The girl is running frantically through her house, pissed the alarm hadn't gone off. Her name is Salina Okana, and she's just barely turned fourteen. Today is her first day at Konoha High School, the only high school in her new hometown, and it's not off to a very good start.

"Shit, Kade, where's my bag, I'm going to miss the bus! Kade?!" She stuck her head out the door, to find the boy staring at the clouds. "Oh, for god's sake...Kade Okana, come back to earth please!"

"Huh...? Oh, check the stove...saw it there last." He turned his eyes back to the sky, studying it intently. "Going to rain later...perfect." A grim smile crossed his lips, making the girl wonder.

'Stove? Oh vey...'

Sometimes she worried for him. The girl shook her head and skidded into the kitchen, jerking the stove open. "Well then...why am I not surprised?" She slung the canvas bag across her shoulder, its drawing splattered surfacing bouncing merrily off her back as she jumped out the window, tumbling to a stop next to her brother. "Alright then, see you after school!!" Her brother was a dropout, working instead at a full-time job to support them both. She'd yet to figure out exactly what he did, knowing only that it paid well.

He latched a hand to the strap of her bag. "Hold on just a second little one. I'll take you to the bus." The boy began walking, hand still caught on her bookbag.

"Now just wait a minute! You promised I could take myself to school once we moved. Last year was totally different, everyone knew you back home." The girl planted her hands on her slender hips, deep blue eyes narrowing at her brother's back in a death glare.

He sighed heavily and turned back to her, his hellfire eyes drowned with sorrow. Only then did it strike her that her brother looked a man of fifty, rather than the sixteen-year old boy he was. "Salina, you don't exactly understand the position I'm in right now, nor do you have the real reason we moved." He bent to her eye level, slipping a small, cool object into her palm and closing her fingers over it. "Go catch your bus, I'll meet you after classes are over. Remember that I love you little one." He stood, kissing her forehead, and ran off, disappearing down an alley.

She turned and peeled in the other direction, head swimming, and skidded to the corner just as the bus pulled up. 'Hell's transportation, and I've got a first class ticket.' The girl pulled her ponytail over her shoulder, twirling it nervously, and took a giant breath, vaulting herself over the bus stairs, headed for the back. She made no eye contact, the hurried whispers already reaching her ultra-sensitive ears, and dropped in the very back, shifting sideways, legs pulled onto the seat, and let out the breath she'd been holding since she'd vaulted on. She then remembered the item in her hand and unfolded her fingers.

'Kade's ring? How odd...he knows I've always liked it, but normally he wouldn't even have dreamt of giving it to me...'

She slipped it to her finger, admiring how the light caught the cat's-eye jewel, and looked over the top of the seats, observing what she assumed to be her classmates for the next four years.

Directly in front of her sat two boys, a spiky blonde and blackish-blue haired kid, who's head resembled what she classified as a duck's ass. In front of them was a platinum blonde, turned and leaning down to the boys, arguing with what Rain could've sworn was her seat, until a head of pink bobbed up, belonging to a girl with shamrock eyes, who was responding to the blonde's taunting. "Shut it, Ino-pig! Isn't it obvious you're bothering Sasuke-kun?"

"You wish, Billboard-head! You're just jealous because he likes me better."

By now the blonde boy had turned away and was eyeing the half-finished drawing on Salina's bookbag. She blushed lightly and quietly covered it with her hand. She'd quickly lost interest in the scene in front of her and had focused on the blonde, sketching him as he stared out the opposite window.

He grinned, turning his oceanic eyes on her. "You're pretty good. I'm Naruto, by the way, and this is-"

She held up her hand. "I'm Salina, and please, don't bother with introductions, I figured it out. Their squabbling could wake the dead." She turned her head towards the seat across from her to see one of the bus's stranger occupants studying her quietly, and whipped back to face Naruto, hair obscuring her face. "Naruto, who's he?" She began whispering quietly to the blonde, watching the other from the corner of her eye. "Does he give all new students that look, or am I specially privileged?"

The blonde glanced over, giving a small wave as the boy turned to watch out the window. "That's just Shino...he's a lot quieter than the rest of us. And he watches everyone like that, you're just freaked cuz you're new here. He's pretty cool once you get past the bug fetish."

"Bug fetish?" She turned her head slightly, shifting her hair to get a better look at him. Trenchcoat with a high collar, round dark glasses, and dark hair that looked somewhat electrocuted. Her angle didn't give a clear view of his eyes.

"Yea, he's had this things for bugs for as long as everyone can remember. Not that bad sometimes, unless of course he hates you thoroughly...not a pretty picture. I'm sure you'll be fine though, Salina. Come on, we're here." He gave her a reassuring smile and stood as the bus jerked to a stop in front of a large building.

She hooked her bag over her shoulder, carefully concealing the sketch of her new friend as he looked on. She smiled softly. "I plan on finishing it later. Let's go." She gave him a little shove off the bus and they turned to the front doors. The girl froze and gave a low, unearthly moan at the sheer size of the place, folding and unfolding the scrap of paper containing her schedule. "I'm doomed..."

"Welcome to Konoha High!" The blonde laughed quietly, and tugged her to the doors, both failing to notice the ever silent Shino trailing behind.

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And voila!! First chapter installed and up, and from here I should be making more sense than what I had before. Make me happy, read the story. Make me happier, send reviews. Make me happiest...well, I don't have that yet.