Alright, guys, let's officially meet Nariko and her team!

Be warned, there will be a bit of not-so-lowkey cursing, mainly due to Mika and Reika-sensei.

1. The Lunch Date Ambush

The ramen stand was empty aside from a lone girl with auburn hair and a forehead protector tied around her neck. She wore a forest green tank top with a skull decal on the front of it over a fishnet undershirt and charcoal gray shorts. Her green eyes gleamed with agitation from behind her bangs as she kick, kick, kicked the bar with her foot, her spiky ponytail slightly bouncing from the impact. Late. Nari was late. Nari was never late. Mika was the one that was always late, which is why she left thirty minutes early to meet Nari for lunch—due to Mika being so easily distracted, it took exactly thirty-five minutes to reach the stand. She arrived red faced and panting, expecting to find her best friend sitting at the bar with a knowing smile and a wisecrack at the ready, already working on her third bowl of ramen.

That had been fifteen minutes ago, and Mika was starting to suspect Nari forgot about their lunch date. But that wasn't possible. They met at the ramen shop regularly. Every Monday and Wednesday for the past several months. Nari was frustratingly responsible—one of the Uzumaki twins had to be after all—and she would never forget a standing date. Unless… Oh no, what if something happened? What if Nari was lying in a ditch somewhere bleeding to death after being attacked? It never even occurred to Mika that something could be wrong. But now that it had…

Mika leapt from her stool and snagged her satchel from the counter, bursting out of the stand… only to run face first into Nari. The momentum sent both girls tumbling backwards, landing on their backsides in the dirt. The pair unwittingly mirrored each other comically as they groaned, eyes shut, and rubbed their foreheads.

Mika was the first to recover. "Oh, God, Nari! Where have you been, I thought you were dead!" she said in a tone that sounded both amused and annoyed at the same time. Her friend looked sheepish.

"Ah, Mika, I was only twenty minutes late—you're usually, like, thirty minutes late," Nari said with a laugh.

"I get distracted. I have things to do. Wannabe tough guys to beat up, crotchety old people to enrage, feral dogs to have a snarling contest with. You know, the usual." Mika said with a wave of her hand.

Nari rolled her eyes. The sad thing was, Nari had no trouble believing those scenarios. Mika had kicked many "bad boy" asses in her day—she was actively feared by a majority of the male population—and Nari had personally witnessed Mika have a proverbial pissing contest with a vicious stray dog on at least two occasions. And as for the old people comment? The elders of the village had a bit of a disdain for Mika. She wasn't nearly gentle and graceful enough for the older generation's tastes. They all claimed she acted far too much like a boy and insisted she was a disgrace to the fairer sex. It drove them batty to see her running around taking swings at boys and causing scenes.

"Must be a lot of elderlys, losers, and strays around your neighborhood if it takes you thirty minutes to walk the fifteen minute route from your front door to here," Nari teased playfully. Mika was already on her feet and dusting off her shorts. She looked offended, nose twitching and eyebrows scrunched together as she lightly tugged on the small, silver earring in her left ear.

"How dare you insult the girl that's about to buy you lunch," the red head said with a huff. Anyone else would think she was angry, but Nari saw the amused twinkle in her eyes.

Nari's eyebrows came together. As expected, she protested. "Ah, Mika, you know I'm not going to let you do that."

A hand was thrust down to Nari, who grabbed it. "That's just too bad, because you look like you've had a hell of a day and I'm going to buy you lunch. That's the end of the discussion." Mika looked her friend in the eye, showing that she was completely serious, before hoisting Nari up in one smooth motion.

Their food was already waiting for them on the counter. They came so often, the owner knew exactly what they wanted before they did. Nari started inhaling her ramen immediately, but Mika looked troubled. She looked at her friend with a scrunched up, lightly freckled nose and eyebrows drawn together.

Mika took in her friend's condition with mounting concern, noting the bruised looking circles under her eyes and the sickly pallor of her typically dark skin. The longer she looked, the more convinced she was that her friend was hiding something important from her, and she wasn't okay with that. Her eyebrows lowered further, causing Nari to shift in discomfort. Nari wasn't a fan of being scrutinized, even if it was done without ill intentions. The heat from Mika's stare weighed heavily on the side of her face, making her feel like she was going to combust.

"Don't look at me like that," Nari said after a few minutes with an anxious laugh. "What, is there a noodle hanging out of my nose or something?" She swiped at her face to see if she had something on it.

