#drip feeding you guys lore whenever my brain lets me talk abt it

[cebwrites]

fuck it we ball. woe team shisui be upon ye

returning to this old flame is. wild.

tae and shisui were put on a genin team with someone else from the academy, but they quit a few months in (times of war were tough on a kid) and rio was assigned to them instead; the first two are around the same age, rio's a couple years older

i'll have a proper design for rio eventually, this is more or less just a placeholder for me to see if i could still draw in the naruto style - rio is also their team's medic

if rewatching this show has taught me anything it's that small children can be SO nasty for no discernable reason

tae had a lot of pressure on his shoulders to live up to his old man's name, people telling him from birth that he was gifted or spoiled or never did enough so eventually he just stopped putting in the effort until his team gave him the confidence to try again - for himself rather than anyone else

tae was a gloomy little ghost in the academy; he'd keep to himself a lot, freaking out some of his peers with eyes a little too wide and an unwillingness to be vocal unless it suited him, a complete contrast to his cheerful "normal" twin brother

even though it's widespread and pretty vital, there was, and to some degree is, a stigma that healing jutsu are reserved for mostly women, partially because tsunade was a big proponent for getting medics put on four man teams as a necessity (even though dan was right there with her), so growing up rio caught a lot of flak for it even though it wasn't a particularly new practice by then

the exclusion shisui faced was a lot more subtle and had less to do with his demeanor or personal choices, rather the fact of who he was to begin with - no matter how kind or cheerful shisui was, there'd always be a trail of hushed whispers talking about how he was so pleasant despite being an uchiha, or maybe rumors that he was some meanspirited asshole all along

some folks kept up the niceties, others didn't hide their wariness, but was was clear from the start was this undercurrent of distrust between konoha and uchiha clan that went both ways

tae never bothered with rumors (unless it was to pick a fight with whoever was spreading them about his friend) and rio was a refugee taken from outside the village unaware and indifferent to their politics - uchiha were usually assigned to teams of other uchiha upon request, but shisui could really feel at home with these two after they all got over the initial awkwardness of having to trust someone new

their sensei (not pictured) was a huge factor in these kids getting along at first, he seemed to genuinely love them up until the mission where he was found guilty of treason - a small part of them still wants to believe he actually cared for them (he did, he really really did) but at the end of the day their teacher's hatred for konoha was more important

they were given a replacement leader after that, a man who was less put together but tried hard to teach and nurture all the same

they had a solid handful of years together before the coup, after that everything sort of fell apart - shisui was gone, danzo had tae "interrogated" for potential associations with the uchiha which shut him down emotionally, and after a mission gone awry that resulted in rio getting held captive by enemy nin for a week and heavily tortured, they went on an indefinite hiatus from shinobi duty