I do not own Naruto. It belongs to Masashi Kishimoto. I only own my original characters.
Critiques are welcomed. Actually, please offer advice. I love advice and I will edit and change anything that seems like it messes with Kishimoto's original work. If my characters seem to Mary Sue like, please tell me and I will edit what was Mary Sue-ish about them.
I also want to apologize in advance for any OOC-ness in this story.
Besides that, I hope you enjoy this c:
The hot sun beams down on the pale shoulders of the black haired girl. Sweat beams off her skin as she fans herself with her hand. A scowl decorated her face as she walks at a leisurely pace behind her teammates. They had been training the majority of the day and their sensei, Kaori, finally gave them permission to relax for the ray of the day. The three genin didn't protest this decision. They were eager to spend the rest of the day doing what they wanted besides getting injured during training.
"Miyuki!" The black haired girl's teammate calls over his shoulder to gain her attention.
Miyuki quickens her pace so she was walking in between her two teammates. "What?" She questions, pulling out a small hair brush from her hip pouch and pulling her hair out of her ponytail to brush it.
"Where do you wanna go?" The black haired boy crossings arms behind his head as he asks the questions.
Miyuki makes a tsking sound as she brushes out her hair. "Why do have to pick? You guys know I hate being the one to decide what we do," she wines.
A hand wraps around Miyuki's brush and pulls it out of her hand. Miyuki opens her mouth to protest but stops as an arm wraps around her shoulder. "Come on, Beauty Queen, help us think of something. We can't just walk around aimlessly," the other female of the group remarks, a playful smile etches across her face.
"Don't take my brush, Akari." Miyuki snatches the brush away from her teammate. Placing her hand on her chin, she puts a thinking face on as she ponders over what her team could do. "We can go to the steakhouse. I'm starving," she concludes as she pulls her hair back up.
Akari claps her hands together in excitement. Ever since Miyuki had known Akari, she knew steak was her favorite food. The young white eyed girl wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty when came to food. On the contrary, she made a complete mess, especially when our came to food made with barbecue. This lack of care always amazed Miyuki when it came to Akari. After all, one would think a member of the Hyuuga clan would care more about social appearances. Though that's one of the things she's loved about her teammate. She could've been stuck up, like another Hyuuga from their class, yet she wasn't.
Miyuki's other teammate stuffs his hands in his pants pockets with a huff. His brown eyes followed Akari as she ran in the direction of the steakhouse. "I'm not paying for her food," he comments lazily as he follows Akari in no particular hurry.
Falling into to step with him, Miyuki sighs, "I guess that means I'm paying?"
Whenever the team decided to go to eat without their sensei, they rotated on who would pay for the food that day. Unfortunately it was Miyuki's day to pay and she had chosen one of the most expensive places in the village.
"It's your day, not mine." Her teammate shrugs before stretching his arms out.
Miyuki purses her lips as she grabs into his shirt. "Oh come on, Daiki. You know how much she can eat." Miyuki bats her eyelashes at him causing a light blush to appear across his cheeks. Unfortunately for Daiki, when it came to girls he was utterly defenseless. When a girl batted her eyes at him, he couldn't help but do what they wanted. Miyuki learned this after a few months of knowing Daiki and ever since they were little, she used it to her advantage.
Face growing redder, Daiki turns his face away from Miyuki and scratches his cheek. "I'll buy ours and you can buy Akari's," he decides.
Miyuki smiles in victory. "Thank you, Dai," she says then breaks off in a jog to catch up with Akari, leaving Daiki behind who clearly had no intention of quickening his pace. When she catches up to the pixie haired Hyuuga, Miyuki grabs her arm and twirls Akari around. This causes the Hyuuga to let out an ugly snort which she attempts to cover up with a fit of laughter.
Once they stop spinning, the two kunoichi's lace their arms together and walk toward the steakhouse that was just a few feet away from them. "What was that all about?" Akari asks after she calms down her laughter.
"I'm just excited! The chuunin exams are just in a couple of days," Miyuki squeals in delight as they walk into the steakhouse. The haired girl wasn't sure if it was okay to be so excited over the exams. After their sensei had explained to them the dangers of the exams, Daiki and Akari weren't too enthusiastic about them. It wasn't like they doubted their abilities, it was more like they were worried about the ninjas from other villages. From the few missions they had been on, they had ran into other ninjas occasionally. The first time nearly ended with the three genin being killed. If it wasn't for Kaori, they would've been dead. After that mission, they were more cautious when it came to running into other ninjas, especially ones from villages that were enemies of the Leaf. After all, their village's enemies were more hostile toward them than the ones that weren't. While they were afraid of the obstacle in front of them, the three genin knew that this was necessary for moving up in the ranks. They weren't going to stay genin forever.