Mika continued to frown at her.

Nari shifted nervously in her chair.

A few minutes passed.

"Tell me what's going on." Mika said, breaking the silence. The absence of talking made Nari jump from the sudden break in the lack of noise.

Nari blinked. She went with her first instinct—deny, deny, deny until the day you die. "I don't know what you're talking about," the blond said, eyebrows together. Blue eyes genuine. The picture of honest confusion. But she couldn't fool Mika.

"Nariko, tell me what's going on." Nariko? Nari's heart sunk. Oh, boy, she was in trouble. Whenever Mika used Nari's full name, she meant business. And when Mika meant business, she was like a starved dog with a soup bone. No way in hell was she letting it go. "I'm not Naruto, you can't hide things from me that easily."

Nari grimaced. "How do you do that," she inquired with reluctance.

"Your right eyebrow twitches when you lie," Mika responded without hesitation.

Nari frowned deeply. "No it doesn't," she said, mildly irritated.

"Uh, boo-boo, it sure the hell does."

Nari was preparing to respond but she was cut short by someone smacking the back of her head and Mika's head, making them narrowly avoid getting their faces dunked into their ramen bowls. "What did I tell you punk ass kids about cursing," a woman's voice said angrily. The girls turned to face their sensei with twitching eyebrows. The woman was no more than 17, with brown eyes and an abundance of straight brown hair that hung down to her waist. Her face was soft and round, not yet touched by age, and she had a birthmark under her left eye. She was wearing the traditional shinobi vest over a long sleeved purple, v-neck shirt and tan shorts.

Mika slammed her hand down on the counter. "You're one to judge, you cuss like a fucking sailor," she said with a twitching eyebrow.

Reika pushed Mika's head down with with a fingerless gloved hand and a dangerous glint in her eye. "I'm an adult, brat, so I can say what I want," she said firmly.

"How the hell did you even find us," Mika asked the table and her head was shoved down further, pressing her nose to the counter.

The young woman growled. "Watch you're damn mouth," she instructed firmly. That was her catch phrase with Mika, as she refused to clean up her language despite the knowledge that foul language would be punished on the spot. "I found you, Yamamoto, because your routine is predictable and it makes you a sitting duck. Honestly, would it kill you two to change things up a bit, having predictable schedules is going to get you stalked and murdered one day."

"You batty old woman, you've been spying on us?! What is it with you and you're fascination with telling us we're going to die? No one ever got knifed to death because they like ramen at 12:30 every Monday and Wednesday, so ease up!" Mika said hotly, glaring at the table.

"I reserve the right to follow and keep tabs one whomever I want, kid. And I'd have to disagree. Someone, somewhere has been 'knifed to death' over ramen before. And if not, there's a first time for everything, so don't be such a loser and change your eating habits before you die of fucking heart failure at age 16."

Nari grabbed her bowl and hopped to the next seat, putting space between them while Reika was distracted. She downed the last bit of her ramen before glancing back to make sure Reika was still busy teaching Mika a lesson. She was. Slowly, she slid from her stool and made a break for the door. She knew why Reika was here and she wanted no part in it. Nari wasn't going to get wailed on today.

She made it all the way through the curtains before once again colliding with another person, who she quickly recognized as her other teammate, Nakamura Takeo. She rubbed her head and looked at the brown haired boy with an apologetic smile. "Hey there, Nari," Takeo said with a pleasant smile.

"Quick, Reika-sensei is here. She's going to make us train, we gotta get out of here before she finishes roughing up Mika and moves on to us," she informed him, grabbing Takeo by the arm and steering him away from the shop.

"Umm, actually, Nari…" Takeo said reluctantly, pulling his arm out of her grip. Nari got a sinking feeling in her stomach as she turned to face him. He looked apologetic. "I think Reika-sensei is right. We need to train. It's important. You've been dodging training for weeks, you're going to lose your skills if you keep this up. Use it or lose it, you know how it goes."

"No, no Takeo, not you! She corrupted you to do her bidding!" Nari spun on her heels and ran in the other direction. She hadn't gone very far before she ran smack into Konohamaru and his friends. Nari grabbed the boy by the shoulders and steered him to the side. "Guys, I need to hide, get out of the way!" Just then, Takeo snagged Nari by the back of her sweatshirt and her fact went pale. "No… NOOOO! AVENGE ME, KONOHAMARU! TELL MY WIFE AND KIDS I LOVE THEM!"

