Shizuka stood in front of the academy, taking in the sight of the building as she tightened her ponytail and forehead protector securely.
Today was the day. She was going to be put on a team of genin under a jounin sensei and would start taking missions. A nervous zing went through her veins. Her and her teammates would be working together for years. These people were gonna be the ones she'd have to trust to have her back in life or death situations.
Shizuka inhaled deeply, trying to calm her jittery nerves. She wondered who it would be. Maybe she'd be lucky and have Shikamaru, Kiba or Chouji on her team? She really hoped so.
She was pulled out of her internal musings by the sound of two girls squabbling loudly, barely able to move out of the way in time to not be overrun by Ino and Sakura.
"Hah take that, forehead. I win again!" The blonde cackled loudly, pointing a finger at her rival.
"No way! I won, you pig!" Sakura retaliated loudly.
Shizuka winced at the volume of their argument and silently slid around the duo. She faltered in her step as she came face to face with Sasuke who was just entering through the door himself. They stared at each other awkwardly for several long seconds.
After the Hokage had dropped the bombshell on them that they were in fact related to each other they had silently walked out, both too deep into their head and needing to process the information to actually talk about it. Without a word, they parted ways and Shizuka headed towards the barbeque restaurant to meet up with the Inuzuka's.
Tentatively, she quirked the corners of her mouth up into a polite smile.
"Good morning."
He was quite possibly her closest relation that was alive so Shizuka was willing to at least put in an effort in getting to know the boy she had mostly opted to ignore during her academy time.
Sasuke slowly gave the most minute head nod as he returned her greetings before turning around and walking to the classroom. His gait was deliberately slow, only picking up after she fell into step with him quietly.
They went their separate way as they entered the room, her moving over to where Chouji and Kiba were standing around Shikamaru's desk and Sasuke moving to his usual spot near the window.
"Morning guys!" She chirped cheerfully at her friends.
Chouji and Kiba returned her greeting enthusiastically. She looked at the Nara and let out an amused huff. The boy was slumped over his desk with his eyes closed and breathing evened out.
"Stop pretending to be asleep, Shikamaru."
The boy groaned and raised a hand in greeting though he didn't bother opening his eyes or lifting his head from the desk.
"So! Are you excited to find out who your teammates are gonna be?" She questioned as she hopped to sit on the empty desk next to Shikamaru.
Chouji merely shrugged his shoulders.
"I already know who my team is gonna be."
"What?! Do you have secret insider information?"
If he knew who his team was, maybe he would also know who going to be on her's.
"Nah" He started. "Shikamaru's and Ino's father were on a team with my dad so they'll probably chuck us kids together too."
Shizuka slumped dramatically. If Shikamaru and Chouji were out of the running, that only left...
"Kiba" She whirled around towards the brunette, taking his hands in her own. "That means you're my only hope."
"Well actually" Kiba rubbed the back of his neck uncomfortably. "I'll probably be on a tracker team with Hinata and Shino. Our parents worked together too."
She dropped his hands with a dejected frown. If all of her friends were going to be put on legacy teams...did that mean that all clan kids would be paired up? Would she be on a civilian only team?
Shizuka grit her teeth in annoyance. If that was the case, they would have a serious disadvantage compared to these clan teams who had started training as soon as they were out of their diapers.
A loud crash made her turn around to see a group of girls, fronted by Ino and Sakura, crowd around her cousin's (that still felt weird to think) desk. Judging by the flailing orange blob on the floor, they had managed to trample Naruto.
"Hello, Sasuke-kun!" The pink haired girl greeted with a saccharine smile. "Do you mind if I sit here?"
Sasuke merely increased the strength of the glare he was sending at his desk so the girl took it as an invitation and slid in next to him, sticking out her tongue at the haggle of bickering fangirls.
Shizuka raised a single eyebrow as Naruto jumped onto his rival's desk and glared down at him. She quickly elbowed Kiba and Chouji to signal that something potentially amusing was about to go down as Sasuke returned the glare.
She pressed her lips together tightly to suppress a chuckle as the two boys moved closer and closer together during their apparent staring competition as the girls were yelling at a preening Sakura. One of the girls bumped into Naruto's back, causing the boy to tilt forwards and-
Shizuka let out a loud giggle as the two boys touched lips. Besides her, Kiba and Chouji were guffawing loudly and even Shikamaru had raised his head to see what was going on and wore on of those lazy half smiles of his.
"Did you guys see that?" Chouji wheezed, an amused twinkle in his eyes.
Their laughter only increased as the two boys jumped apart, choking and gagging. Right before the haggle of girls could do any further bodily harm towards the blonde, Iruka walked in and everyone swiftly moved back to their seat.
Kiba and Shizuka were still snickering hopelessly as Iruka started announcing the teams. Every time Shizuka thought she had composed herself, she made eye contact with the Inuzuka and burst into a new round of giggles.
"Now for team 7: Uzumaki Naruto, Uchiha Sasuke" She winced at that, sobering down. That was bound to be a shit show. The boys couldn't stand each other at all and now they were stuck with each other for the foreseeable future.
