Author's Note: Don't expect to hear from me a lot, but I did think "Alternate Sakura" required some sort of explanation. As the only girl on Naruto's fighting team and the main heroine, Sakura had incredible potential to be a great female character, and because of this her character in the series always disappointed me. The canonical Sakura is weak, annoying, underdeveloped, and constantly taken away from any important or meaningful roles.

So I set out to craft a story where the main character was a new Sakura. New Sakura has all the basic features of the old Sakura: bookish, with good chakra control, from a civilian family, friends with Yamanaka Ino, crush on Uchiha Sasuke, fiery yet not huge on meaningless fighting, a little shallow and judgmental, a little self conscious and self doubting, slow to realize she cares about people, etc. She's even still placed on team seven. But I took all those guidelines, and I tried to craft out of them a flawed, three dimensional, likable female character that I actually wanted to read and found interesting. In other words, same situation, different character and personality. And then I sat back to see what else would change if Sakura were actually a cool character.

Book One should end with the beginning of the Chuunin Exam.

Edit: If you're bothered by me calling jutsu "spells", please refer to chapter seven.

Cherry Blossom Blooming

Book One

1.

I will always remember that last day of school. Naruto made it memorable. "Naruto" being one of the other students in my class. He was loud, obnoxious, awkward, and the butt of everyone's jokes. I think every school has a kid like that. Ours was Naruto. He made me embarrassed for him and uncomfortable around him in equal measure. Every time he spoke to me, I was worried he was making fun of me - that I was going to be one of his jokes or pranks. He had this foxish face and these narrow, lit blue eyes that I saw as slightly evil - they were usually plotting something. They hadn't yet been turned consideringly in my direction, but it was one of those inevitable things I dreaded somewhere in the back of my mind.

I had always privately considered myself easy to make fun of. I was a small, skinny twelve-year-old girl - flat butt, no boobs. Oh yeah. Puberty had been kind to me. My forehead was wide and Frankenstinian and it made my face look long. I was not exactly blessed with prettiness. Nor did I have a lot of wit and personality. I had a lot of books. But the wit and personality, that was reserved for my best friend, Ino, who also had a way bigger rack than I did, because the universe is patently unfair. Don't get me wrong, I loved Ino. She was my closest friend and had saved me from the much-hated thirteen-year-old epidemic of Being A Made-Fun-Of Loser With No Friends. (Naruto had caught that particular disease.) But I also envied her. Particularly because, well, you see...

Okay, so there was this boy.

Ha. "Oh. It's going to be one of those stories," I can hear you thinking.

Not quite.

There was a boy. He had dark hair and velvet eyes and pale skin. He was the best in the class, and he constantly had poise; he was dark and forbidding, with just that hint of wit and rebelliousness. He was basically perfect. For those who don't know or don't understand, evolution has pre-programmed women to go for men with:

good physical features

intelligence, often expressed as wit

and

poise, which indicates power

Guys were pre-programmed to try to get a lot of attractive girls in the sack. And girls were pre-programmed to be attracted to powerful men.

I knew that. Intellectually. But in another important way that my intellect had nothing to do with - on an instinctive level - I was still attracted to Uchiha Sasuke. It was one of those annoying little details of my life. Annoying, because I knew it made me normal to the point of boring. Practically every girl in our class liked Uchiha Sasuke. That included Ino.

I want you to picture a classroom right now. Focus on the girls. There are the three girls giggling in the back. There's the tomboy sitting, bored, close to the middle. There's the clever, witty rebel girl in black - that's Ino. There's the shy but pretty, dainty girl sitting close to the front, attentively taking in every lecture - that's my other friend, Hinata.

And then there's me. The skinny, ugly girl sitting in the corner, off to the side, unnoticeable next to the coolest girl around. With long, ratty hair, pink like my name, Sakura. And a gigantic book under her arm.

Ino had no idea I liked Sasuke, and there was a very good reason for that. It was because I knew that never, ever, ever, in a million years, did I have a chance with him. He was out of my stratosphere. He was the rock star up on the stage and I hadn't even gotten into the concert. Ino was practically meant for somebody like Sasuke. So I did what any good girlfriend would, and let her pursue him.

Because, him noticing me? Ha. You amusing, amusing person, you.

So that was me. I was unexceptional. I went to a ninja school in Konoha, one of the most elite Hidden Villages (or, ninja military bases) in the world, but I came from a civilian background and I had no real talent. I mean, sure, I was good at memorizing information, strategizing, and I had good chakra (or, magical power) control. But I had no unusual spells or techniques, no special family abilities. (Again, those were reserved for Hinata and Ino. Are you seeing a trend here?) I read lots of books and took copious amounts of notes and hoped in vain that it would one day prepare me for the real world.

But this story isn't about me. It's not about Ino, or Hinata. It's not even about Sasuke.

It's about Naruto.

