A/N: Kay, so I really don't want to wait to post the second chapter if I already have it. So here it is..
Disclaimer: Sadly, I do not own.
One month later
"Ouch," Layuki said as the nurse dabbed at the fairly severe burn on her right arm that she had received on their last mission.
"Jeez, Layuki, you need to be more careful. Aren't you all about chakra control? You could have at least focused a bit and protected your skin." Kaoru sighed, as he leaned against the wall. He was wearing his usual red sleeveless shirt with tan-coloured shorts and the common blue ninja sandal shoes, and wore his ninja headband on his forehead.
"Don't be so hard on her. She didn't have anytime to do that." Karin came to Layuki's defense as she swung her legs from her position sitting on the table. She was wearing her usual light blue fighting kimono with dark blue leggings, blue ninja sandal shoes and had her ninja headband tied on her left wrist. Her blue outfit made her shoulder-length bright red hair, which was in two spiky pigtails, stand out.
Their last mission was a journey to the other side of the fire country to help out at a farm. It was an easy C-ranked mission. During their second night there, however, a lantern was accidentally knocked over by the farmer's son and the barn was set on fire. Squad 9 was there immediately, getting all the animals and the boy out. Though when they thought they were finished Layuki heard a dog barking and went back in the farm, despite the protests from her sensei and her teammates. She managed to get the dog out safely, but she suffered from a horrible burn.
Layuki glared at Kaoru and stuck her tongue out at him, acting extremely childish. She was wearing her usual dark grey shirt with a very wide V-neck that went just below her non-existent breasts, underneath that she had white bandages wrapped around her body, black baggy shorts, her ninja headband was on a black cloth instead of blue and was loosely tied around her neck. She also had on ninja sandal shoes, which were black instead of blue.
"Alright sweetie, I think that's good, it's healed a bit and I've made it so it won't hurt as much. But please don't do anything rash." The nurse smiled sweetly. "You may go now."
Letting out a cry of glee, she quickly made her way out of the hospital with her teammates close behind.
But once she was outside, she was immediately stopped when a man stepped in front of her. She looked up, somewhat cautiously, at the expressionless face of her sensei. He was dressed in his normal black pants and a black t-shirt with the forest green jounin vest over top. His spiky navy blue hear was messy, as usual, and covered parts of his Konohagakure headband on his forehead. His arms were bandaged and he wore fingerless gloves with a metal plate over the knuckles.
"A student who does not obey orders cannot be expected to be a good shinobi," He said, quite casually.
"Order? I don't recall you giving me an order, I saw it as more of a…" Layuki paused, thinking of a proper word, "request." And she gave and innocent smile.
"You really can't blame her Rei-sensei, nothing extreme happened and she did save that dog," Karin started, somewhat slowly, attempting to help her friend.
"That's true," Kaoru said, also trying to help.
Their sensei looked at them tiredly. It was no wonder they were one of the four groups that had become genin, the way they stood up for each other and how they worked as a team was quite remarkable. Karin, the sweet girl was the brain, she could think of a good strategy in almost any situation. Kaoru, he was the strength, the leader of the team who gave the directions. And Layuki, the little girl was the sheer skill, since she was young she was working on chakra control and now her control was pretty much perfect, she kept the group together.
"Well, anyways, I'm here to tell you that I've signed all of you up for the Chuunin Exams." He said, as if he was making a comment on the weather.
"What?"
"You're joking!"
"Are you serious?"
Rei waited for his students to quiet down before he continued. "I think you're all ready. The first exams start in three days. Bye-bye now." And with that, he disappeared in a puff of smoke.
"Wow, I'll never understand how he does that," Kaoru said trying to break the stunned silence.
Layuki laughed. "Well, I'm kinda hungry, I think I'm gonna to Ichiraku. You guys coming?"
"Nah, okaa-san and otou-san want us home." Karin said waving.
"Alright then, see you soon." Layuki said, smiling despite the pang she felt when Karin mentioned her mother and father.
Making her way into the center of Konohagakure, she met a strange scene. There was a tall girl with four short blonde pigtails with a large fan strapped to her back, a tall boy in a black jumpsuit and purple war paint with a thing that looked like a mummy strapped to his back. And there was a boy about her age, though taller and with hair even redder than the twins'. He also had a large gourd on his back that looked very heavy. Also, all three of them seemed to be from Sunagakure, the village hidden in the sand.
What was strange though was that the boy with the mummy had his hand around the honourable grandson's, Konohamaru's, neck and was holding him about a foot off the ground, an arms length away as if he was some dirty rag.
