings happening now (and the next chapter will probably be slow too) but it gets better.

Anyhow see you next chapter!