And just like that, Takeo was dragging Nari, kicking and screaming, through the streets on Reika's heels, who had Mika slung over her shoulder—cussing wildly at the older woman as she kicked and punched air.

I don't want to be here, Nari thought bitterly. As much as she prided herself on her responsible nature, she hated nothing more than being dragged off to be forcibly trained. If you could even consider what Reika was subjecting them to "training."

The three students had been released into the wooded area surrounding the training grounds and simply told to survive. Actually, what Reika told them was "Alright, kiddies. We're going to find out who could potentially get murdered to death due to ambush" with what Mika was very quick to point out was a slightly sadistic gleam in her eye.

Flash forward to Nari lounging in a tree, concealed by a lush up cropping of leaves that surrounded her like a natural fortress while allowing her to maintain visual contact with the ground. Hide, don't die. Simple. All she had to do was wait it out, and be the last person to be tackled by their teacher, and she'd be golden. Nari sighed, and leaned back against the trunk of the tree with a small yawn.

Nari found herself wondering who was going to become captured first. She had no reason to believe it wouldn't be her, but she was morbidly curious about which of the other two would be more likely to be caught. Takeo was good at hiding, but it wasn't his strong suit. He was probably ducked behind a rock somewhere wondering where the girls were. He wasn't much of a leader and did better with at least mild guidance. That wasn't to imply that he wasn't a good ninja, or that he was less powerful or less intelligent. He just felt uncomfortable making decisions. And if he wasn't hiding, he was potentially standing out in the open with kunai ready to be slung the second someone stepped on a twig.

That possibility put Mika at risk. While she was very good at hiding, she didn't do well with staying still for long periods. This mixed with the fact that she sometimes had the attention span of a small child led to multiple possibilities as to her whereabouts. She could be kicking over rocks somewhere, complaining about the ridiculousness of the training exercise. Her griping and rustling would make her a prime target. Either Takeo would hear and assume her to be Reika, leading him to impulsively sling a knife at her face or, alternatively, Reika would appear like a mythical beast behind her and smack her silly for saying a dirty word.

Then again, there was always the possibility that Mika was in a tree sleeping in an attempt to outlast the others and ultimately win the game.

As if summoned by the mere thought of her, Mika came tumbling out of a bush, muttering unintelligible but distinctly angry words as she looked around. She looked around for a moment before her eyes landed on something and she took on a devilish smile.

Curious, Nari followed her gaze to see what inspired such a reaction. A groan escaped her when she realized Mika was staring down a squirrel.

We're going to be on a mission and this one is going to get us "murdered to death" over a friggin squirrel…

Nari carefully slide down the tree without making any noise—ninja silence achieved—which Mika didn't notice, due to her intense focus on the small, furry creature she was stalking. Once Nari's feet touched the ground, she ducked behind a nearby bush, feeling uncomfortable with the thought of being out in the open. "Mika." She whispered firmly.

Mika had just launched herself at the squirrel, but landed heavily on the ground as it scampered away. "Yes, Nari," Mika whispered back.

"What the actual fuck are you doing."

"I've been trying to catch that little fucker for ages. Almost had him. Oh, he'll pay for what he did, it's only a matter of time."

Nari's eyebrows came together. "What could he possibly have done to you," she whispered in exasperation.

"I was standing outside of the Tower a while back and that bastard right there-" indicated squirrel in question "-stole my damn candy bar."

The story processed in Nari's mind and she stared incredulously at her best friend. "Mika. Don't be such a potato, we live in the middle of a fucking forest. That is not the same squirrel."

"Don't be naïve, my dear Nari, that is certainly the same squirrel. I can tell because it looks at me with this smug look on its cute, furry little face." Mika said with a gleam in her eye.

"If I were you," Reika's voice suddenly echoed around them, "I'd worry less about the squirrel and more about getting out of here alive."

The girls sprang from their respective locations and leapt into action, quickly running full-throttle in the opposite direction and arrived in enough time to see Takeo sprinting from behind a large boulder in the wake of a swarm of kunai. He dove to the ground as they sailed over his head, only to land in the exact place their cunning teacher planned on him landing. There was a crack that echoed across the clearing, making his face fall before quickly making him spring into the air via a snare wrapped around his ankle.

"Whoa," Mika said with wide eyes. "That was hardcore."

