The first time I kinda believed

Tayuya

"So you can play the piano princess" Ino jumped along with the rest of the children at the piano with her.

"Illia-San! Your back, you took off so suddenly yesterday."

Tayuya avoided eye contact with her, "sorry, it got a little suffocating, I'm not used to all of... This," Tayuya gestured to the children .

"Oh ... I get it,"

There was an awkward pause for a moment before Tayuya sat at the piano bench with Ino. "So where are the boys?"

" Kiba's in the kitchen with Ms.Bovine and Naruto's training with his team, "

"So you guys aren't on the same team?"

" unfortunately so, but we've known each other long enough that that doesn't matter"

"Can you play me something?"

Ino's face went red, "I ... I don't know , I'm not that good honestly"

"Don't lie Ino-Neechan, your great!," One of the orphan children yelled.

"Uh... Oh, okay, "

As she cracked her knuckles and searched for a certain sheet of music, Tayuya suddenly became aware of the fireplace that was alive with the crackle of the logs burning away. Ino opened her binder up and carefully removed a single sheet of paper before placing the binder back on the stand . The piece had been written by hand, but the notation was immaculate; Ino looked as though she could read everything perfectly clear. Every note, every symbol, it was all clear but what caught Tayuya's eye was the title.

A Hero's Lament.

Ino's lips slowly slid into a gentle smile, and she took a more comfortable position at the little black bench and sighed.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then, looking back at the music, she began to play…

Tayuya sat beside Ino on the bench , hands clasped together. Yesterday after she had left, she kept coming back to what Ino had said to her. She knew deep down that the princess was right; The children , young as they were deserved a future, and yes, she was wrong about what she said about the mute kid… mostly. But as much as Tayuya hated to admit it, she was being selfish. She knew the dangers of coming back here to hang out with them , listening to the piano and shirking her duties while her team was gathering Intel on the village but she couldn't help it, she didn't want to leave, she wanted to stay and play games and and eat warm food with the stupid princess , jinchuuriki , and Inuzuka boy.

She'd only known them for barely two days. She cared about what would happen to them somehow, But here she was hanging out like it was nothing and putting them all in danger. Tayuya wasafraid. Not so much afraid that they would get hurt (of course, that concern was there as well.)

What she was afraid of was losing them. While she'd only known them for two days, she wanted to see them grow , she wanted to grow with them because she knew something like that would be fun.

It was time for Tayuya to admit that, as much as it hurt for her to do so, she had to let them go. Wherever the road takes the three of them, she had to let them go…

Tayuya lifted her head, her eyes widening as she remembered Ino was playing the piano. And the piece she was playing was… it was beautiful

Tayuya held tightly to her thoughts as she threw her head back and exhaled , the tears pricking at her eyes made her thankful she was wearing a mask .

immediately, her mind whisked her back to her youth as Ino closed her eyes yet her fingers still moved expertly over the keys

In the future when she really leaves with her team , Tayuya would try everything to regain the sense of security that she felt now.

No one noticed Kiba standing at the door and Naruto who came back from training sat at the couch along with Ms. Bovine.

Ino's Dancing hands, otherworldly, spiritual movements, it spoke to them , it told them a story; THEIR story.

As the notes hit their ears they were transfixed on the beauty of the fingers dancing on the ivory keys. The blonde wispy hair from the beautiful face moving with an unnatural wind.

With each slight nod of her head her spirit became almost an aura. These keys, to her, was a touch to a lover. Almost asleep, possessed, They all waited on the climax.

The crescendo spoke, it said: Life. The whole room went away and it became only the four of them . Everything around was a blur, a transcending experience. Finally, after the exhausted experience, as the last beautiful note hit and the resonance filled. A breath of air was both replaced with joy and sadness. A relief but a longing.

The four stared at each other as Miss Bovine and the children left the room.

There was a long silence and Ino cracked her knuckles before speaking.

"When did you get back Naruto?"

