Author's Note: Hey everyone! I know it's been a while and some of you will be wondering, "hey where's the next Susamaru update?" and the answer is... hopefully soon! I just have been having a rough time IRL recently. I lost a cousin and my grandmother so things haven't been great and I wasn't very motivated to update my other story so I decided to take a bit of a break. In the meantime I started working on this story so I hope everyone enjoys it as well! I am a fan of these, "Tayuya doesn't die" stories and wanted to try my hand at one lol.
Red. All that she could see was red. Her bangs, that messily clunk to her face were red and all she could see between them was the red blood that pooled all over the floor around her. She was so terrified that she couldn't move. No one would blame her though, she was only two years old. How could someone as young as her be expected to anything except shut down at the sight of such a horrendous scene.
Her small home village in the Land of Earth had become the battleground between Iwagakure and Konohagakure shinobi and she was powerless to stop any of the bloodshed that resulted. Her parents' bodies lay before her but she dared not look at them. In her hands she clutched the only things left of them; her mother's flute and her father's scroll wrapped in one of his favorite hats.
Only an hour ago, she had been laughing and playing with her parents and it seemed like it was to be an average day; however, now all she was left with was despair as tears flowed uncontrollably from her eyes. She was momentarily snapped from wallowing in sadness by the sounds of approaching footsteps. Her head yanked upwards out of instinct but she was still frozen in place as someone she assumed to be a shinobi approached her. She wanted to scream for help but her voice was caught in her throat and even if she succeeded… there was no one left to aid her anyway. She was completely at the mercy of whoever was approaching her.
The little girl was terrified that she was going to die right then and there as she saw a man with a massive amount of white hair approach her with a kunai at the ready. She closed her eyes as tightly as she could and braced herself to join her parents in the afterlife; however, fate had other plans for her. As the white-haired shinobi approached her, he put away his kunai and bent down to look at her. It was far from the first time he had seen children orphaned as collateral damage in the various shinobi wars; however, this particular kid reminded him of one of his former students that he lost a while ago. He wished he had done more for him and his other lost students and so he decided not to make the same mistake of leaving such a child alone. Unfortunately, the man still didn't trust himself to raise or teach a child. After all, he had lost four students at this point; however, he figured someone in his village would be better suited. As he made up his mind, he gently extended a hand towards the girl and offered a kind smile.
"It's okay. Don't be afraid. I'll take you somewhere safe if you let me," the man tried to reassure the small child who opened her eyes to look at him. She was unsure at first but something about the man's eyes and expression led her to trust him and so she began to extend her hand out to meet his…
"I'M FIRST!"
Tayuya awoke with a start as she heard two of her classmates scream out in victory at the same time. She rubbed her eyes as she tried to fully wake herself to process the situation. Once she reestablished that she was actually in her shinobi academy classroom and not back crying her home village, Tayuya's expression soured as she scowled in the direction of Sakura and Ino who had just barged into the classroom. Their meaningless shrieking had woken her up from her nap and she was miffed at their antics.
Eventually, Tayuya decided she didn't care about what they were arguing with each other about and glanced at the people she was sitting next to for their reactions. To her right was Naruto Uzumaki; it was explained to her that they were clanmates due to her also being an Uzumaki and so she usually hung out with him despite the fact that he was embarrassingly goofy most of the time. Predictably, he was staring dumbfound at Sakura Haruno, whom he had a major crush on. She didn't understand what he saw in her but she wasn't about to crush her cousin's dreams so she ignored him and glanced over to her other neighbor. She hadn't realized she and Naruto had sat next to Sasuke Uchiha at the start of class and he seemed as disinterested in everything as usual.
She was about to go back to her nap, when all of a sudden she saw Naruto being thrown out of Sakura's way from the corner of her vision. She would have chuckled at Naruto if it wheren't for Sakura then addressing her.
"Hey Tayuya! What right do you have to be sitting next to Sasuke?! Out of the way!" Sakura yelled as she made a fist at the red-haired shinobi-in-training.