Unlike her two teammates, Miyuki pushed back her fear of other villages ninjas. To her, it was part of the job to face other ninja so it was ridiculous to let fear bother her. That didn't mean she wasn't afraid; she would be a fool to not be afraid. She just had too much to worry about. Her younger sister, Sayuri, depended on Miyuki to bring back money from her missions in order to provide them with the essentials that they needed. Unfortunately, after their mother passed away a few years before, Miyuki's step-father and Sayuri's father decided to start staying out later to the point that he rarely came home. When Miyuki was younger, she though that her step-father, Ryouta, was just abandoning her and her sister and only came back home to have a place to rest at. Now that she was older, she realized it was because of depression that he fell into because he didn't know how to cope with her mother's passing. Miyuki tried to talk some sense into Ryouta, at least for the sake of Sayuri, yet he refused to acknowledge her, telling her that she was just a thirteen year old girl who didn't understand how the world worked. After that, Miyuki decided to work on extra D-rank missions and work extra hours at a small convenience shop that her mother use to own in order to make extra money.
So, Miyuki didn't just see the Chuunin Exams as a way to prove that she was strong, but as a way to earn extra money. The higher her rank, the money she could make by going on higher ranked missions.
"Hey, Beauty Queen." Akari snaps her fingers in front of Miyuki's face.
Scowling, Miyuki narrows her eyes at Akari since she hated it when people snapped at her. This was hypocritical of her considering she had a bad habit of doing the same thing. "What," she whines at her Hyuuga friend.
Akari points her finger toward the back of the restaurant. "Look who's over there." A grin spreads across her face and she moves her eyebrows up and down.
Miyuki didn't have to look at where Akari was pointing to know who she was talking about. The loud voice of a certain bushy eyebrow boy could be heard from the other side of the restaurant where Miyuki was standing. A female's hushing also caught Miyuki's ear, letting her know the hyperactive boy wasn't alone. And by Akari's sly smile, she knew that a certain white eyed boy was sitting with him.
"Let me guess, we're going to sit with them?" Miyuki already knew the answer to that question. Whenever they ran into the members of Team Guy, they had to hang out with them. She guessed they would be considered friends since they were in the same class at the Academy. They were easy to get along with, Lee and TenTen anyways. The Hyuuga member of the team wasn't as pleasant.
Akari doesn't Miyuki's question and rushes off in the direction of Team Guy. "Ugh, I really didn't feel like listening to that Hyuuga over there," Daiki groans from behind Miyuki.
"Just deal with it for an hour or so and then we don't have to talk to him," Miyuki says with a shrug. When it came to Neji, he didn't really talk that much and when he did, Miyuki tried to tune him. Well, she failed at tuning the Hyuuga out. While he was arrogant and self-righteous, Miyuki had a certain soft spot for the Hyuuga. Though she was sure that was only because he was cute and she had no other reason besides that.
Following Daiki, Miyuki sits down at the end of the table, across from the Hyuuga she had just been thinking about. Neji glances at before averting his attention away from her, not speaking a word. Akari was talking to Tenten since they were good friends. Daiki starts a conversation with Lee, the both of them talking about the upcoming Chuunin Exams. Miyuki pulls at her ponytail, trying to make herself feel less awkward. Why didn't she just start up a conversation with Neji? It would give her something to do besides watching the food cook and awkwardly playing with her hair. Neji wasn't that bad of a person, right?
A small smile appears on Miyuki's face at that last thought of hers. Neji was a genius but unfortunately he had a terrible personality. When they were in the Academy, he had told her that she was destined to working in her mother's store and that she would never make it as a ninja. This was because in the Academy she had trouble learning jutsu's since she had such a low chakra amount. While she passed any written test, she still laked in performing jutsu's. To make up for this, she decided to focus on taijutsu and trained with her step-father before he became a drunkard. Luckily, she managed to learn the basic jutsu's in order to graduate yet it took all of her chakra to perform the basic techniques. Though now that she had been training with Kaori, she actually learned how to perform jutsu's, even learning a couple water style jutsu's. She really wanted to rub this fact into the Hyuuga's face.
"So, Miyu," a female's voice interrupts Miyuki just as she goes to open her mouth. Turning her toward the source of the voice, Miyuki sees Tenten smiling at her. "How's your training going?" Of course Tenten would provide her with the perfect opportunity to boast about what she had learned.
Miyuki pushes her cup around in her hands on the table. "Oh, I found out that I do pretty well with water style jutsu's. Turns out that I just needed to work with jutsu's more in my element," Miyuki explains with a shrug.
"Water style?" Tenten questions before realization washes over her face. "Oh, your sensei is an expert in water style, isn't she?"
Miyuki nods. "Yeah. She managed to help me. I mean, I've been training with her before she became my official sensei, but up until I graduated, we didn't really make in progress. I guess I was just a late bloomer, ya know?" Miyuki was beginning to feel awkward talking about herself. While she did desire for people to want to know about her, she felt kind of bad when the attention was all on her.