" just in time it would seem"

" You got better Ino, you sure you wanna be a ninja? " Kiba joked.

"Don't be stupid baka!"

Tayuya stood up from the bench, " I should leave , my team might be looking for me"

"Oh," Kiba spoke, he gestured to her fake ANBU mask , " are you playing ninja with your team again? "

" Yes, " Tayuya put on a fake embarrassed face , " remember you guys promised you wouldn't tell, "

Before anything else was said a young kid came in the room. "Illia-San, the old lady asked if you'd stay for lunch,"

" ah you guys should eat with out me , I'll be outside washing Akamaru, "

Tayuya contemplated for a moment and decided she should stay, she would be leaving tomorrow anyway.

Lunch was quite an event, given the strange way everyone interacted with one another, she saw the louder more brash side to Ino when it came to stealing her dessert and Tayuya also witnessed the gluttony and greed Naruto had when it came to ramen , she experienced the loud nihilism of some of the orphan and made guesses as to which one of them would become the mother hen of any future friend group. As an orphan herself Tayuya had no idea they could smile and laugh so much not did she expect their dark humor , she found it a bit unfair how unlucky she was, these kids lost there family but gained another one with caring lady who could cook, Tayuya never knew her family but she was picked up by a paranoid psycho and experimented on.

Sigh. Life was such a Hack.

She swept her bowl of rice to side, looking over the others coolly. A few nodded and giggled , "She's so cool!" but the rest either kept their eyes to their plates or went back to their (now slightly hushed) conversations. Ino forced an encouraging smile but Tayuya shrugged it off.

"So how are things with your team?"

"Well enough," Tayuya said shortly.

"Good." The blonde floundered for a topic.

"You know, I'm not really hungry anymore," Tayuya said, and it was true. She'd had almost an entire bag of jelly beans over the course of the day, plus a cup and a half of hot chocolate from Mrs.Bovine

"Oh," Ino said. "Well, you don't have to stay if you don't want to."

"All right." Tayuya considered addingsee you aroundbut decided against it; obviously they would not see each other again. So she simply stood, scraped her uneaten mound of rice into the fire, and strode out of the dinning room like she had somewhere to be. She didn't, but there was no reason to bring up technicalities.

The house was quiet once she got out of the dinning room; Tayuya walked down the main path, committing the layout of the orphanage to memory as best she could, and eventually , 'just for a minute', she told herself. she sat down behind a metal shed on the far side of the strawberry fields just near the house . It was a quiet, solitary place, out of the way of anyone leaving dinner.

Ugh. She was already missing this place, the loud noise of the children over Naruto and Ino's banter and Kiba cooing over his slobbery puppy,not that anyone would ever hear her say it though . Coming back here hurt.

Actually, it hurt, in more ways than one. A noise attracted her attention—she called out, "Hey, is someone there?"

Suppressing a groan, Tayuya pushed herself to her feet and stepped around the shed just in time to come nose-to-nose with an shirtless ninja. Kiba. Her eyes narrowed, but he held up his hands and backed away before she could pull out her kunai.

"Whoa there, pretty lady ," he said hastily , she thought the nickname was absurd since she always wore a mask. "No need for violence. I'm not here to talk to you, sad to say. I just went to get Akamaru, I've been chasing him for minutes now just to give him a bath, "

She noticed said dog on his head and found it crazy that he hadn't bathe the dog yet.

Clenching her hands into fists, she didn't attempt to slit his throat, which she felt was a noble improvement on her part. "Why don't you go to lunch?" she asked coldly.

"Not hungry," he said like it should have been obvious. "Not that they're likely to notice whether I'm there or not.Ino and Naruto are deaf and blind when it comes to food"

She doubted that. Surely no one else caused the same level of chaos as he did.

"But anyway," he continued, a forced pleasantness to his tone, "I'm just, you know, hanging out over here on this side of the shed. You can sit on that side of the shed, and that way neither of us has to leave, and you don't even have to look at me."