The girls approached as their friend dangled helplessly from the rope. His baggy red shirt with black sleeves hung over the lower half of his face, exposing his naval and revealing the waistband of his boxers. Amusingly, they had pink elephants on them. His dark hair dangled down, revealing the headband that typically remained partially covered.

"Heh, nice moves, noob. First day with the new brain?"

Takeo frowned. "I'm all for a good joke, but that's just plan rude, Mika. Instead of cracking jokes, how about you, ooooh I don't know, cut me down from here."

The sound of kunai whizzing toward them and the faint echo of Reika's laugh had the girls running in opposite directions, leaving Takeo spinning from the rope helplessly in the dust. Nari looked over her shoulder. "Sorry, Takeo! I'll come back, I promise!"

"Oh, sure you will! If that mad woman doesn't get you first," Takeo muttered to himself. Reika passed underneath him, her brown eyes twinkling as they met his blue eyes. The boy frowned at her deeply, looking annoyed by the turn of events. "Oh, good you found me. I'm dead, so you should cut me down and leave me to rot, maybe."

"Now why would I do that? I mean, if i left a dead body chilling on the ground, animals would be attracted to it. No, it's best to leave you up there," she said logically before saluting him and running in the direction Mika went.

Takeo sighed heavily. "This is my life now..." he said to no one.

Nari panted as she leaned against a tree. Good God, what the hell was wrong with that woman? Training was one thing but this was a whole other animal. They were running around the woods being threatened by horrors at every turn, all because they skipped a few training sessions and they were "getting soft."

"Soft my ass, I'm still great, I don't need to be chased through the woods by a maniac to know that, believe it!" Nari said with a frown. Just because she didn't train with them didn't mean she wasn't training. Nari just preferred to train on her own schedule, since she had to balance training with making sure her ridiculous brother didn't

She was broken from this thought by a faint sound in the distance, progressively getting closer. No. No way. Nari had run for three miles, there was no way Reika could have followed her all that way. Especially when Mika was right there—after getting caught chasing a squirrel during training time, she was bound to catch hell.

Oh, she had caught it alright. Or rather, it was about to catch her. Nari suddenly realized the sound was screaming and it was heading right for her. The source was revealed as Mika burst through the trees with ten shuriken heading straight for her, which meant they were heading straight for Nari too.

"Gah!" Nari squealed, spinning on her heels and running away with Mika hot on her trail. The pair didn't get very far before they were caught by a tripwire, which sent them tumbling straight into the arms of a concealed net.

Boing.

The two hung, suspended several yards above the ground with their feet dangling through the holes in the net. "Oh, what the hell," Nari sighed, resting her head on the net in defeat. She should've stayed in her tree

"So….. trap?"

"No kidding, Mik, what was your first clue," Nari said with a low-level glare directed towards a tree, as they were facing in opposite directions.

"Oi, don't get sassy with me, girl, that's my job. I'm the tough one, you're the cute one, Takeo is the one with cartoon elephants on his underpants. Respect your role!"

"Oh yeah, tough girl? If you're so big and bad, why is that squirrel laughing at you."

The net, which had been rotating in the air, turned Mika toward the direction that Nari had been facing moments ago and she was enraged to see a squirrel sitting on a boulder, staring right at her. "You little fuck, you think you're so smart. I have a very particular set of skills. And I will use those skills to find you and kick your furry little ass!" Mika struggled against the net furiously, her squirming leaving Nari with her face pressed against her side of the net.

"REIKA-SENSEI, GET ME OUT OF HERE." Nari screamed, here echoing voice reverberating through the trees, sending birds flying in every direction.

Reika stood before her students in the middle of the training groungs with her fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. "Guys. That was the most pathetic display that I have ever seen. Seriously. If we were on a mission just then? Some really frightening ninja dudes would have killed us dead because you guys are a complete mess. The best Takeo could do was feebly hide behind a fucking rock, wondering where you guys were. Mika hid well at first, but then decided to go native and seek revenge on a fucking squirrel that may or may not have eaten her candy bar many moons ago."

"Oh, he ate my candy bar all right. He thinks I'm gunna let that slide? Hell no, that was my last dollar. You know what I had to do for that dollar? I punched a guy in the face for calling me a bitch and I took it from his wallet. I earned that dollar, okay? And that little dick cheated me out of it."

