The Beginning, Part I: Plushies, Stalkers, and Ramen

"Lori, wake up." Silence.

"Lori, wake up now." More silence.

"LORI! WAKE THE HELL UP!" Even more silence. Not like Silence of the Lambs silence. There was no Hannibal Lector involved (that we know of). But that did not make this particular silence any less annoying for Mari. This silence was one she encountered entirely too often: the silence of the mound of pillows and blankets known as "Lori".

Mari felt her eye lid begin to twitch. So it was going to be one of those mornings.

Switching on the light, she stalked up to the mound and promptly began to remove every pillow, blanket, and stuffed animal from the bed. As the pile shrank, it revealed a girl curled up in a fetal position, snoring softly. Mari paused a moment as compassion began to take over and force her to consider allowing her to sleep for a bit longer. Just a few more minutes wouldn't hurt…

Then a grin so absolutely terrifying that it would send Lucifer himself scurrying for cover appeared on Mari's face. Screw compassion; Lori was waking up now. She took a deep breath to prepare, and then…

"LORI, GET YOUR LAZY BUTT OUT OF BED RIGHT NOW OR I AM GOING TO CRAM EVERY PICTURE OF SHIKAMARU YOU OWN DOWN THE GARBAGE DISPOSAL!" Needless to say, she meant business. The girl known as Lori sprang from the bed like a demented Tigger.

"You damn well better not! And what time is it?" Lori glanced at the small clock next to her bed and immediately balked at the time. "It's seven in the frickin' morning. You better have a wonderful explanation for getting me up at this ungodly hour," she added menacingly.

Although common sense (and most encyclopedias) would tell you otherwise, these two girls are best friends. Like sisters actually (which has nothing to do with the fact that they are distant cousins from the same clan). When they first met at the tender age of three and a half (a life-altering event for both of them), their clan soon decided that either the two would become best friends, or they would kill each other. As fate would have it, they became friends, although days when they don't threaten to kill each other and/or mutilate each other's property are few and far between.

While the girls continue their current glare-off, allow me to shed some light on their personalities. Let's say Lori and Mari wanted to take over the world. If this were the case, Lori would make the plan. Not only would she make the plan, the plan would be awesome. It would be detailed, well-researched, carefully constructed, etc. However, it would be Mari who would actually put the plan into place. She'd keep everything organized, deal with emergencies, break into government buildings, and the like. Lori would be distracted with something shiny. Or something with Shikamaru's face on it. Or something shiny with Shikamaru's face on it. You get the idea. Anyways, back to the glare-off.

"Number one: I have been up for an hour already, so get over your self. Number two: it's cleaning day. You're the one who decided Monday was cleaning day, so don't complain. Or I'll shove your new Shika plushie down the garbage disposal too," Mari replied evenly.

"But…hey, how did you know about the new plushie?" Mari was already gone from the room by the time she finished her question. "Stupid ninja friend," she muttered before turning around and groaning at the mess of pillows, blankets, stuffed animals, dirty clothes, various plushies, books, papers, and all manner of other random crap that she had to clean. True, it had been her idea to have cleaning day on Monday, but that didn't mean she had to enjoy it. She was pretty much in charge of scheduling what she and Mari did during the week outside of Mari's missions, and (for whatever horrible reason) that had to include a day to clean.

Two hours later Lori plodded down the stairs to get something to eat and instead was greeted by a suspicious Mari.

"Did you finish cleaning your room?"

"Yeah."

"The upstairs bathroom?"

"Yes mother."

"Shut up Lori. What else did you get done up there?" Mari did the downstairs part of the house, Lori did upstairs, and both did laundry. Lori had tried time and time again to convince Mari to do all of the laundry and she would do the kitchen, but Mari didn't trust her with cleaning chemicals and kitchen appliances. One or the other was fine, but never both. She learned her lesson after Lori almost blew up their old village's main office building a few months prior.

"I cleaned up the bathroom, my room, the office, and your room. I was about to do the rest of the rooms when my stomach decided to cuss me out in Stomach-lish. So if you don't mind, I'm going to get a Poptart". Lori grabbed a strawberry version of said pastry and sat at on of the stools next to the kitchen island to enjoy it.

"Whatever. Oh, we're going to Ichiraku's with Naruto, Sakura, and Sai for lunch, no whining," Mari added quickly as the other girl began to open her mouth. Unfortunately for Mari, her warning did not stop her from complaining.

