glad_fics | Five Friends Ino Should Have Made During her Academy Years [and One she Should Have Kept]

Title: Five Friends Ino Should Have Made During her Academy Years
Challenge: Prompt 007 – Friend (

100_situations)
Word Count: 1328
Notes: My only warning is of a brief Asuma-spoiler so small you’ll probably miss it. This is my first shot at a pattern like this, and I hate the end of the first one. It feels too different from the rest.

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Five Friends She Should Have Made:

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Ino frowned, looking at her scores.

    Taijutsu:    02/30     03/90
    Ninjutsu:    02/30     02/90
  Individual:    02/30     02/90
       Team:    02/30     02/27
   Senjutsu:    02/30     02/90
    Kunoichi:    01/09     01/27

This was unacceptable! With a loud humph, she got out of her seat and marched over to the boy she knew had topped all of her scores. She stomped her feet to get his attention. When he glanced up, she pointed boldly at him.

“I’m not going to let you beat me any more, Uchiha Sasuke-kun! I’m going to make number one in our class!”

He looked a bit surprised for a moment, then smiled.

“Good luck, Ino.”

Suddenly noticing the grumbles of the other girls in the class, Ino realized her place and rushed back to her seat.

Next semester, she got first in the class in ninjutsu and individual.

The semester after, Sasuke won back individual, but she beat him in strategy.

The semester after, Ino moved up to second in the school for taijutsu. Sasuke was number one in strategy again.

It went like this for some time, until there was no question who the top two in the school were—it was just who was currently first that remained a question. Uchiha Sasuke and Yamanaka Ino fought for that first in class position for years—

—pushing each other further and further—

—making each other stronger and stronger—

—until graduation, when their class, for the first time in Academy history, had two Number One Rookies (and one of them a girl, at that!).

--

Popping back into the room from a bathroom break, Ino noticed a small blonde figure tied up in the front of the room.

“What’s going on?” She asked as she sat down.

Inuzuka Kiba scoffed next to her. “Just Naruto. He pulled one of his stupid tricks again…”

“Oh…”

While normally Ino would have agreed with Kiba about the idiot, something seemed different today.

After class, she approached him.

“Hey, Naruto?”

“What—Ino?”

“Do you want to train with me?”

--

During kunoichi training one day, the day after Sakura had her troubles with ikebana, Ino noticed a girl in their class sitting all by herself. She was fiddling with a selection of flowers Suzume-sensei had given her, unsure what arrangement she could do.

Ino nodded subtly at Sakura, and the two approached the quiet girl.

“Hi!”

The girl looked up, and Ino was caught by surprise—those eyes meant she was a Hyûga, but her attitude was the complete opposite of any Hyûga she’d ever seen before—not that she’d seen many. “Um, h-hello.”

“You’re Hinata, right?” Sakura sat down next to the girl and looked at the flowers laid out on the table.

“Ah, yes. My name is Hyûga Hinata.” Hinata turned in her seat and bowed formally to Sakura, then turned and bowed to Ino.

“I’m Haruno Sakura.” Sakura motioned to Ino, who had moved to Hinata’s other side. “This is Yamanaka Ino.”

“Pleasure to make your acquaintances, Sakura-san, I-Ino-san.”

“Just Ino, please!” Ino smiled gently. “No need to be so formal, ‘kay?” Sakura nodded.

Hinata flushed. “A-alright, Ino-chan…”

Ino smiled wider. “That’s better! Now, let’s see if the three of us can work together and make a super-great three-person arrangement! It’ll be worth extra points if they’re all related, I bet.”

Hinata smiled (a very small, very shy smile—but a smile nonetheless). “That would be nice.”

--

Ino looked around the field and sighed. Because she had finished today’s assignment early, Iruka-sensei had asked her to do him a favor.

Four boys in her class had sneaked out fifteen minutes ago, but Iruka-sensei was too busy helping the other students with this assignment to find them. Ino had been happy to bring the boys to justice.

