Turning point: Chapter 6

:Acceptance:

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The quiet of Tayuya's room was broken by a shriek of terror. The redhead jolted up in bed in a cold sweat, gripping her thin bed covers tight in her trembling hands as they clung to her bare skin. Due to only having one set of clothes, she had decided to keep them aside while she slept until she could get some more. Wearing only a pair of plain panties which were now soaked with sweat like her bedding. She looked around her room breathing heavily, it was very early morning and still somewhat dark but the sun was just starting to rise outside. Tayuya took a few minutes to calm herself and rubbed her eyes, sliding slowly out of bed and into the bathroom to stare at herself in the mirror. Almost flinching at the red-eyed, pale-faced, hot and sweaty girl looking back at her. She decided to take a long shower and wash her underwear later before getting dressed and making her breakfast, a simple bowl of cereal and tea to wake herself up.

Locking her door and letting loose a loud yawn, Tayuya stretched her arms out and looked around at the morning streets. It seemed that not many people were awake yet and even the shops in the area were still waiting to open, obviously too early to go to the Hokage's mansion and far too early to go clothes shopping. Beside the fact that she didn't have money to burn with what she was given yesterday. With another yawn and a stretch she started walking down the street, deciding to just walk and see where she would end up when she got there.

After around fifteen minutes of walking and casually nodding in greeting to a few people also emerging from their houses to go about their daily lives, Tayuya felt like she was actually starting to enjoy the calm atmosphere and friendly people of this village. Another ten minutes of walking and she looked around to find herself in what seemed to be an open field with a metal fence around it and a small lake at one side, at one end of the field there was a trio of thick logs standing up straight from the ground and behind that through the thick shrubbery was a large pointed stone in the middle of a stone circle.

Tayuya walked around this field a little and looked around to try and figure out what it was used for, a lot of the trees around here had holes in them and bark stripped off while the ground had large patches of missing grass and a few holes. Added to that an area with some straw dummies with targets on them and it became quite obvious that she's stumbled upon the leaf's training grounds. It was upon this realization that Tayuya's train of thought was quickly derailed with the sound of a battle cry behind her, she turned around and narrowly evaded an airborne kick to the face as the person passed her in a blur of green. Managing to keep her balance and only stumbling backwards a little bit, Tayuya readied herself for whatever the attacker might throw at her but found that the person standing just a few feet from her was simply facing her in stance. His left arm behind his back while his right was held out in front of him with his fingers pointed up and his bandage wrapped palm towards himself. He held himself straight upright and the only thing about him that looked stranger than his green bodysuit and orange leg-warmers was his rounder than normal eyes that glared at Tayuya from under his black bowl haircut.

The boy didn't attack again, he simply stared at her with angry eyes as she tried to work out what he was thinking. When he spoke suddenly she was surprised at his voice, it was high pitched but not in a feminine way.

"I am the Leaf village's handsome blue beast Rock Lee. And you are one of those Sound ninja. If you have come back to defeat us then you are at a great disadvantage on your own."

Tayuya widened her eyes as he spoke and held her hands out in front of herself as she shook her head.

"Woah woah, hold on a sec. I'm not with them anymore, I'm one of you guys now."

She said in retaliation, she didn't want to get into a fight on her first day as a leaf citizen; but she wasn't going to curl up and whimper for anyone either.

"I don't believe you!"

With that said Lee leaped forward and launched another kick towards his target. Tayuya would've tried to block his attack, if it hadn't been for the huge metal club that knocked Lee out of the air and flat on his face. Blinking once or twice in confusion, Tayuya lowered her arms from their guarding position and looked in the direction the club had come from.

"Cool it Lee! Quit jumping to conclusions like that."

The club belonged to a girl who looked to be roughly Tayuya's age, she wore what looked like a pink Chinese battle suit and her brown hair was tied tight into twin buns on her head. The girl sighed and tossed the club in the air where it disappeared in a puff of smoke before she stepped closer to Tayuya with her hand extended, she was smiling as she introduced herself.

"Sorry about that, he can get a little... Over-excited, y'know? My name's Tenten."

Tayuya hesitantly took her hand and shook it slowly, returning the courtesy with her own name.

With introductions out of the way and Lee now standing after his sudden halt, Tenten crossed her arms and frowned at him.

"Lee, don't you have something to say to her?"

Her frown returned to her face while he looked pleadingly at her.

"But Tenten, you do not understand. She was one of the ones with the sound village who took Sas-"

He was cut off by Tenten's foot in his face, causing Tayuya to flinch in surprise.

"You mean on the mission you didn't tell me you were going on? The one I could've easily helped with?!"

Tenten shouted at Lee who was now on his back around 10 feet away, she then turned back to Tayuya again the same smile she had before.

"You have a headband right? For your village?"

Tayuya still had a somewhat shocked look on her face as she nodded and pulled the leaf headband she'd received yesterday. Tenten nodded and held up Tayuya's arm with the headband in her hand.

"See Lee! Looks like she's on our side to me."

Lee looked over and tilted his head in confusion.

"But... I was sure that-"

His sentence was again cut off by a flying kick from Tenten, unsure of when she had moved that distance Tayuya simply watched as the girl beat Lee into a pulp.

"First you don't take me on the mission, now you're saying my eyes are wrong?!"

Deciding to leave the two to whatever argument they seemed to be having, Tayuya left the training field. If those two were comrades then they didn't show it much as far as Tayuya was concerned, then again her old team was never very close either. Looking up at the sky showed that it was starting to get into a more reasonable time of morning, Tayuya gave a little smirk at the thought that Lee was getting his ass kicked by a girl and with a small spring in her step she headed off for the Hokage's mansion.