Sending a look in their direction, she could already see the pair sending murderous glares at each other.
"- and Furukawa Shizuka."
She let her head fall to her desk with a resounding thud. She would probably have had a big lump on her forehead if it wasn't for the strong metal of her forehead protector.
She was doomed. Oh god, she was going to have to listen to their stupid boy fighting forever.
Shizuka let out a low whine as she rolled her head to make eye contact with Kiba, who was already sending her a pitying look. He patted her on the shoulder semi-encouragingly.
"Maybe... it won't be that bad?" His voice clearly indicated that he did, in fact, think it was going to be that bad.
"Why is a top student like me on the same team as that bastard?!" Naruto took the opportunity to loudly yell out.
Shizuka lifted her head to look at Iruka-sensei. She was also curious why exactly they decided to put the two people who despised each other the most on the same team.
"Sasuke was top of the class." Iruka explained mercilessly. "You, Naruto, had the worst scores so to evenly divide abilities between the teams, you were put together."
"Don't drag me down, dead last." Sasuke drawled, not even sparing a glance at the fuming and sputtering blonde.
"Oh my god, this team is going to kill me." Shizuka spoke as she let her head drop back on her desk.
Twenty minutes later, Shizuka looked on dejectedly as her friends left for lunch with their new teams, planning on getting to know each other better. Predictably, they had been put into the same formations as their parents were. All of them were not just clan kids, but the clan kids, children of current clan heads. They would undoubtedly become formidable teams. Meanwhile hers...
"Wait up, Sakura-chan!"
Her eyebrow twitched in annoyance as one of her teammates went running out after his crush with a goofy grin on his face. So much for team bonding.
The sound of footsteps coming to a stand still behind her made her turn around warily. A small hesitant smile lifted her mouth as Sasuke stood next to her with his bento in hand. Wordlessly, he motioned towards the door before they set out towards the courtyard.
At least one of her teammates was making an attempt, though she highly suspected that it was mostly due to their shared ancestors that he was willing to give her a chance.
An uncomfortable air hung between them as they silently ate through their lunch. She could see Sasuke sending surreptitious glances her way whenever he thought she wasn't looking and vice versa.
"So..." Shizuka finally broke the unbearable silence. "what kind of team do you think we'll be? We're clearly no good for tracking or infiltration."
She winced at the thought of their team having to infiltrate somewhere subtly. Naruto couldn't be quiet for more than five minutes and Sasuke would probably antagonize the blonde until he would pounce on him.
Sasuke was quiet for a moment, finally turning his face to look at her fully instead of out of the corners of his eyes.
"...Combat." He spoke. "With my Sharingan and your- a pause- kekkei genkai we could probably do some espionage or extraction but when adding Naruto's... personality, that wouldn't work out."
Shizuka contemplated that information as she stuck another bite of rice in her mouth. Combat huh? She wasn't exactly sure how to feel about that. After discovering what her kekkei genkai (she really needed to give it a name at some point) could do, she had sort of expected to do subterfuge related stuff, but with Sasuke and Naruto that didn't seem like a possibility anymore.
"Well, I hope our new sensei knows what he's doing."
After the first thirty minutes of waiting for their sensei, Shizuka had gotten bored. All of the other teams had been picked up straight after lunch, making their team the only ones left in the room. Sasuke was sitting beside her, his elbows propped up on the table and totally spaced out from his surroundings.
Naruto, Shizuka had quickly discovered, was truly unable to sit still for an extended period of time and was walking through the room, randomly dropping down to do a pushup occasionally before popping back up and sending a hostile glare towards Sasuke.
Admittedly, Shizuka had expected the blonde to approach her at some point in an attempt at getting to know her but that hadn't yet happened. Of course she could have gotten up and approached him herself but she was still a bit miffed at how he had left their team behind during lunch.
Letting out a soft sigh, she decided to take a leaf out of Shikamaru's book and laid down her head on the table, pillowed by her arms. Closing her eyes, she attempted to fall asleep or at the very least pretend to have fallen asleep.
Roughly an hour later, her attention was piqued by the sound of Naruto giggling conspiratorially. Shizuka was well aware of the boy's mischievous streak and surreptitiously opened her eyes. She certainly didn't want to fall victim to one of his pranks herself but some of them were admittedly amusing.
Her teammate was climbing awkwardly on the door with a chalkboard eraser in one hand. He stretched his arm high and placed the eraser on top of the door, between the gap of the wooden frame and the door so it would fall on the first person who walked through that door, which was probably their sensei.
"That's what he gets for being late!" He grinned.
Silently, Shizuka agreed. She was already irritated for being made to wait half of the afternoon so a little retribution wouldn't hurt.
"A jounin isn't going to fall for a plain old booby trap like that." Sasuke spoke up from beside me, finally deigning his surroundings worth his attention.
That was probably true but at least they could glean something about his skill level based on how he dealt with it.