So, back to the last day of classes, then. Our class's teacher, Iruka-sensei, was interrupted from his lecture by another teacher, also a Chuunin-ranked adult ninja in a leaf-green flak vest, running into the room and whispering something in his ear. A boy's elbow slipped off his desk and he sat up, awake again, with a start. I saw it out of the corner of my line of vision and it made me glance up as well, my pencil lifting uncertainly from the paper. I was just in time to see Iruka pale at the message he heard and then hurry from the room.

The rest of the class sat there, looking at each other wonderingly. It was the last day before the final graduation exam and the teacher had just walked out on us. What was going on? Should we leave? Naruto would have, but he hadn't appeared that day. Pity, he could have used it. He was one of those sitting the exam tomorrow. Each student was allowed three tries at passing the final exam into the ninja forces over the course of their final year - each time, the student was tested on one of the essential techniques for being a Genin-ranked ninja, chosen at random. Naruto had already failed twice. Tomorrow was his last shot. You'd think he'd have been there that day. How were some people so unfailingly confident in themselves?

Then again, maybe it wasn't that. Naruto was an orphan. Maybe he just... didn't have anyone to make him come.

After a few minutes, there were some sounds of shouting and struggling out in the hallway. Then the classroom door slammed open and Iruka appeared, dragging Naruto in by the ear. Naruto could be seen first. As usual, he was wearing an orange prison jumpsuit.

"Get off of me!" Naruto was snapping, pulling.

"NO! I can't believe you would do something like that! What would possess you to graffiti the Hokage Monument -?!"

Immediately, everyone in the class gasped, stood up, and hurried over to the window to look. There it was, in broad daylight. The hill with the proud carved stone visages of our village leaders on it, shooting up out of the center of the city, had been painted over in neon colors to resemble sickly women. I wasn't sure whether to be offended or impressed.

"Jesus, Naruto..." A reluctant grin stretched over Ino's face as the class broke out into murmurs and whispers.

"How did he even manage to do that?" I asked (the faces were pretty high up, in the center of the village, and they were under constant guard from ninja) before I saw Sasuke roll his eyes out of the corner of my eye. It was probably at Naruto and not at anything I'd said, but I still swallowed and ducked my head.

"SIT DOWN!" Iruka-sensei shouted, seemingly at the short end of his temper, and everyone quickly moved back to their seats, where they slouched down, feigning casualness, and tried to look inconspicuous. Iruka-sensei tied Naruto up in ropes, sat him down on the floor, and started lecturing him in front of the entire class. I think I'd have died. Naruto just sat there and refused even to look at the man lecturing him from above. His aura was one of utter contempt. He tried so hard to seem like he wasn't listening that I think he must have been.

I would have been trying to figure out what would have possessed someone trying so hard to be a ninja to dishonor their future commander so thoroughly on the last day before their final shot at a major exam. Why jinx yourself like that? But even I had given up on trying to understand Uzumaki Naruto ages ago.

"Naruto, you failed the last exam! You failed the exam before that! What could possibly have made you think what you pulled today was a good idea?!"

Apparently, though, Iruka hadn't.

"This is no time to be skipping class and playing stupid jokes!" Iruka continued furiously.

I wasn't sure what he expected, but what actually happened is that Naruto continued looking away with a stubborn, determined kind of childishness.

In revenge, fuming, Iruka turned to the class and snapped, "We're doing a review of the Henge transformation ninjutsu spell. Everybody line up. Now."

Inuzuka Kiba raised his hand. "What about those who have already passed?" It was a good question. I had already passed.

"Especially those who have already passed!" Spit was actually flying from our teacher's mouth.

I sighed. "Really, Naruto?" I muttered. And, amidst all the complaining, I stood up to go take my spot in line before the teacher.

I stood between Ino and Hinata - safe bet, right? Ino was the barrier between me and Naruto, who was ahead of me in line (and between me and Sasuke, who was ahead of Naruto), and Hinata was the barrier between me and the rest of the unwashed masses. Oh, sorry, I mean, my classmates.

I sometimes have delusions of grandeur. No big deal, right?

So Sasuke came up first. He didn't even say anything, he just did the spell. I didn't even know that was possible - I kind of always assumed everyone had to shout out the name of their spell, because that was what everyone did. But, nope, not Sasuke. He was just silent.

I should seriously look into that. Ninja are supposed to be silent.

Then Naruto came up next. He shouted the name of the technique very loudly, and instead of transforming into a copy of Iruka-sensei, like Sasuke had, he transformed into a copy of a naked woman who made a pass at the teacher. Hundreds of disbelieving questions went through my mind:

Why did I ever even briefly consider the possibility of Naruto being a feminist?

Is he gay?

Is there something he's not telling us?

No, seriously, how is he that comfortable acting like a woman?

And, most importantly, why is Iruka ogling Naruto's breasts?

Let me tell you, I thought, I was going to be so prepared for field work. Nothing in my world was as disturbing as Uzumaki Naruto.

