C-rank
Death of Minato and Fugaku's Genin teammate
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Minato and Fugaku hurried down the road to catch up with their sensei, eager for their first C-rank mission: delivering an important scroll to a nearby village. Behind them, slightly slower, ran a short girl. She had dark black hair tied up on top of her head, a round, gentle face, and dark eyes narrowed in concentration. Shadows leapt from the ground and entangled the boys' legs, just before they reached their finish line. Both sprawled flat on their faces as they fell to the ground, and she breezed past them to cross first. She turned around and released the jutsu on both boys as they stared up at her in surprise, their mouths wide open.
"I forgot how nice it was to be underestimated for once." She told them in her soft voice. She swatted hair out of her face then yanked out the ribbon that tied it back and redid her hair, showing off the hitai-ate tied around her left bicep, which kept slipping down to her elbow. As she finished the knot in her black hair ribbon, she turned her back sharply on the boys, her dark green skirt twirling around only to run straight into their new sensei, Jiraiya.
"There is no need to use any jutsus on your teammates when you're not training, Taja-chan," Jiraiya scolded. "Get up you two and let's go."
Taja looked down at them. "There's no need to rush," She grumbled and turned around the catch up with their sensei.
Jiraiya glanced down as she fell in step beside him. The boys were sulking behind her. "You should—" He began.
Minato interrupted with a strangled warning. Taja spun around and froze. A shinobi stood behind Minato, a garrote wrapped around his neck, strangling him. Taja froze. Minato used a kunai to cut the line around his neck and spun around to slice at his attacker. He nicked the assailant's hand. Blood dripped to the ground. Taja fell to her knees, feeling sick. Her sensei had gone off to fight his own battle and an older shinobi had turned to face her. She felt sick inside. There was a cut above his eye, dribbling blood down half his face. Taja tried to force herself to move but the sight of even more blood made her muscles go completely slack. The shinobi lunged forward to kill her with a short, bloodstained sword. She could not move. When the blade was mere inches away from slicing her head off, her sensei had knocked it away with a well-aimed kunai that went through the assailant's wrist. As a few drops of blood hit her face, she lurched backward and stumbled away from the fighting.
"Minato! Fugaku! Help your teammate!" Jiraiya shouted. The two boys retreated from their battles and raced toward Taja.
"NO!" Minato shouted moments before Taja felt something strike her back and produce an awful crunch. Something warm and wet ran down her back. She felt herself falling forward, she tried to take a step forward to balance herself, but she could not feel her legs. She tried to catch her face-first fall with her arms, which would not move either. She could not feel anything; she blinked and opened her eyes to see Minato and Fugaku leaning over her looking terrified. Fugaku's eyes turned red and the dark tomoe swirled: the Sharringan. She could not close her eyes, even though everything was dark around the edges. The dark grew rapidly. Faintly, she heard her name as Minato's hands began to glow with healing chakra.
"I'm sorry," she breathed. The black spread over her vision, slowly and steadily. She saw her sensei lean over her before everything was gone with one long sigh.