Chapter Two: New Pieces, Same Game

Calmly Ayumi walked down the dirt road towards the training field the team had been told to meet at. Her hands shoved in her hoodie pockets, Ayumi knew she was late, but sadly an earlier appointment that day butted up against things. Besides, this appointment had been scheduled before she even was on the team, so that should count for something.

Beside her walked the statuesque blonde Yamanaka Ino. Current matriarch of the Yamanaka clan, head of Konoha's Sensor Network, and part time therapist to troubled and traumatized youth. In particular, she happened to be Ayumi's therapist, and it had been her failure to keep an eye on the clock that had drawn the day's appointment over time.

"So, are you going to tell them?" Ino asked her patient, breaking the silence between the two of them.

Ayumi snorted in response. "Yeah, because he would totally understand."

"You would be surprised. When it comes to change and adaptation, there is no one better." Ino replied with a warm smile. "But, I'll leave that up to you." She finished quietly as the pair arrived at the field, the remainder of the team already there and waiting.

"Hey, the Dark Lord finally decided to grace us with her presence." Izumi shot with a grin, prompting everyone else to look in the direction of the pair.

"Hey, Ice Queen, how about you take those poser glasses and shove them somewhere?" Ayumi replied without missing a beat, stepping onto the grass on a course straight for Izumi.

"Oh you wanna go? I'll clown you now just like I did in school." Izumi grinned maliciously, stepping up to meet her rival. The pair stomped towards each other, each postering and getting ready to take the first swing. But as the two finally got in each others faces, they found themselves completely unable to move a single muscle.

"That's enough of that." Shikamaru cut in, turning to face his disruptive students. His hands were in the Rat hand sign, and it was only then that the others noticed his shadow had grown long and thin, splitting to meet the shadows of the two genin.

"Now listen up. From today on, you four are a team." The jonin continued, dropping the hand sign and letting the two free of his shadow. "Whatever issues you two had in the academy, it's way past the time for it, and you need to figure out some way to put it behind you. You four are going to be putting your lives in each other's hands on a daily basis. And may the gods forbid another war happen…"

Giving a deep sigh, Shikamaru shoved his hands in his pockets. "Now, because of this little spat, I want all four of you to give 100 push ups before we start for the day."

"W..wait…all of us?" Fu asked in surprise. Mitsufune was likewise caught off guard, the coin she had been flipping in boredom falling to the ground.

"Yep, all four of you. Like I said, you are a team." The sensei smirked as he started walking towards Ino. "That means your punishments are shared just like your celebrations." Watching as his group grumbled and started doing as they were instructed, Shikamaru nodded to his former squadmate. "So, what brings you here Ino?"

"Oh what, I can't just come see my bestie?" Ino replied with a playful wink. "Actually, I came to apologize for your student being late, since it was kind of my fault. I was going to ask you not to punish them, but…"

"Yeah, definitely some troublesome wrinkles I have to iron out there." Shikamaru noted, already a few plans and ideas working out in his head. "So, any particular reason you made her late?"

"They're one of my patients." She responded plainly, rather uncharacteristically for her. Shikamaru gave Ino a sideways glance, but she said nothing else. That alone spoke volumes to the head of the Nara clan. Ino was the first person to jump on idle gossip and talk off someone's ear, but when it came to actual secrets she could be an iron trap.

Several hours later….

"Well, that was impressive, I have to say." Shikamaru stood over his students, popping his neck. His poor genin were all collapsed on the grass around him, panting and exhausted. After the punishment push ups, he had them run a few dozen warm up laps, then had them come at him in a four-on-one assault. Even though he wasn't the best fighter in Konoha, he was easily able to outmaneuver the four genin, and it allowed him to properly assess their skillsets.

Unsurprisingly, Izumi and Ayumi were the most aggressive of the group. Ayumi was a flat-out brawler, but her technique was sloppy and unrefined. Izumi preferred a more mid-range approach, dodging and weaving with kicks and kunai. It almost looked like they were in a competition to see who could land a blow first and would sometimes get in each other's way, but the few times they managed to work together they actually managed to briefly catch the master strategist off-guard.

The far bigger surprise was Fu. Going into things, Shikamaru had expected the shy nervous kid to be dead weight his teammates were trying to work around. And in the first few moments, he was. But somewhere in there, once the adrenaline started pumping, he started to pull his own in a more supportive role, either knocking his teammates out of the way of incoming shadow attacks or making openings for one of the other two main attackers. And that priest staff he wielded could hit like a boulder when he had a good wind up.

But the real MVP was Mitsufune. All the academy notes stated she should have been the worst of the group, but it didn't take a genius to figure out that wasn't a true assessment by any means. Her aim with a shuriken was impressive, and she even had a few genjutsus up her kimono sleeve. True, they were low-level ones Shikamaru could easily break out of, but they weren't anything that was taught in the academy. And most importantly, she wasn't afraid to fight dirty, as the smears of dust on and in his eyes could attest.