"Yeah, what Billboard Brow said!" Ino affirmed as she sauntered next to Sakura so both of them could glare at the other woman for sitting between them and their crush. Soon all the other women in the class voiced their desires to sit next to the class prodigy. Tayuya was getting a headache from all their yelling and finally had enough.
"The fact that I sat my ass down first gives me the right! So either fuck off or fight me for the seat!" Tayuya yelled back at the crowd. All of the other young ladies quickly shut their mouths as they all knew that none of them could compete with her in an actual brawl. She was two years older than most of them and was only at their level because she wasn't allowed into the academy until later than normal since she was technically a foreigner. She didn't sit on her ass for two extra years though, she had trained her ninjutsu, taijutsu and genjutsu skills and so she was one of the top performing rookies of their year. Her cousin may have been at the bottom of the class but she was always gunning for the top.
"But Tayuya… you don't even like Sasuke, can't you just let one of us sit next to him," Sakura asked meekly as she put her hands together as if asking for a favor.
"Sure I could but I'm not gonna. I'm comfortable in this seat and I'll be damned if I let a bunch of shinobi-wannabees make me do anything," Tayuya said as she glared at them. Sasuke let out a brief chuckle from next to her and couldn't help himself from smirking at her comment.
"Wannabees?! How dare you?! We all passed the graduation exam just like you did!" Ino yelled at her.
"Yeah, Tayuya. Don't be so hard on them," Naruto said as he got back up onto his desk so he could sit back in his seat.
Tayuya looked at Naruto with a serious expression, "Do you honestly believe that doing a simple clone jutsu makes someone a shinobi? That it means they're ready for real combat? Not in my book. If they are still obsessing over boys and beauty products at this stage, then they can't call themselves shinobi," Tayuya finished as she crossed her arms. In her mind, she pictured the ninjas that fought across her village and knew that hardly anyone in the room could have stacked up to them.
"But-" Sakura began to say before she was interrupted.
"She's right, why don't you losers just go sit somewhere else," Sasuke said coldly. Tayuya saw the look in his eyes and remembered that Sasuke had experienced something similar to her a few years back. He definitely knew what real shinobi were like. In fact, he was probably the only one in the room besides herself that she would have deemed worthy of the title. She may have had a soft spot for her cousin but she still didn't think he had the attitude of a proper ninja yet… he did prove he had the strength when he showed her his shadow clone jutsu the other day. He had even beaten a chunin with it so she had a lot of hope for him but didn't believe he was mentally ready yet. Everyone else in the room didn't display the strength nor the mentality for being a ninja in her mind and that was further reinforced when all the women walked away defeated by her and Sasuke's words.
"Jeez, this is why neither of you have any friends dattebayo," Naruto said as he slunk back into his seat once the others were gone.
"Oh? Then what's your excuse?" Tayuya teased.
"I… I don't know," Naruto said sadly.
"Hey don't get all mopey about it! You got me, right?" Tayuya said as she slung an arm over his shoulder and gave him a noogie. She actually did feel bad about bringing up Naruto's inability to make friends and she herself didn't really understand why he couldn't make any either. Everyone in the village seemed to hate him for no reason. She also didn't make friends easily due to her being a brash, foreign orphan. Most people were off put by her presence too… but not Naruto. He had always been friendly to her, especially after he found out they were related. She was actually grateful the little blond idiot hung out with her. That's why she was worried about him not having the attitude of a ninja.
"Alright, alright! Stop it Tayu! Stop, dattebayo!" Naruto yelled as he squirmed away from Tayuya's grip on him. Shortly after that, their sensei Iruka entered the room and began to give a speech about how they all had grown and matured over their time in the academy. Tayuya stopped listening to him yap after a couple seconds. She had never been one to pay attention to anything the guy said in class. She appreciated that he was one of the few people kind to her cousin… but he was still so boring to listen to. That was until he announced that they were going to be assigned groups of three under a jonin. That caught her attention and she briefly wondered who she wanted to be paired up with before realizing it didn't matter because they weren't going to let her choose. She would make the most of whatever situation she was given; however, based on Naruto's face she could tell he wanted Sakura to be on his team. His blush and dumb grin gave it away.
