Chapter 1--newcomers

Crystal moaned and swatted at the hand that shook her. She had been sleeping through irika-sensei's class, and didn't want to be woken now.

"Crystal, I think your going to want to see this." and soft voice said at he side. Crystal sat strait up. When hinata was being pushy, that meant it was important. Wiping the sleep from her eyes, she looked over at her best friend. Hinata slowly pointed to the door. Both girls watched as irika-sensei came into the room, followed by 3 interesting looking genin. Irika-sensei explained that 3 ninja from the sand village were coming to compete in the chunin exams. One was a medium height boy, swathed in black robes and wearing a black hood that almost covered all his messy brown hair. Irika-sensei introduced him as kankoro. The next was a girl, a bit taller then kankoro, with 4 blond pigtails and a mean, don't mess with me ill kick your ass kind of expression. She was wearing a skirt the color of sand, with a shirt to match. Irika-sensei introduced her as temari. The last was a red headed boy, slightly shorter then kankoro, with red hair and pale blue eyes. He also had dark circles around his eyes and a strange mark on his forehead. He carried a gourd on his back, and had an evil look in his eyes. Irika-sensei said his name was gaara. "Gaara." crystal repeated quietly. He looks interesting, she thought. Just then the small blond boy sitting in the desks in front of them raised his hand.

"Yes naruto?" irika said, sounding somewhat exasperated that the blond boy had something to say.

"Chunin exams? What's the big deal? I mean, cant they have them in there

village?" naruto said. crystal looked over at hinata and raised a questioning eyebrow. hinata blushed at looked away. crystal chuckled. she new hinata harbored a deep love for naruto, and crystal just couldn't see what her best friend did in that boy. crystal heard sasuke sigh.

"the big deal, naruto", irika-sensei started, "is tradition. it has to be the way it's always been"

"oh" was all the obnoxious ninja could muster to his sensei. crystal looked back over at gaara, to her surprise it looked like he was staring right at the raven haired girl. his pale blue eyes seemed to lock with her bright blue ones. it's only my imagination, she told herself. the surprise she was feeling must have shown on her face, because gaara looked away quickly. it was only my imagination, she told herself again, hoping belong hope she wasn't blushing. she hid her head in her arms and waited for class to be over.

that time wouldn't come soon enough.

Dunno if I will finish this one. If there are enough good comments I will.