At that moment she noticed the buckets of water and sponges around one side of the shed.

Not having to look at him did sound nice. She looked him over, checking for any plots or tricks or dangerous weapons, but he seemed to mean it. Against her will, she moved back between the strawberry fields and the metal wall, and the thick grass rustled as they both sat back down. She stared out into the fields, her mind whirring though her lips remained clamped together. She was certainly not going to instigate conversation with the Inuzuka .

Actually, now that she thought about it, Inuzuka was remaining pretty quiet himself. She had expected loud, obnoxious ADHD antics, or at the least, pathetically doomed attempts to flirt. But no, he didn't address her at all, and she couldn't hear anything from his side of the shed except the occasional heavy breath and splash of water from Akamaru.

This was when Tayuya's mouth went against all her better judgment: she found herself leaning toward the corner of the wall and calling around it, "Are you usually this accommodating?" She didn't remember him to be.

Inuzuka laughed a little; it sounded tiny through the shed. "No," he called back. "Normally I try my best to be as unaccommodating as possible. It's part of my ability to simultaneously charm and annoy theshitout of people."

"That I believe. The annoying part, anyway."

She had been serious, but he laughed again, and she could just picture that huge grin splitting his face one similar to Naruto. "One should not insult my ability to annoy. I'm glad you can appreciate it."

"I don't think 'appreciate' is the word I would use," she said.

"I know." He was quiet again, and Tayuya began to wonder if she ought to say something else, but then he said, "I don't think anyone would use the word 'appreciate,' actually."

He didn't sound excited, but she had to agree, "Probably not."

Kiba groaned when it seemed like Akamaru licked him somewhere—maybe his hand, or his face, she couldn't tell. "You want to know why I'm actually out here?" he asked, sounding tired. She didn't think he was smiling anymore.

"Why?" Tayuya asked. She meant to come off coolly polite, but actual concern somehow got in there too.

"For the next two weeks we're going to be preparing to fight our friends and kill people we don't even know ."

She knew this, obviously. He continued, "But if I'm not the most enthusiastically insane person , laughing it off and pretending I'm not scared, it'll be all , What'swrong, Kiba? Aren't youhappy, Kiba? Here, do you want walk my dog, Kiba? BecauseGod forbidI ever be upset about anything." water splashed on the other side of the shed again.

Tayuya was surprised by the turn in the conversation. "Have you mentioned this to any of your friends? Ino and Naruto? "

Leo snorted. "They're the ones I need to stay happy for, they're worried to but if happy ,unbreakable Kiba is worried too then, oh God the world's ending! "

Tayuya opened her mouth, but he hurried to say, "Not that I'm looking for pity points or anything, I'm a ninja afte—" Suddenly he cut himself off, like he'd reconsidered what he was about to say. "Never mind."

She didn't ask. She probably didn't want to know. Instead she rolled her robes up to her knees, pulled off her sandals and dug her toes into the cool dirt, thinking. Back to the topic at hand: "You could just not participate until you're ready to...kill I mean" she said, even though she knew it was a long shot.

"That's not an option, and you know it," Kiba called her out, but suddenly he spoke again. "Hey will you be there , to watch?"

"I don't know, I was considering not going," she lied

" please if you come watch I'll feel so at ease and Naruto and Ino They'll want you there too." He paused. "Why don'tyouwant to go? Too undignified?"

Too undignified. She scrunched up her toes in the dirt and actually almost smiled. "Not quite. I'm just not aware of what my schedule will look like I could have a mission ."

Kiba was quiet. She guessed that he wasn't sure whether to agree or try again.

"Missions huh? Chuunin missions must be real tough?"

"It's not a problem," she lied. "I'm perfectly used to it. I just usually have duties as a ninja that make it inconspicuous."

