A moment: Sakura, aged 19, between one year and the next.

-- -- -- -- --

Most people woke to the sound of an alarm clock. (On most days, so would Sakura.)

This morning, she woke to the dream of someone plucking her eye out.

The clock ticked on her bedside table. She cast a bleary glance at it. Ten-thirty already?

With a groan, she rustled out of bed.

-- -- -- -- --

There was no one else in the house these days. Sakura had lived in a single-parent family since the age of six, and her mother had left for a long-weekend trip with friends she'd made at a tea gathering. Sakura didn't know these friends; she'd been attending her first year in college.

'Freshmans,' crowed Naruto, 'that's what we'll be all over again. Say, Sakura, d'you think the Bastard –'

The Bastard was Naruto's term of endearment for his best friend, Sasuke.

' – Will get mobbed by girls again?'

There were two reasons why Sasuke would get mobbed: one, for being horribly good-looking, athletic, and smart; two, for knowing his brother's cell phone number. Sakura couldn't remember if Sasuke had ever given out Itachi's number in revenge.

'It's freshmen, idiot,' corrected Sasuke.

'Oh geez,' muttered Shikamaru, 'what's all the fuss about? We're all from the same school. It'll just be like going to a pricier high school after a bunch of troublesome forms.'

And that was why Sakura was ostracized now.

To be fair, she'd taken the first step. The graduating class of Konoha High naturally became the new students of Konoha College. Suddenly, as she'd been filling in the application form, an upwelling of resentment and panic had choked her throat. That was it? Sure, she wasn't valedictorian (that was Sasuke, duh) but saledictorian had an okay ring to it. Couldn't she at least leave the vicinity and see something different?

In a way, though, her friends had been right to shun her. Konoha High, then Konoha College. It was more than tradition; it was family.

With absent fingers, Sakura brushed the eraser dust off her desk. Her touch lingered over the textbook before opening to the inside cover. Psychometrics: A Study in Five Parts.

She didn't see the words.

She saw the dark, steady eyes of her student mentor – dark eyes that looked black but were really wine-red, especially when light splashed into those irises.

'I'll be in touch with you over the summer,' he said.

She nodded. 'I might switch majors. Or take double majors.'



'What do you want to do, Sakura?'

I want to carve a place for myself, she thought. To help people but still be able to discover. To walk in the footsteps of those who had preceded her from this university far away from all that she'd known. To be on par with the graduate who had invented a new type of sutures; the other graduate who had not discovered the philosopher's stone, but came very close with a compound and a procedure that since then had saved many lives; another graduate who had made breakthroughs in psychoanalysis…

To be counted the equal of the young man seated across from her.

'I'll find out,' she said. Away from all that's familiar and safe, I'll find out.

Itachi nodded, and gave her a piece of paper. His number.

There would be no visit from Ino today (Ino was hurt and furious, still.)

Nor from Naruto (Naruto was betrayed and temporarily severed by her choice).

Nor from Sasuke (Sasuke was himself).

But today, Sakura defined herself by other things – her ideas. Her aspirations. Her long-buried ambition.

She took out her cell phone and looked at the scrap of paper clipped to the first page of the textbook,

and dialed.

-- -- -- -- --

Today, I'll be the one to leave.