Ino-Shika-Cho

Shikari Nara's Genin team with her teammates Chome Akimichi and Inosaki Yamanaka and their (very reluctant) sensei Niigata. Their team was two years above Naruto and took their chunin exam one year earlier. All of them made Chunin, before the rapid worsening of Shikaris illness forced the team to disband only shortly after.

The following year her teammates continued to struggle with the reality of her coming death, while Shikari herself had long since made peace with the fact. Only the timely return of Tsunade more than one year later saved her life, but instead of being relieved about this, like her family and her teammates were, Shikari couldn't handle the prospect of a life shackled to her illness; not dying, but also never being able to truly live again. Just the thought that she could never again work as an active kunoichi, but instead would be forced into a life as a housewife or a pencil pusher at best, pushed her even deeper into her depression. In the end it was her continuing downward spiral that forced Shikakus hand and he offered to train her in the village politics, so that she could potentially take his position as Hokage advisor, as position he actually had wanted to give to his son, who was even brighter and more cunning than Shikari. And like everyone hoped, the chance to be useful once again, despite her illness, gave her a focus point and stopped the spiral toward self-destruction. The following years she tried her hardest to fulfill Shikaku's expectations toward her and make him proud, to pay him back for all the effort he made, when she had already given up on her life.
But in the end she realized more and more that, while she was good at what she was doing and would have no problems taking on the position after her uncle stepped down, it didn't make her happy, not like it did in the beginning. However, even after realizing that she struggled for a long time with the decision to actually tell him since she didn't want to disappoint him or seem ungrateful for everything he had done for her. Around the same time she also discovered that she liked teaching after helping a few academy students, whom she noticed having trouble throwing shuriken. In the end it was Shikamaru, who created the opening to talk with Shikaku, when Shikari was having dinner at the Clan Heads house a week later. He mentioned offhandedly seeing her with the students after which Shikari finally managed to tell her uncle that she wasn't sure anymore, if the truly wanted to become the next Hokage advisor. She was braced for disappointment at the very least, but Shikaku only answered that while he would have been proud to see her in that position, he wanted to see his niece happy even more. Also, he added, he still had a son that he could train for that position, so she shouldn't worry too much, which caused Shikamaru to mutter something along the lines of that being the thanks he got for helping. Shortly after that, she started working as a teacher at the Academy, a position she still holds.

At the same time Shikari started her training with Shikaku, Chome, still shaken from her best friends near death, decided that she wanted to become a doctor and medic nin. She still had the hope to find a real cure for Shikari's illness, one that wasn't just a temporary solution to a permanent problem, and until then she wanted to make sure that no one had to go through the same pain, uncertainty and constant worry Shikari and everyone close to her had to. She didn't ask for an apprenticeship by Tsunade, after hearing that she had already taken on two students, but instead started working at the hospital to learn from the healers there. She also began spending more time at the Nara compound, pestering the ones in charge of the Medical Encyclopaedia and the medical knowledge in general and, after getting permission from the Clan head, started visiting their research facility in her free time. Chome ended up specializing more on working herbs and creating new or improving already existing medicines than healing with chakra. That was mostly due to the fact that there were more than enough of such medics already in Konoha, but relatively few that were really knowledgeable about more than the basics of creating medicine for new treatments. Also, she felt like that was something she needed to excell in, if she ever wanted to cure Shikari, something that obviously wasn't possible with chakra only, or at least make her life a painless as possible. The current results of her years of work are pills that Shikari has to take daily and that reduce the frequency and severity of her coughing fits, which makes it possible for her to teach a few classes in a row without suddenly coughing up blood and causing a panic under the her students.

Inosaki was the only one of his team that stayed on active duty after Shikari's near death. He tried to spend as much time with Shikari as possible at first, but after it became obvious that she didn't want his company or that of anyone else for that matter, he began running missions again. He still spent much time at the Nara compound, trying to cheer Shikari up and often bringing flowers from his family's shop with him, a habit he picked up in the year she was dying from her illness and one that seemed to help at least sometimes. While his female teammates underwent their training, he continued to run missions, but started taking longer ones since he didn't have to deal with the constant fear of leaving Shikari alone with her thoughts for too long anymore. During that time he also began taking solo missions, something he avoided before, when Chome was still completely shaken and Shikari wasn't in the frame of mind to deal with losing one of her best friends. He was made tokubetsu jonin when he was 16 and became a regular jonin not two years later. The years following the war he dabbled into ANBU for a short while, as well as into T&I, where he ended up staying. He was offered a genin team some years later, when there was a shortage of available jonin, which he accepted, thinking it would be a good respite of T&I. A decision he starts to regret more and more every day he spends with those three hellions, something Niigata is still laughing hysterically about in the background.



_{Bases by FreeKissForAll and ShinanaEvangelian1
Background by lwisf3rxd}