"That's good. Hopefully all of us will be able to pass the exams and become Chuunin's together," TenTen muses.
Miyuki laughs. "Yeah, girl. We all will totally pass it."
A small snort comes from in front of the black haired girl. Clicking her tongue in annoyance, she looks at Neji who wore a slightly smugged smile. "As if these weaklings would be able to become Chuunin's," he says.
Daiki chuckles while putting down his chopsticks. "You wanna bet? I bet I can kick your ass even if don't become Chuunin." He goes to stand up only to be stopped by Miyuki grabbing his hand.
"Oh, come on, Dai. We all know that Neji here is a lot stronger than you are. Save yourself the embarrassment," Miyuki lectures her teammate.
Daiki rolls his eyes before crossing his arms over his chest, a sign that said that he wasn't going to eat. "Whatever," he grumbles, glaring at the table.
"You should just accept that you're incapable of becoming Chuunin," Neji presses before he places a piece of steak in his mouth.
Daiki stands up from where he was sitting. "I'll see you two tomorrow." He motions toward Miyuki and Akari before marching out of the restaurant. Since Daiki had a bad temper, their sensei had been telling him to walk away from people who angered him. At least the ones in the villages seeing as on missions he couldn't just walk away. The reason for this was because on one of their first missions, someone had managed to set off Daiki's anger. This led to Daiki publicly attacking the person and Kaori had to pull the young Sarutobi off the defenseless guy. Since then, Kaori wanted Daiki to stop letting his anger get to him, especially in public.
"You could've been nicer to him." Lee points his chopsticks at Neji who now had his arms crossed over his chest.
Neji shrugs. "It's not my fault he can't handle the truth."
Lee frowns. "Yeah, but still. You know how short tempered Daiki is."
Shaking her head, Miyuki pulls out some money from her pocket and places it on the table. "That's for the food that Daiki and Akari ate," Miyuki says standing up. After stretching, she waves at the group. "See you guys later. My shift starts in a few."
The young genin leaves the restaurant and heads toward her store a few blocks away. She didn't want to leave the restaurant without eating but she was exactly in the mood for any the Hyuuga's smart alec remarks. His attitude didn't bother Akari as much as it did Miyuki and Daiki. This was probably because the two Hyuuga's were distant cousins, being from the same clan. Akari just told them that his attitude was like that because of the way the clan was. She didn't specify but Miyuki didn't see why that would excuse him for having such an awful attitude.
Miyuki walks into the shop, seeing the clerk sitting on the stool behind the counter reading a book. As Miyuki gets closer to the counter, she notices it was one of the adult novels that many adults read. Taking the opportunity, Miyuki slams her hands down the counter and shouts, "Hey, girl! Shouldn't you be working and not reading your porn?"
The young clerk yelps in surprise and jumps off the stool, her book falling from her hands. Placing her hand on her chest, the young brunette glares at the young genin who was now holding her sides from laughter. "Miyuki! Don't do shit like that," she fumes.
Leaning against the counter, Miyuki shrugs. "That's why you shouldn't be slacking on the job, Kimiko."
Kimiko bends over and picks her book. She dusts it off as she walks out from behind the counter. "It's been slow today." She pats Miyuki on the shoulder. "Well, see you tomorrow, girlie. I gotta go home and make dinner."
Miyuki turns around on her heel. "Oh, I'm not going to be here for the rest of the week." Surely the young adult couldn't have forgotten that the Chuunin exams were that week? Miyuki had been talking about it nonstop. Then again, the brunette was an airhead, always forgetting things.
Kimiko curses under her breath. "Really? I had things I needed to do," the brunette whines.
"I've been saying this for the past week. The Chuunin Exams are this week. I've got training and testing to do." Miyuki walks behind the counter and sits down the stool.
Kimiko shakes her head. "Well, you need to get Sayuri to fill in 'cause I've already made plans." The brunette places her hands on her hips.
A small breathy laugh leaves Miyuki's lips. "Actually, I need tell Ryouta to start interviewing new people for the job. Don't forget, Kimiko, you're easily replaceable." Putting her elbows on the counter, Miyuki rests her head in her hands and she stares at the brunette.
Kimiko's face reddens at Miyuki's comment. "I guess I'll be working overtime," she says slowly as if she was choosing her words carefully.
Miyuki smiles. "Good. Glad we have the same understanding."
Tapping her foot on the ground, Miyuki watches the cloak on the wall. Only thirty more minutes until it was time to close the shop. After being away from her house all day, she was ready to go home and relax. Though she was unsure if she would be able to sleep when she got home. Her mind was racing and when she was thinking about too many things, she couldn't sleep well. This mainly happened when she worried over things and she worried a lot.
