The Complications
"Hinata!" A girl with bright green eyes called out. "Wake up will you! We've got lots to do today and we need to get started as soon as possible."
A blue haired girl stirred in her sleep, her dreams torn apart by the yelling voice. With a moan she turned over on her side. She was set on ignoring this dream destroyer. Only that didn't work out so well when a pillow was thrown at her face. Hard. Launching out of bed, the girl cried,
"Sakura what was that for?" Sakura stared back at her friend Hinata and shrugged.
"You weren't waking up. So I got you up with that."
"I can see that."
"We do have to start moving though."
Hinata sighed. Sakura was right of course. They did have to start getting ready. Food wasn't going to put itself on the table. Hinata finally forced herself out of bed. Her feet came into contact with the old starchy rug. She walked toward her closet door and looked for her clothes for the day.
Hinata worked at a shrine, in the good part of the town. True she had once been a Hyuuga, but that was, well, once. Now she was a shrine priestess. Hinata slipped into the blue skirt with white flowers trailing up the side of her skirt. One half of the skirt had a slit part way up so that she could move freely, but was otherwise just long. Her shirt looked as if a white kimono had had its sleeves ripped off. A yellow obi was securely around her waist with a blue cord tied around that, just in case. On her arms lay what looked like kimono sleeves that only started at the elbow. The edges were rimed with pink.
Slipping on some knee high black boots Hinata was ready to go. Turning to face Sakura Hinata found that she was ready as well. With her short pink hair in a green bandana, a white shirt rolled up to her elbows under a brown jumped and dark brown boots. Sakura grinned at Hinata and asked,
"Ready now?" Hinata smiled back at her friend and nodded her head. On the way out of the apartment Hinata and Sakura both grabbed a key from a hook, money from a jar, and a bag of animal feed. Actually Sakura grabbed two of those bags. Then they headed out the door. Hinata turned around so she could lock the said door, taking great care in making sure that the door really was locked. It was, of course.
Sakura and Hinata headed down three flights of stairs before they even reached the ground level of their apartment complex.
The town just looked like an endless maze of twists and turns to an outsider, but to Sakura and Hinata it was the most familiar thing in the world. They walked deep into the town until they came upon an old building, where they stopped.
The building was moldy and it's old, lead based paint, had started to chip long ago. An old metal latter stood against the building. Not a sign of rust was on that ladder though. Sakura climbed up the latter to the roof of the building, followed by Hinata. Once at the top Sakura whistled loudly. At first nothing happened. The town sounds still went on, the still blew, everything was normal. Then a bird burst out of the sky. Its black brown feathers extended wide, catching the wind as if it was just a toy. It swooped down and landed on Sakura's outstretched arm. Soon a dog came running up the street its brown and white collie fur shining. The collie jumped and landed on the air as if there had been solid material there and walked up it to the top of the building. Leaning on Sakura's legs, it wagged its tail happily. Next, a monkey ran from roof top to roof top, flipping in the air and gracefully landing on the old building. It dashed its way towards Sakura and up her body to rest on her shoulders.
Sakura just smiled as all the animals used her for a jungle gym. Seeing her friend laughing, as if nothing was wrong, Hinata felt the smallest of smiles grace her features. Sakura had had so much pain in her life, still did, so it was nice to see her smile or hear her laugh. It reminded her that not everything was all bad and she needed that reminder.
"Hey Hinata," Sakura looked at her friend over her shoulder. "Can you open the feed bags for me? I'm a little tied up at the moment."
"Of Course." Hinata pulled open the bags of feed and lay them on the roof of the building. Sakura turned to face towards the bags and attempted to get the animals off of her.
"Go on, go get it." Sakura urged. So the animals pried themselves from her side and went to the bags to enjoy a nice meal. Sakura sighed. "I'm ready when you are."
"Alright. I'll walk with you till I have to take the Forest Path. As always."
Sakura smiled. "As always."
Sakura stared up at brick building with a casual stance. It was time to go to work. Sakura stretched and walked into the buildings back entrance. Once inside of the building there were two rooms.
In one room a heavenly smell drifted out of the doors. It was like a million different good things to eat were being made behind the doors. The other room smelled like starch and soap. It was this room Sakura walked into and inhaled the soapy, starchy sent. Sakura was back at work. She happened to work at a nice restaurant, as a dish girl.
"Hey Sak!" Cried a black haired girl. Sakura walked over to her and grabbed out a pile of dishes to wash.
"I swear these piles get higher everyday!" The black haired girl laughed at Sakura and shook her head. Sakura said that to her everyday. Trace was the girls name. Trace and Sakura worked at the same huge sink.
"Did you hear that rumor?" Trace asked Sakura. Sakura looked at Trace exasperatedly.
"And what junky gossip have you to tell me today?" Trace mock gasped in horror.
"My gossip is not junk, thank you very much!" Both girls laughed at that comment. "But seriously, I heard this rumor that there's a pirate ship that's coming to dock near this town! See, I told you it's not junk. A pirate ship!"
"That's what you said about the Hyuuga's being in league with enemies while we were at war, and look they won, I'll stress it, won it for us."
"So! They had a change of heart!"
"Just shut up." With that both girls went back to focusing on their work.
Hinata made her way up the Forest Path at a steady pace. It really was a nice day to walk to the temple. The Forest Path was just as it was named, a path through the forest.
The temple soon appeared in Hinata's sight. A very traditional looking place with a clean and neat appearance. Hinata climbed up the steps and under the archway of the temple to go inside. Two guards greeted her as she walked by, and by greeted a salute is what she meant. The temple guards were never friendly to any of the Priestesses. That was how things were run at the temple though. Some things never do change. Hinata thought with a sigh.
Hinata walked though the temple into a small room with a simple design and a board on the wall. The board was brown but it was covered by papers so you really couldn't tell anyway. There were names of people on that board and under each name was a list of chores to do. Hinata skimmed the board for her name and found under it a list with seventeen different and time consuming jobs on them.
"Well I better start on all of these chores." Hinata said and then hurried off to do so.
The Sun was completely gone by the time that Hinata and Sakura had gotten back to their apartment. The both of them were exhausted and tried as they climbed the steps to their room. They even had a hard time opening the door. It reminded Sakura about that time that they had forgotten their keys and had to bust the door open. It stuck in the same place for days, but she dismissed that thought. The door finally opened and before they could turn on a light a voice spoke from the darkness.
"Well it took you two long enough to get home!" Hinata and Sakura tensed, but all of that was erased when the figure turned on the light next to them.
Brown hair in two Chinese buns, chocolate eyes full of trouble, a pair of brown pants, a dark green shirt, and an old cloak and bag beside her. "Hey guys." She said to the friends she wanted to see for the longest time. The ones that she had risked going back here for and the ones she had always known she could never abandon.
"Tenten!" Both girls screamed.
A filler that didn't want to be written.