The jonin-sensei pushed the plans and notes he had taken to the back parts of his mind to file and percolate as he grabbed the bundle Ino had dropped off. It had ended up that her arrival worked out well, as Shikamaru was able to pay her to grab a round of bentos for the team while he was training them (under the stipulation that he also pay for lunch for her and Sai). "Alright, the vegetarian one is for Fu, the rest should be the same so no fighting over them." He smirked as the young shinobi struggled to pull themselves up and grab the offered lunches, muttering words of thanks. It seemed they were too tired to push themselves into fighting each other for the first time.

After everyone had gotten some food in them, Shikamaru spoke up. "You all have some work to do, but overall that was pretty impressive for a bunch of fresh genins. The biggest thing we need to work on is your teamwork. Trust me, I know from experience, there is no bigger force multiplier." Taking another bite of rice, he took a brief moment to choose his words carefully before continuing. "But a big part of that is trust. Like I said earlier, whatever issues any of you had at the academy or even that you develop now, you will need to figure out a way to overcome them. Otherwise the person sitting next to you could end up dead. So, that means no keeping secrets from your teammates, no sparing anyone's feelings. I know 'family' doesn't have a lot of positive connotations for most of you, but that's how I would describe my squadmates. Ino and Choji are like the siblings I never had, and I know that both of then would have my back no matter what, and I know they would have mine without even having to ask."

The squad nodded softly as they continued to eat, except for Ayumi. Even as tired as she was, she found the energy to stare daggers at the jonin. "So, what did your sister tell you about me, Sensei?"

Shikamaru bliniked a few times He had kept his words subtle enough, hoping to prompt Ayumi towards some later realization. However, in this case he had miscalculated, underestimating her brashness and just how personal whatever this issue was. "She didn't tell me anything. When it isn't about rumors about her friends' lovelife, she's actually pretty serious about professionalism."

The remainder of the squad turned towards Ayumi, looks full of curiosity. The black-clad shinobi wanted to run and sulk to avoid those stares, but her legs were on fire so they were stuck in this sitting position. "You are all fucking assholes and I hate every one of you."

"Oh for fucks sake." Izumi snapped back, slamming her chop sticks into the grass. "We all know that's not true. You might hate me, but Mitsufune was the only girl in the Academy you got along with at all, and no one can hate our loveable bean of a priest, no matter how annoying his constant prayers get."

"Um, thanks I guess?" Fu interjected, pushing his long dark hair out of his face as he ate another string bean.

"See?" Izumi continued. "Yeah, I may not have wanted to end up on the same team as you, but we did, and I'm not going to go down as a failure because of some bullshit like this. If you have something to say to the group, then say it. Because the last thing I need is a knife in my brain because the Dark Lord let their god damn pride get in the way of things."

By this point, Ayumi's chopsticks had cracked in half in her clenched fist. "Fine, you bastards want to know so bad? Fine. I'm a fucking freak, alright? A certified abomination. There, happy?"

The remainder of Team Nine and their sensei all looked at each other for a moment in confusion before Mitsufune spoke up. "So…I think I can speak for everyone here when I say, you are going to have to go into a lot more detail there."

"Yeah totally." Izumi agreed. "Like, do you have some swarm of bugs living in your body like an Aburame or like you have extra arms hidden under your hoodie or…"

"Oh, can you turn into an animal or something?" Fu jumped in, abnormally excited. "Sorry, I just…have heard stories about that and thought it would be cool to see…"

Ayumi looked up at the sky and sighed. The brutal honesty of her teammates made the shinobi look at their problems in a new angle. When held up to the mirror of what was considered normal among the ninjas of Konoha, her issues really did seem kind of small in some ways. "No, I'm just…born wrong…like, in the wrong body.."

"Oh you're just trans." Mitsufune replied as she went back to eating. "Sorry that sounded nicer in my head, its just one of the girls at the brothel is too, and she's not even like in the top twenty of the interesting things I've seen living there."

"So basically, I have to stop calling you a bitch and call you an ass instead, got it." Izumi added with a smirk.

"We are all in pursuit of the ultimate truth." Fu commented sagely. "If this is your truth, then I will support you fully."

"I don't know how…" Shikamaru sighed as he pinched the bridge of his nose. "But you found a way to throw me a troublesome curveball. That was nowhere near what I was expecting you to say but like I said, a team is supposed to be like family. And I'll do whatever it takes to help you out on this journey. Speaking of, is there something else you would rather we call you? Ayumi is a pretty traditional girls name…"

Wiping away a tear, the young shinobi took in all the support. Never had she….never had he thought he would be in this situation, and now that he was, there was only one way to move forward. "Well everyone calls me the Dark Lord, so I might as well embrace that. Call me Noh Akuma, the Dark Lord of Konoha."