The bell for the shop went off, signaling that someone had entered. She looks toward the entrance and notices three kids around her age. The strange thing about them was that Miyuki had never seen them before. There were two boys and one girl. They went their separate ways in the store, each going down a different aisle. The one who caught her attention was the redheaded boy with a guard on his back. She was wondering what the boy hand in the guard and why someone would carry one so big on their back.
"Hey," a deep voice speaks as a hand hits the counter.
Miyuki jumps and looks away from the redhead, averting her attention toward a boy wearing a strange hood that somewhat resembled cat ears. He wore purple face paint on his face along with an irritated frown. "Yes, how may I help you?" Miyuki questions.
"Do you have any face paint?" The boy tapped his finger on the counter like he was in a hurry.
Miyuki presses her lips together and looks pass him to point toward an aisle. "It's not down that aisle?" All the makeup the store had was on that aisle. She usually put the face paint with the makeup since some ninja wore it when they were on the job.
The boy shakes his. "That's where I went. You don't have purple," he says while crossing his arms over his chest.
Miyuki furrows her brows. "That's strange. We should have that color. Let me go check the storage." She walks away from the counter to a back room. She goes to where they usually put the extra face paint at and curses when she didn't notice the step stool that she usually used. Looking up at the top shelf, Miyuki groans as she decides to step onto one the shelves to pull herself up so she could grab the box on the top shelf. A sharp pain shots across her hand as she places her hand on one of the higher shelves which causes her to jump off the shelves.
A colorful line of profanities leave her mouth as she looks down at her hand, a nice red line appearing across her palm with red liquid flooding out of it. Looking around the room, Miyuki grabs an old towel from one of the shelves and wraps it around her hand. She steps back onto the lower shelves and pulls herself up, careful not to touch what she had before. Using the hand that was wrapped in a towel, she slides it across the shelf that caused her to become injured. Something falls to ground with a loud ping, signaling that it was metal. Not bothering to look down, she supports herself on her injured hand, ignoring the pain and grabs the box with face paint. Once she has the box, she jumps down off the shelves.
"A box cutter? Really?" Miyuki glares down at the razor on the ground and puts the box on another shelf so she could look at its contents. She smiles in relief when she notices the purple tube, letting her know she didn't go through all of that for no reason. She bends over to pick up the box cutter and closes it, stuffing it into her pocket before she picks out two tubes of purple from the box. Walking back into the store, she notices that the other two kids were standing there with the boy with face paint.
"I found the purple face paint," Miyuki announces as she walks back behind the counter. "It looks like my coworker forgot to put them out." She puts the tubes down on the counter. "Along with other things she's forgotten," Miyuki adds, looking at her hand wrapped in the towel.
The boy with face paint picks up the purple tubes. "I only needed one." He sets one of them back onto the counter.
Miyuki slides the tube back in his direction. "It's on me for causing you an inconvenience." Miyuki shrugs it off.
"Oh. Well, thanks I guess," the boy says before looking down at her hand. "Are you going to leave it like that?" He points at it in the towel.
"Why the hell not? I don't even feel it anymore." She waves her hand in dismissal before looking at the other kids with him. The girl had a couple of drinks set in front of her while the redhead had nothing. Pointing to the drinks, Miyuki asks, "Are you buying these with him?"
The girl nods. "Well, duh. He's my brother."
Miyuki's eyes widen as she says, "I was just checking. Some people buy things separately, ya know?" She puts in the prices of the drinks and one of the face paint tubes into the cash register. She tells them the price and the boy with the face paint hands her the money. As Miyuki goes to bag the stuff, it dongs on her that they were wearing headbands for a different village; the Sand Village.
"Are you guys participating in the Chuunin Exams?" Miyuki asks as she hands the bag to the most talkative member of the group.
The boy smirks. "Why else would we be here?"
Miyuki's jaw tightens. What was it with people and their smart-ass attitudes that day? "I'm participating in it as well." She chose not to say anything smart back, not wanting word to get back to her step-father that she was having an attitude with customers.
The boy looks her up and down. "You won't make it considering you let a shelf kick your ass," he comments.
"I have you know I can always make you pay for that tube of paint." Miyuki puts her hand on her hip and gives the boy a pointed look.
The boy laughs. "Not if I give it back to you." He goes to pull out the tube from the bag when Miyuki holds up hand.
"Boy, I'm just messing with you." Miyuki shakes her head at him. "Now, go on. It's closing time." She waves her hand as if to shoo him away.
The boy pulls his hand out of the bag. "What's your name?"
Miyuki furrows her brows for a moment before speaking. "Miyuki. And yours?"
The boy smirks before pushing the door open. As he walks out the door to follow his team, who had left him in the shop, he calls over his shoulder, "Kankuro."