Just as Naruto had darted back to one of the benches, the door creaked open. All eyes in the room were hyperfocused on the door, anxiously waiting to see what kind of person would walk into the door. This was going to be their teacher and leader.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the eraser tilted down, falling falling falling and then landing square on top of silver hair. Naruto instantly burst out laughing at his successful prank. Shizuka had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop from smiling herself.
"He fell for it! I got him!" The blonde chortled gleefully.
Shizuka used the time to take a closer look at the man. His posture was slightly slouched, giving a relaxed but lazy impression. A mask covered the lower half of his face and disappeared into the black undershirt he wore underneath a standard flak jacket. His forehead protector covered his left eye as his right eye, which was a dark shade of grey, glanced over their team.
"My first impression of you" His voice was a monotonous drawl. "Is that you're a bunch of idiots."
Naruto, who had been rolling around on the floor in mirth at this point, instantly stopped laughing and sat up. His shoulders slumped almost comically. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sasuke clenching his fists angrily under the desk, scowl firmly set in place.
"Meet me at the rooftop." The man said before disappearing in a cloud of smoke, presumably because he was too lazy to walk up the stairs himself. Maybe he could teach her that? Shizuka wasn't too fond of stairs herself.
On some kind of unspoken signal, both boys rushed up the stairs, elbowing each other as they went. Shizuka let out a yawn as she stretched her back to loosen the slightly cramped up muscles before she set off towards the stairs at a calmer pace.
When she reached the top, she already saw Sasuke and Naruto sitting on the steps. They were as spread out as possible while still being near their clearly unimpressed teacher, sending dark glares at each other as they both had their arms crossed in front of them.
Shizuka let out a deep breath before moving to take a seat in between the sulking boys. She felt a hint of despair at the thought of this being her new fate, being a buffer between her two teammates.
Finally, the jounin uncrossed his arms as he leant back against the metal railing.
"Now that you're all here, why don't you introduce yourselves?"
"Why don't you introduce yourself first, sensei?" Naruto spoke, clearly miffed at the 'idiots' comment.
"Me? I'm Hatake Kakashi." The man relented. "What I like and dislike... no, I don't want to tell you. My dream for the future...hmmm. Hobbies? I have a few of them."
Shizuka narrowed her eyes at the man in annoyance. Seems like not only her teammates but also her sensei was going to be a pain in the ass.
"You only told us your name!" Naruto squawked indignantly from her left.
"You're next, blondie."
"My name is Uzumaki Naruto! I like cup ramen but I like the ramen at Ichiraku that Iruka-sensei buys for me even more. Uhm I hate the three minutes that I have to wait after putting in the hot water. My hobby is to eat ramen and my dream is to become Hokage."
Shizuka gave him a disbelieving look. Surely he couldn't be serious about that? This guy had an unhealthy obsession with ramen and being Hokage? From what she'd seen of his skills over the past few months, well, he had a long way ahead of him.
"Other boy." Kakashi indicated.
"My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are many things that I hate and there aren't a lot of things that I like. I have an...ambition to kill a certain man and restore my clan."
She blinked at the boy in surprise. He was going to kill someone? It made her wonder what exactly had happened with his clan. Shizuka had picked up that Sasuke was the last of his clan, but no one had ever explained her what had happened to the others.
She shot a look at the jounin, who was looking more and more like he regretted showing up today and decided to cut him some slack and be the normal one.
"My name is Furukawa Shizuka." She started, voice steady. "I like hanging out with my friends and cherries. I dislike warm weather and spiders. As for my dream for the future.."
Shizuka startled briefly as she didn't quite know how to answer that. What did she want to do in the future?
"It is to grow old with the people I care about." She finally settled on, knowing that was maybe an even loftier dream as Naruto's declaration of becoming Hokage. Life expectancy for Shinobi wasn't particularly high.
"Alright, you three all have...unique personalities. Tomorrow morning, we will be doing a special survival training." Kakashi continues.
"We did plenty of those in the academy." Naruto cut in smugly.
"This is unlike any of your previous training." The man said ominously.
"What is it then?" The blonde asked, confused.
Suddenly, Kakashi started shaking with mirth as he let out a creepy cackle that made a shiver run down her spine.
"You won't like the answer. Out of the 27 graduates, only nine will be accepted as genin. The rest will be sent back to the academy. In other words, this training is a test with a 66% fail rate."
Shizuka looked up at their sensei in alarm. She was sure that Kiba's and Shikamaru and Chouji's team would pass, they were all clan heirs after all, which left only room for one other team to pass. Shit. The fail rate was even higher than 66% for them and she refused to be left behind by her friends.
"I told you you weren't going to like it." The man said smugly.
"But we passed the exam!" Naruto exclaimed.
"Ah that? That was only to filter out the truly hopeless."
So it was all deception? That was very... shinobi-like of them and she mentally berated herself for not having seen through it. She glanced to the side surreptitiously and saw Sasuke clenching his jaw so hard that the vein in his neck popped out.
So he hadn't known either. Good. That made her feel slightly less dumb.
"Meet me at training ground 3 tomorrow at 5. Don't bother eating breakfast, you'll only throw it back up."