"We have to go outside? But there's sun out there!" Lori whined. She had a serious aversion to all things solar-related, much to the chagrin of her sun-loving friend. Mari enjoyed night and dark as well, but she believed that balance is good.

"One of these days I'm going to drag you into the sun and you're going to melt. Then I'm going to laugh."

Lori glared at her from across the kitchen. "Meanie. And besides, what is with your ramen obsession? Every time we go out to eat, we eat ramen."

"At least I don't stalk my obsession," Mari replied before turning on the vacuum, cutting off the conversation.

"Touché."

Grumbling something along the lines of "Stupid Mari", Lori finished her Poptart. It was common knowledge between the two that Lori spent a lot of her time stalking several of the male ninja in the village, specifically Kiba, Neji, and Shikamaru. She tried to get Mari to accompany her, but her friend generally made the excuse that since she saw them more often, seeing them do whatever they doing while Lori was stalking them would make any conversation with them rather awkward. Any argument Lori tried to make about this was cut off by the fact that, in the month since they'd moved to the village, she had never actually met any of the three aforementioned shinobi, so she wouldn't truly understand what Mari meant by "awkward".

"Besides all that, you've never even met Naruto, or Sai, and you only saw Sakura for, what, two minutes when we came here? Really, you need to get to know these people for our reports." By now Mari had turned off the vacuum and was standing at the threshold of the kitchen, leaning against a freshly wiped, greenish counter.

"Bleh, whatever," the lazier of the duo replied. A grin spread across Lori's face as she added, "You know, I was thinking we could get ahead on your geometry today. We might even be able to get through a whole extra lesson!"

"WHAT?! Why? That's not fair Lori!" While away from their village, Lori was in charge of making sure the two of them kept up with their school work. She would go through the day's lesson while Mari was away for the day, then go over it with her in the evening. Even if Mari was gone for a multi-day mission, she still had to make up her work when she got back. It wasn't that Mari hated learning; she just hated learning math, a fact her friend cruelly exploited every chance she got. "You're a bitch."

"Since when am I a female dog?" Lori asked, still grinning sadistically. At this point, Mari turned around, walked to the nearest wall, and began to bang her head against it while muttering "Stupid dictionary-reading friend…"

Naruto settled into his seat next to Sakura and Sai. They were deep in a conversation about something, so he chose to stare off into space and watch for Mari and her currently unknown friend, Lori . He and his team had been on a few missions with the girl before, and had found her to be…different. For the most part she was fairly easy going, but she had a bad temper and wicked sense of humor that was shown in her sarcasm. Despite her many cracks about his intelligence being linked to his hair color, he liked her. In Mari he had found a fellow lover of ramen, and she could eat almost as much as him.

"Oi, Naruto, what do you think her friend will be like?" Sakura asked, apparently having wrapped up her conversation with the weirdo. Many had been wondering the same thing; while Mari had quickly begun trying to meet people and go on missions when she came here, her friend and roommate had become all but unknown to the rest of the populace. Mari was rather vague when asked to describe her, so team 7 was quite curious.

"Maybe she'll be like Mari," Sai suggested. The three all suppressed shivers. They liked Mari, but there was only so much of her random violence and sharp humor they could take. Then the blonde shinobi noticed the very girls they'd just been discussing coming through the crowd.

Or rather, they saw flashes of them. They were both short for fourteen year olds, coming in at a whopping four feet nine inches. At first, this had led many of the village ninja to underestimate Mari's fighting ability. However, after a few training rounds with her, she gained a reputation for her vicious fighting style. Sakura wondered if her friend had similar skills, and if so, why she wasn't a ninja. Craning her neck to try and see the duo, the medic was temporarily stunned by the girls' appearance.

Mari didn't look all that strange from a distance. Her flaming orange hair made her stand out, sure, but that didn't compare to the other girl. She had the exact same short height and wiry build as Mari, with even paler skin that seemed to scream "The sun shows me no mercy!". Her hair was short, not reaching her shoulders, and had purple streaks interrupting its overall black color. The clothes she wore also contrasted with Mari's practical ninja attire: very Goth, complete with a black leather jacket.

"She's, um, different, I guess…" Sakura said without taking her eyes off the pair coming towards them. The other two silently agreed. They sat in silence for a moment longer, then Naruto raised his hand so Mari and her friend could see them.

"Hey, Mari! How are-". Naruto's shouted greeting was interrupted as Lori, after tripping over that evil and sporadically solid object known as "air", face-planted unceremoniously in the dirt.