Shadow Puppets

Yamanaka Ino was wide awake and terribly proud of herself. It was Team 10's first real mission outside the village, even if it was only to go to a nearby farm to help build fences for cattle. The first real time outside Konoha, and she was on first watch. It was up to her to wake up the others for their watches, up to her to alert them if rogue ninja suddenly sprang from the bushes and attacked. Not that that had any sort of plausibility, what with the countries allied, but you never knew if someone had a vendetta against cattle fences.

She stared hard at the flickering campfire, the flames dancing over the crackling and snapping logs, bathing their makeshift camp in wavering orange light. Chouji was on the opposite side of the circle of light from her, spread-eagle with an empty chip bag balanced on his rising and falling gut. Shikamaru's back was turned to her, the symbol of the Nara clan on his jacket shifting from time to time as he tried to get comfortable on the hard ground. Asuma had leaned up against a tree, head bowed to his chest as he snored loudly (so much for stealth), cigarette for once not balanced between his lips. Ino smiled. You almost couldn't tell how obnoxious they were when awake. Almost.

She loved knowing that they trusted her so well already, enough to all sleep so deeply, but the night was so quiet and dark and boring. Her eyelids fluttered. Determinedly, she sat up ramrod-straight, glaring at the flames as if it were their fault that she was so tired. It was nearly midnight. Nearly time to wake up Asuma for his watch. She could make it.

From the corner of one tiredly burning eye, she caught a flicker of movement. Stiffening, reaching for a kunai, she turned her head to see what it was.

A shadow, tall, imposing, had reared up against the tree next to Asuma-sensei's. Without thinking twice, she hurled the kunai in the direction the shadow came from, hearing only the thunk of wood as it hit. She whirled, leaping to her feet, adrenaline making her forget her tiredness. Must've been a switching techni--

Confused blue eyes beheld her kunai embedded in yet another tree's bark. Not a log, as she could expect of a kawarimi. Just a tree.

And the quaking shoulders of one Nara Shikamaru, who was truly abysmal at hiding laughter. The looming shadow beside Asuma shifted to look like a giant, dancing rabbit. Ino snarled and lobbed another kunai at her teammate, who rolled over to dodge, now laughing openly. She was suddenly aware that Chouji was snickering as well, though Asuma's snores only grew louder.

"You idiots!" she hissed at them, and Chouji too started to laugh out loud. "Shut up! You can't just joke about that kind of thing!"

Shikamaru's laughter trailed off as he concentrated, the rabbit's ears drooping. Chouji laughed harder. Ino wondered if Asuma would mind waking up to find two thirds of his team killed in cold blood. Instead of murdering them, however, she stormed over and gave Shikamaru a fierce kick to the side. He yelped, the rabbit vanishing.

"Oi, you didn't have to kick me," he grumped, glaring up at her fiercely.

"You didn't have to scare the crap out of me, either!" she replied. Stooping, she put an end to Chouji's laughter with a well-aimed rock to the head.

"Hey, I didn't do anything!" the Akimichi boy yowled. Ino, seething, turned and sat down heavily where she had been all night until then.

"You two idiots can keep watch. I'm going to sleep."

"Isn't it Asuma's turn...?" Shikamaru asked, glowering at her.

"He deserves to sleep longer for putting up with us. You don't."

She layed down and closed her eyes, not missing Shikamaru's muttered "troublesome girl," nor the chance to lob a rock at him as well.

The Nara was soon asleep anyhow, and Chouji lasted a bit longer. One of Asuma's eyes opened, a slight grin tugging at one corner of his mouth as he glanced over his fitfully resting team.

'Looks like we'll be working on team dynamics for a while.'