While she thought the little perv's behavior was rather typical of him, she was a little hurt that he didn't seem to be considering a with his best friend over his crush. That was until, she caught him muttering under his breath that he wanted a team with them and Sakura together. That made her feel better but she hoped to Kami that it didn't actually happen. She didn't want to be stuck on a team with someone she viewed as worthless. In fact, she would take most of her classmates over Sakura.
Her thoughts were interrupted when Iruka said, "Squad Seven: Naruto Uzumaki." At this both her and Naruto were fully paying attention to their sensei to see who ended up on his team. "Tayuya Uzumaki," Iruka said next. This made Naruto and Tayuya very happy and they quickly gave each other a high-five in celebration. As they were celebrating, Iruka read out, "Sasuke Uchiha." Tayuya couldn't help but guffaw at this information. Naruto was somewhat peeved since he didn't want to be on the same team as the class pretty boy but Tayuya was all smiles as she saw how every other young woman in the room was glaring at her. She loved the irony that she had no inclination of being on Sasuke's team and yet she denied every other girl who wanted to be the opportunity. She only stopped giggling at her classmates' misfortune when Naruto began yelling.
"Iruka-sensei, why does a great ninja like me have to be in the same group as a slug like Sasuke?"
"Are you serious, dude?" Tayuya asked as her cousin, yet again, made a fool of himself in front of everyone. She knew he was jealous because Sasuke got all the attention that he craved but she didn't think replacing positive attention with negative was a great idea.
"Sasuke and Tayuya have the best scores in the class. Naruto, you have the worst scores. In order to make balanced teams we put the best with the worst… and we all agreed you need both top performers on your team to balance it," Iruka said. He knew it sounded harsh but he was also very protective of Naruto and he figured if he stacked his team with the strongest members possible than there was a greater chance of Naruto staying safe and succeeding as a ninja. He also figured Naruto needed to learn a bit more humility and this may have been the best way to teach him.
After Naruto calmed down by sulking in his seat, Iruka dismissed the class for lunch and they began filtering out of the building. Tayuya and Naruto usually ate lunch together so being on the same team didn't change much; however, Tayuya wanted to ask Sasuke some questions before they met their jonin instructor. To that end, she grabbed her new teammate by the shoulder before he could go off on his own for lunch as he usually did.
"Hold on a minute pretty boy, we are going to be a team from this day forward. I know you love to go off and brood on your own for a while but that's not happening today. We have to discuss some stuff like techniques and fighting styles," Tayuya said.
"Look Tayuya, you have my respect as a ninja but I'm not interested in 'hanging out' just because we are on the same squad," Sasuke said before rolling his shoulder out of her grip. Tayuya didn't like his attitude and was about to call him an idiot, when a different idea popped into her head that made her smile devilishly.
"Oh alright, I guess if Sasuke Uchiha just isn't capable of talking to other people for more than five seconds then I can't hold it against you. I just thought that, with as popular as you are, that having a simple conversation wouldn't be a challenge… buuuuut, if something like that just makes you too uncomfortable then I guess it just can't be helped. See you later," Tayuya said in a sing song voice. Naruto chuckled as he realized what she was doing and broke out into a grin when Sasuke stopped dead in his tracks and turned his head to glare at her. Sasuke knew what she was doing but his pride made him go along with it anyway.
"Fine… but I pick where we eat," he said as he continued walking to his usual lunch spot.
"Works for me," Tayuya said. She was pleased with herself since she managed to get everyone on the same page. As lunch progressed, the three of them began to share what jutsu they knew with each other and began thinking about how they could best be utilized together. Tayuya was impressed by the fact that both her teammates had solid ideas on how to combine their strengths and make up for their weaknesses. Even Sasuke admitted that the meeting was productive and by the time lunch was over, the three of of them had ended up on much more amicable terms. All that was left to do now was to wait for their new sensei.