Naruto was there too and so was Sakura. Sensing a familiar chakra pattern, Layuki confirmed that Sasuke was there too, sitting in the tree, not visible to the crowd below.
While there were many yells of 'let me down' and 'let him down' a kunai came flying from Sasuke's place in the tree, making the mummy boy drop Konohamaru. Then everyone in the crowd looked up to where Sasuke is. He jumped down as the sand trio began to walk away.
"Wait!" he called out, "What's your name?"
The boy with red hair turned around and examined the raven-haired boy. "Yes, I'm quite interested in you too," he said before turning around again and walking away. But before he fully turned around his aquamarine eyes met Layuki's glaring grey ones for a brief second. The girl with the fan was already fairly ahead, and the mummy boy gave a smirk before walking away as well.
"Well that was dramatic." Layuki said breaking the silence. Naruto and Sakura jumped; obviously they didn't know that she was there.
"Layuki-chan, where are doing here?" Naruto asked, slightly titling his head to the right. Naruto and Layuki were fairly good friends and in the academy they were both consistently getting into trouble.
"To Ichiraku's," She said, "You can come if you want, Naruto-kun, and you too Sakura-san, Sasuke-kun, it's my treat." She put an emphasis on the 'kun', knowing it would annoy Sasuke. She also would have invited Konohamaru, if he hadn't run off.
"Yay! Ramen!" With that, Naruto skipped down to the ramen shop by himself.
"I'm not hungry." Sasuke said, rather coldly, walking away.
"Uhm, I'm not hungry either," Sakura said, looking at Sasuke's retreating back. "Ah, did your sensei sign your team up for the chuunin exams as well, Layuki-chan?"
"Yeah he did. Great, though isn't it Sakura-san? We could become chuunin after only a month of being genin!" Layuki had her usual grin plastered on her face.
Looking down at the other girl, Sakura couldn't help but admire her confidence. "Yes," She muttered softly. "Well, I think I should be off, see you! Oh, and please, just call me Sakura." With that, she walked off in the same direction Sasuke had earlier.
When she entered the ramen shop, she stopped, and gaped at Naruto, who was already on his fourth bowl of ramen.
"Uhm Naruto, I don't think I'm all that hungry anymore. Here's the money for four bowls, you'll have to pay for the rest," She gave an uneasy smile, put the money on the table an left after Naruto said something into his bowl that might have been a 'thank you'.
It was true; she wasn't really hungry anymore. Deciding that she was tired, she made her way to her apartment. On the way, a colourful shop caught her attention.
"Yamanaka Flowers," She read. She gave a shrug and walked in. A multi coloured flower immediately caught her attention. She isn't the kind of girl that picks flowers just because they look pretty. But this one just looked, well, breathtaking. It had a perfect combination of blues, greens, yellows, and oranges, with a little bit of brown.
"Well if it isn't Layuki." Ino said as she walked into the store from the staff room.
"Nice to see you Ino." Layuki said giving the blonde girl a smile.
"What's this? Layuki's admiring pansies?" She gave an overly exaggerated gasp, "Well, tell me, who's the lucky guy?"
"Lucky guy? What on earth are you talking about?"
"Oh, so you're not secretly in love with a boy?" She looked disappointed.
"No…should I be?"
"I guess not, it's just that since you were looking at the pansies, I was so sure. Pansies mean loving thoughts, you know?"
Layuki looked up at Ino for a moment, and then burst out laughing. When she had finally calmed down she looked at the girl again and let a huge grin spread across her face. "Ino, Ino, Ino. I'm disappointed, here you are accusing my of having loving thoughts and practically the whole village knows that you're smitten for Nara Shikamaru."
"What?! Seriously? The whole village knows?" Layuki wished she had a camera. The look on Ino's face was priceless.
"Nope. But now I do for sure. I'm off." She turned to walk away but a firm grasp on her bandaged right arm caused her to stifle and 'ouch'. Instead she turned to face Ino while rubbing her burnt and sore arm.
Ino's face looked a little sorry but that didn't stop her from threatening the shorter girl.
"Don't worry about it. But he's not interested. If you're looking for a guy, might I suggest Rutake Kaoru? He seems to like you." She gave a wink and headed out the door. She had abandoned the idea of heading home and made her way to the training grounds. She wanted to do her best in the chuunin exams.
I would really appreciate it if people could review, I just want to know how my fic is going. I'm not saying you absolutely have to review, I'll still keep posting if you don't but they're welcome D
fanny-kun