Naruto and Kiba were too loud to escape her, and were quickly brought back to class. Chôji was too predictable; she had found him at the third food stall she checked, and he was easily managed.

But Nara Shikamaru had been too clever, it seemed—he’d evaded her for five minutes now, but his escape was over now; Ino spotted a foot sticking out of the grass and raced over, blocking Shikamaru’s view of the clouds.

He grumbled for a moment, then sat up blearily. “Caught me already?”

“Yup!” Ino held out a hand to pull Shikamaru up, which he accepted.

Walking back to class, Ino voiced thoughts she had been mulling over lately. “Our dads were on the same genin team.” She glanced at Shikamaru sideways. “Yours, mine, and Chôji’s.”

Shikamaru glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “Your point?”

“My point is, they were probably friends too. And I always hear people talk about how similar the three of us are to them.”

“That’s usually appearance, you know,” he interjected smoothly.

“But some of it’s behavior, not to mention our jutsu and things!”

“And, once again, your point?”

“That it’s not impossible for us to end up on the same genin team too. Our family’s styles are complimentary. The teamwork would be amazing from the start.”

Shikamaru stopped walking. His eyes widened a bit as he remembered something. “You know, when I have to go old man-searching, he’s usually spewing junk about the Ino-Shika-Chô trio being reborn.”

“So, I thought…maybe we could be friends?” Ino extended a hand.

Shikamaru stared at it for a long moment.

Flustered, Ino started shouting at him. “Hey! Don’t keep me standing here like an idiot! Just shake it or don’t!”

Shikamaru smiled wryly. “Fine, fine. I accept. Though I can’t speak for Chôji,” he added as they shook hands, “he’ll usually be friends with anyone who wants to be his.”

Ino smiled warmly, and let Shikamaru trail behind her as she led him back to the Academy. “Then I’ll be his friend too.”

Shikamaru looked at Ino from behind. She hummed happily, unaware of his observations. “You’re pretty weird for a girl,” he muttered to himself.

Ino turned around. “Hmm? You say something, Shikamaru?”

He smiled fully. “Nothing, Ino.” It’s a nice kind of weird, though.

--

Ino gave Chôji a long once-over. He fidgeted under her stare, until she was done with her inspection.

“Chôji, you’re a really nice guy. And some girls like that…they’d probably really like you if they got to know you.”

Chôji flushed lightly at the compliment. “You—you really think so?”

“You bet I do!” Ino said with a pump of a fist into the air. Suddenly serious, she added ominously, “There’s just one thing that would guarantee your popularity…”

“What?” Chôji asked, anxious. “What is it?”

“You shouldn’t say it, Ino,” Shikamaru said loudly from his spot under the tree. He had a decent idea as to what that “one thing” was…if he was right, it wouldn’t end well for Ino.

“I’m one hundred percent positive that the girls would be all over you if…”

“If…?”

“If…you went on a diet!”

Chôji’s face fell.

Not noticing, Ino continued. “I mean, no self-respecting girl wants to date a fat guy—”

Chôji flinched at that word. Shikamaru sighed. Now she’d done it.

“Uh, C-Chôji?” Ino moved back as a palpable aura of anger surrounded the boy. Her face blanched. “N-now Chôji, d-don’t be mad…”

Shikamaru sighed. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Ino was too busy running for her life to pay attention.

Chôji was too busy running after Ino, screaming about being “pleasantly plump” and “big boned” and “NOT FAT,” to pay attention.

Shikamaru rolled his eyes. If Ino was right about this, he pitied the jônin who’d have to train them. *

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* At this moment, one Sarutobi Asuma was guarding the Fire Daimyô, when he suddenly sneezed in the nobleman’s face. He was removed from the service with honors, and returned to Konoha a normal jônin.

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One She Should Have Kept:

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“From now on, we’re rivals.”

Ino watched the pink-haired girl walk away, while she was frozen in panic—this can’t be happening, this can’t be happening thiscan’tbehappening—until she burst off of the bench and started running.

“Sakura, wait!”

--