K

I

R

O

SAGA I|Team Formation

ARC 1|Students and Teacher

1. Graduation Jitters


The sunbeams peek over the Hokage Monument. At the moment the Village Hidden in the Leaves is a sleeping town yet to be roused by the morning shine. Little did the denizens know, they're about to be awaken by a generous reveille.

"BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA~!"

A lone boy stands tall, atop of the monument. He's wearing orange, his hair is wild gold spikes, and his smile is unimaginably wide. His posture is one of pride, his arms crossed and his planted feet spread. This boy is proud of his latest achievement—

"DEAREST KAMI-SAMA! LOOK AT WHAT HE'S DONE TO THE HOKAGE MONUMENT!"

—Especially since he did it undetected.


The silly boy's guffaws can be heard at impressive long range. People forced awake are grumbling and stumbling as they look disgruntled to the source. His thunderous laughter rings the even further, nicer neighborhoods from slumber. Within the bedroom of one middle-class house, a young girl hunches her shoulders as the noise pierces her closed windows. She yanks her covers over her head, and when that isn't enough moments later, she snatches a spare pillow to plug her exposed ear.

"It's too early for this…" She complains in a sleepy slur, "Couldn't he wait another twenty minutes…?"

After stubbornly trying to drift back to sleep, the girl eventually gives up and kicks off her comforter. Tossing her pillow aside, she runs her fingers through her long pink hair and carefully moves to stand. She stretches her limbs as she stumbles to her full body mirror, and after letting out a big yawn, she opens her eyes to look at herself.

Blossom pink hair, lush green eyes, fair skin, and freckles speckling across her cheeks. 'Yup, this is you.' The pinkette takes a deep breath, 'Well, Rouzakura, the graduation exam is tomorrow… think you can do it?'

From the outside, the girl – Rouzakura – could hear distant shouts and could correctly guess that shinobi are now chasing the troublemaking jokester.

'Hopefully.'


Even further from all the commotion is a solitary district. Two banners hang from the entrance, navy blue flags that each bear the same symbol: a red and white uchiwa fan. This symbol can be seen throughout the compound, which signifies that this large housing area is strictly for one particular family.

Such a family being the Uchiha. Yet despite the many houses, it's mostly barren, almost like a ghost town, and there's little life.

Such a life is already awake. He stands alone within the forestry of his family's private training grounds. His eyes are closed, he is silent and is perfectly still. Around him nature is lively – birds singing, distant gurgling of a creek, chattering of a squirrel.

Then, as a hawk soars he soars as well. Airborne upside-down, he suddenly has multiple kunai between his fingers. With swift precision he flings the blades in different directions, variously angling his body for every bullseye. Once the last knife leaves his hand he lands in an accurate crouch, and listens to the synchronized thuds of the targets being pierced.

At last he opens his eyes, unveiling black voids for irises. Examining his work, he noted it is near perfect: most of the targets have been hit dead center, only two have been a miss. The one in a tree is just a couple centimeters off, but the worse is the one behind the rock… the kunai is embedded at the outer edge.

Fists clenching and a frustrated sigh, the boy of nightly hair and eyes peer skyward, watching that very hawk disappearing in the clouds.

"… Not good enough."

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

AT LAST! The very first segment for my long-standing project! At first I wanted to do a prologue, but soon after I just want to jump right into it, so voila!

So yeah, there's a different pink haired girl that's going to be the main heroine in this storyline. She is my OC, and I've been uploading her image on DeviantART under the name ReyReyReShawn if you're curious about her. I made it so she purposefully bears striking resemblance to Sakura, because through her I want to portray all the misfires I feel towards Sakura's characterization, while creating a girl who is NOT a fan-girl!

Rest assured that Rouzakura is by no means a Sakura-knockoff, you will see how much she is her own person with her own dilemmas. Granted, her issues won't be as severe as Naruto's nor Sasuke's, but her problems in comparison would be like a breather from all the heaviness we will dive into with the boys.

And some of you may have noticed that Sasuke's scene has been changed to an early morning training scene. Reviewing this I figured it'd make more sense for him to train before anything else, as he takes his development as a ninja seriously, ergo it should be the very first impression we get.