Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of Kishimoto's characters. Only the OCs are mine
Chapter One:
She stirred from her slumber. Seconds later, blue eyes slowly fluttered open. She brought a hand to her temple, shook off the drowsiness and wondered, "Where am I?"
Judging from the uncomfortable feeling of her backside, she was lying on cold hard ground. With a groan, she pushed herself into a sitting position and tried to survey her surroundings.
Nothing but complete darkness surrounded her.
"What happened to me? What am I doing here?" She wondered out loud. No one answered her questions. Instead, her voice echoed back, making it clear she was in an enclosed space.
Fully aware that nothing will happen if she remained still, she rose to her feet and cautiously felt around the darkness, hoping to find anything that can help determine her location. She fumbled around but felt nothing but thick hard walls surrounding her.
Signing, she leaned against the wall and tried to peer into the darkness again but realized something very odd: her eyes, which should've easily adapted because of daily training, had not yet adjusted to the dark. Her eyebrows furrowed from this strange predicament but before she could further analyze the situation, footsteps approached her from the other direction.
"Who's there?" She called out in alarm. There was no way of telling if whoever's approaching was friend or foe.
The cackling voice that answered sent shivers down her spine. "Your worst nightmare."
Tachibana Terumi woke up with a start. Her first instinct was to look around wildly. Quickly realizing she was in the comfort of her own bedroom, her tense shoulders relaxed and she breathed a sigh of relief. The nightmare shook her to the very core; there's no way she can fall asleep after that. There's no use trying to go back to sleep, so I may as well start my day early, she rationalized.
She stood up and walked over to stand by the window. The early morning sunshine lazily filtered in, but its warmth shook away any shred of fear she had after hearing that strange voice in her dream. She looked out towards her village, the Village of the Hidden Leaf, in all its morning glory and grinned.
"Not a bad day to get a little training in."
—
A shuriken broke the silence of the morning. It whizzed through the air before promptly hitting its target. Satisfied with her hit, Terumi straightened her back before reaching for another shuriken. The field she was currently training in was wide with greenery that stretched for miles. Target boards lined up horizontally and a number of training dummies scattered around the open space. There was a rustle of leaves from the forest of trees facing her back.
"Training so early in the morning, you never change do you?"
His familiar voice did not deter her focus from the target. She aimed and successfully hit the bulls-eye once again. Knowing that she could no longer continue to train in peace, Terumi sighed and shook her long brown hair out from its ponytail.
"What do you want, Akito?" She asked as way of acknowledging his presence.
Akito flashed her a smile, canines out. The purple marks on the sides of his face identified him as a member of the Inuzuka clan.
"Lady Tsunade is calling for you. Sounds like a mission."
Knowing that she was being summoned by the village's Hokage, Terumi prepared to leave. Akito anticipated her action and quickly intercepted. She looked up to glare at him, silently telling him to move away but his grin only widened in response.
"Spar with me before you go."
As soon as the words left his mouth, he pulled his arm back to throw a punch to her gut. Terumi quickly backed away as a reflex and countered with a punch of her own, aiming for his face. He grabbed her arm before it could make contact and twisted it to her back. This effectively got a yelp of pain out of her and she struggled to get away from his iron-clad grip.
"Do you give up?" Akito playfully whispered in her ear.
"You wish!" Terumi growled. She directed chakra to her foot before stepping hard on his toes. His grip loosened and she used this as an opportunity to move away from him. After drawing a kunai, she sped over to Akito with every intention of cutting him but he guessed her path and smoothly moved away with the speed that only an Inuzuka possessed. Terumi predicted his movement and changed her path at the very last second. She body slammed him, pushed him towards the ground, and quickly sealed any attempts of a counterattack by resting a kunai against his neck.
She didn't say a word as Akito's expression turned from shock, to amusement, and finally, resignation. "I give up. You win." Terumi immediately retracted her kunai and stood up. She turned her back towards him and prepared to leave.
"After four years of being in the same team, I still can't beat you in a one-on-one match." Terumi looked back to see that Akito was still lying on the grass, exactly where she left him, looking straight at her with a small smile on his face. "You're really something else, Teru."
She returned his smile. "You're a hundred years too early to be challenging me anyway," she teased.
Akito burst out laughing. "Whatever you say, I'm still gonna beat you one day. Now stop being cheeky and get out of here."
"You're the one who stopped me in the first place," she muttered under her breath, but in a much louder voice she bid goodbye to Akito and left the field.
—
Terumi stood in front of the Hokage's office. She straightened her posture before knocking on the door.
"Come in!" Came the loud reply.
She twisted the doorknob and pushed the door open. The first person she saw was the Fifth Hokage herself, sitting behind a desk filled with piles of paperwork. She was scribbling fiercely when she heard Terumi enter.
"You're quick to arrive," Tsunade noted when she saw Terumi standing in her office. "Sit down. You have to wait a while for the others," she said before going back to her paperwork.
She obeyed Tsunade's order and sat down on the couch in front of the desk. While waiting, Terumi wondered who those "others" were and what was taking them so long. Missions are the top priority for any shinobi and no one would be stupid enough to intentionally make the Hokage wait for them after being summoned, right?
After a few minutes of silence, someone knocked on the door and entered. Tsunade looked up and surprised Terumi by smirking. "That was quicker than I thought. What did you two do to wake him up?"
Terumi looked over her shoulder to see a pretty kunoichi with long blonde hair walk in, rolling her blue eyes. "Lady Fifth, after years of being in the same team, it's already a given that we need to splash a bucket of ice cold water on his face to wake him up."
Terumi knew her as Yamanaka Ino, heiress of the Yamanaka clan.
A big guy followed in after her. He wore a cheerful smile on his chubby face and held a bag of potato chips in one hand. "It still wasn't easy though. We had to drag him here kicking and screaming."
This was Akimichi Choji, heir of the Akimichi clan.
The last person to enter had black hair pulled up into a spiky ponytail. His face crinkled into a yawn as he scratched the back of his neck. "Troublesome. Ino had to dry my hair before coming."
And this was Nara Shikamaru, heir of the Nara clan and a known genius with an IQ of over 200.
Terumi gulped when she realized this was the team she was going to work with—the legendary Ino-Shika-Cho of the Hidden Leaf Village.