Reika smacked the back of Mika's head. "Watch your fucking language," she commanded. "We live in the wilderness, Mika. There are hundreds of squirrels. And none of them are worth dying over. God, the only one that did a decent job hiding and staying put was Nariko, and she got outed because she had to go talk sense into the squirrel whisperer over her and got led straight into a trap."

Nari raised her hand. "Not to interrupt your angry mama speech, but how exactly did you know we were going to end up there? I just ran in a random direction. There's no way you could have predicted that."

Reika blinked. "Oh, that. I didn't. I booby-trapped the whole area for like a five mile radius. Everywhere was trapped, so you were going to get caught one way or another if you were running around on the ground. No guess work necessary."

The students looked mildly concerned. "What?" Reika asked flatly.

"Errrr, sensei? You do plan on collecting those, right?" Takeo asked hesitantly. "Like… Not to question your judgement or anything, but that seems, you know, dangerous for people that aren't aware those traps are things that exist out here?"

"What? Oh hell no, I'm not tracking all of those things down. Do you know how many I put out? So many that I actually forgot where a good majority of them were. I got snared like three times because I forgot where I put them. Honestly, you're lucky I found you at all. If you hadn't made such a racket? I mean, you guys could have actually died, like true shit. I would've had to tell the Hokage I lost you guys, and we'd have to send out a search party, inform your relatives you were dead, a hearing would probably have been involved, it would've been a huge mess." Reika shook her head, shuddering at the thought. "Kashi would never let me hear the end of it if I straight up lost three kids in a non-mission related incident. The shame alone, God I'd never live it down."

The kids stared at her wide-eyed, looking quite pale. "B-But you'd, like, feel bad though right? About getting us dead." Mika said slowly.

"What? Of course I would, I'm not a monster. Don't be ridiculous."

"I'm having trouble believing you, sensei," Nari said flatly.

"Same," the other two said in unison, looking disturbed.

"Ah, what do you guys know."

Reika marched into the Tower as though she owned the place, brown hair swaying as she bypassed a line of people, tapped the receptionist's desk and announced "Going to see the Hokage, don't wait up." The woman at the desk huffed in annoyance, but knew there was little she could do about it. Everyone knew Hatake Reika didn't follow rules. And no one was going to raise a fuss over it, for fear she'd go on the attack. And that woman took no prisoners.

Reika strolled down the hallway and went straight to the Hokage's office, vaguely knocked, but opened the door as she did so. "Hokage-sama," she said in greeting, flopping down in a chair.

The old man looked up at the woman and smiled. "Ah, Reika. How are things with your team?"

"Annoying," she answered immediately. "Yamamoto won't quite dropping fucking f bombs, the Nakamura kid is lost the second he separates from the team for some reason, and the Uzumaki kid is being a little weird."

This caught his attention. He placed his calligraphy brush down and turned to fully face the woman. "Weird how." He said, keeping his voice even. This, however, did not conceal the sense of alarm that Reika felt coming off of him in waves.

"Well, uh, she's been a little weird for about a month now. At first, I thought it was because she was tired from training but…"

"But?"

Reika ran a gloved hand through her hair. "But now she barely shows up for training at all. We had to kidnap her off the street today to get her to go. And she didn't look very well."

The Third looked concerned. "Unwell? How?"

"She's got these really intense bags under her eyes, like she hasn't been sleeping or something. And she's been running late to meetings with Mika, which is unusual. God knows the girl is anal retentive about being on time—which is weird for a kid that gets her kicks from defacing monuments. And that's another thing. The level of prank activities have decreased dramatically. I don't know, maybe she's sick."

Reika waited anxiously while the Hokage turned the matter over in his mind. He thought for a while before taking a long drag from his pipe, as if steeling himself for something to come. It had been silent for so long that the sound of his voice startled her when he spoke again.

"Reika. I want you to let me know if her condition changes. If something happens, come straight to me. If something is happening with her, it's important I am told immediately."

Normally, Reika would blow this off, but his tone left no room for insubordination. "Yes, Hokage-sama."

Okay, everyone, there you have it! As you can see, we've got a team of wildcards here with a pretty strange dynamic. This team has promise to find themselves in some strange situations, if Reika doesn't accidentally leave them for dead first.

They're all a little crazy, and I'm not sure if I feel worse for the team or for Reika. But, at the end of the day, they should probably all be committed lol

Well, I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Leave a review and I'll be sure to respond as soon as I can!

Ja ne,

Savvy