Kiba mumbled something to himself; Tayuya couldn't quite make it out, but she did hear "a Chuunin and a Genin " and "same problem." And it occurred to her then, quite as a surprise, that Kiba's happy-go-lucky, flirtatious, obnoxious presence as a jokester might be as much of a mask as her own stoic, courageous presence as a ninja. Another false public face. Did his friends even realize it?

Reyna realized that, although this was the third time she'd "met" Kiba Inuzuka, it was only the first time she'd trulymethim.

"If you want somewhere out of the way to hang out," Kiba offered, sounding both eager and hesitant . " maybe we could all take a vacation after the chuunin exams, we always wanted to see a real beach, there aren't any in Konoha. "

He probably didn't even know that ninjas aren't allowed to leave there villages unless on a mission.

She leaned back against the shed, looking up at the sinking sun. "I might," she said, but she didn't meant it.

TwoDaysLater.

Sakura Frowned as she walked passed training field nine , she pretended not too hear the laughter of , Ino , Naruto and Kiba training together, the fact that absolutely none of them were on the same team didn't seem to be present in their minds as they sparred together.

Sakura didn't particularly care if they knew either , she was just feeling peculiarly irked seeing them so happy together, when she couldn't even have a proper conversation with her team anymore, Naruto stopped being loud right after they were placed on the same team, it's like he didn't care for her attention or Sasuke 's attention anymore, though the two still fought like cats and dogs, a lot of times it was Sasuke who provoked Naruto with a non-verbal dig , it was like the lack of Naruto challenging him constantly , made him insecure and not in a cool way, more so in a pathetic way. Nowadays Naruto and Sasuke were constantly at each others throats , it's a wonder they haven't killed each other yet. Naturally Sakura would always take Sasuke's side, as if she would ever admit Naruto was right and that Sasuke was being a little bitch, that would mean admitting she was wrong, meaning Ino would be right, again. Ino was right that Sasuke was a jerk and in no way as great as she thought, She'd have to admit that she was a fool for breaking up with her only friend over a stupid boy, a boy who didn't give her the time of day and refused to admit when he was wrong , constantly cried out for vengeance and probably wouldn't matter to anybody in the long run and , Sakura would would have to apoligize, swallow her pride and beg for forgiveness and that, in Sakura's opinion was like admitting defeat to Ino, saying Ino was better than her ,she couldn't do that so she held her disgust in and whenever Ino came to training field seven to see Naruto , Sakura would go into squealish girly mode and glomp Sasuke and profess her undying love for him.

Secretly Sakura knew she was just jealous and maybe a little bitter, Ino was beautiful ,perfect hair , perfect skin ,secretly Sakura wondered if Naruto wanted to date her, who wouldn't after all; she was first place in the academy and was pretty confident, practically heaven sent!

She was perfect, there's no way to deny she's lovely, deep inside Sakura tried to convince herself that Ino was ugly on the inside but it wouldn't work, not with everything Ino's done for her.

Sakura just couldn't help but hate Ino , she was always the star , the best part of every scene and everyone loved her , only Sakura just wanted to hit her.

Sometimes When Sasuke and Naruto were off fighting she would ask Kakashi for some extra training, the pervert tried his best but Sakura never quite felt chuunin exams ready yet,for all she knew she could end up in a fight with Ino, she just couldn't lose to that girl!!

"what's with the look on your face?" Sakura jumped , looking besides her to see a purple haired ninja lady grinning down at her, she had a stick of dango in one hand and twirled a kunai in her other hand, her trench coat swished with every move.

" who the hell are you!? "

"Anko Mitarashi, the pleasure is all yours, now answer my question?"

Sakura chose her words carefully. "Well I've been having trouble with my training."

Anko grinned wider, "oh? ...well I'm a Jounin y'know?"

" Huh? so? " Sakura answered oblivious .

"Come on Kid I need something to do before I have to baby sit at those Chuunin exams next week, follow me. " she smirked.

Anko strutted forward and Sakura followed her half excited, half so very confused.

Done . I do not own Naruto

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