But I wasn't really the kind of person who said that sort of thing in front of others, so I stayed quiet. I did what I always did when lectures got really boring, or when I got embarrassed for the idiocy of the people around me. I thought of my latest book. I read romance - like, as in, lots of romance. Fantasy romance. The kinds of books where making out with hot guys and unicorns go hand in hand. Do books like that really exist? Yes. And I read them. Don't tell anyone.

So there I was, in my head, all making out with a cute guy, and then I heard Hinata give a gasp of dismay and I inadvertently started to pay attention to my surroundings again.

Damn.

Oh, it's just Iruka locking Naruto in the supply closet again.

Is that legal?

I looked over at Hinata, who seemed very upset at the object of her affections being locked away till the end of the school day. Object of her affections? Oh yeah. If Sasuke had a little sticker that said Belongs to Ino stamped across his forehead in my mind, Naruto had an equal little sticker that said Belongs to Hinata. (And me? I would just be alone forever. No big deal.) The crush Hinata had on Naruto, I had also given up on understanding. It was one of those weird freak of nature things that occasionally happens, like lightning striking the same spot twice.

"Hinata, he just transformed into a naked girl. You cannot tell me you still have a crush on him," I said flatly.

Hinata looked down and fiddled with her fingers. "He just acts out to get attention," she said in a soft voice, pained. "He feels ignored by everybody. That's why he does the things he does."

I considered this. "I'll take your word on that," I said at last, and Ino laughed.

"That's my crush over there." She pointed at Sasuke, leaning coolly off to the side. When I looked his way, he glanced in my direction and I immediately looked down again, blushing furiously and cursing myself.

No matter how obvious a girl seems, always remember one thing: If she really has a crush on you, she's probably trying to hide it. If she's not, she just wants sex.

Sex.

Don't go there, head. Just don't go there.

I did look up once more, unafraid of betraying my thoughts for a split second, when I stepped forward from the line and called out my name, "Haruno Sakura," and did the Henge perfectly, becoming Iruka to a T. I did glance over - just once - at Sasuke.

Of course, he wasn't looking at me.

I looked away again.

Class ended for the day and, since I had already passed the final exam, I went home to a peaceful and stress-free dinner with my parents. I dreamed that night in my bed, maybe appropriately, of my own graduation test.

I walked into the exam room and immediately paused, frowning. The door across the room was made of water. At first, I thought it was my vision playing tricks on me, but then I walked toward it and I could still see the mirage of silvery blue playing before my eyes -

Mirage.

I did read things besides fantasy romance, and I'd read once that out in the desert with no water, a person can walk for so long that eventually they can see a mirage of water appear before them, an illusion of life where none actually is. They walk forever, thinking they're heading toward an oasis, but they never are.

It was a Genjutsu - an illusion spell.

I closed my eyes, made the hand seal, and dispersed chakra energy out into the air around me. When I opened my eyes, I was just in an ordinary exam room, with Iruka and the examiner Mizuki sitting behind a table that cut it in half. Sitting on the table before them were long, gleaming rows of new hitai-ate, ninja marker bands with the Konoha village symbol on them.

"... You know, Sakura," Iruka said quietly after a while, "you doubt yourself, but inside you really are a clever person. That's the fastest I've ever seen anyone see the Genjutsu."

"... Thank you, Iruka-sensei," I said uncertainly after a moment, because I didn't know what he meant. I doubted myself? I was an unexceptional person destined to an unexceptional life. I knew that.

Iruka looked me searchingly in the eyes for a moment, and then he smiled. "Come on," he said. "Come up and get your hitai-ate."

Beaming, happiness filling me despite an inner warning that it wasn't to last, I walked forward to receive my ninja marker. I ran outside afterward, to the Ninja Academy's front courtyard, through the crowds of graduated people, to Ino and Hinata. "I passed!" I cried, holding up the band, uncharacteristically excited, and then my Dad, who had been waiting for me with my mother, charged forward and swept me up into his huge arms. I laughed, freely.

I awoke staring at my bedroom ceiling. I rolled over and saw my alarm clock. 7 AM.

The ones who had passed would have passed. From this day forth, I was a ninja.

The Hokage Monument was clean by the time I was scheduled to take my ninja registration picture on the viewing platform in front of it. I wasn't sure who had cleaned it. Maybe they forced Naruto to.

Either way, that meant there was nothing to blame when my photo turned out awful.

I tried to give a good smile, head tilted upward, strong stance. Pretty, but kickass. That was what I was going for. But when the photographer showed me the printed picture afterward, I just looked constipated. Oh well. Sakura the Constipated. That would be my name out in the field.

Name: Haruno Sakura

Ninja Registration Serial Number: 012601

Ninja Academy Graduation Age: 12

Ninja Academy Instructor: Umino Iruka

Birthday: March 28th (Aries)

Height: 4'10''

Weight: 88 lbs

Diet: None

Blood Type: O

Personality -

Teacher Assessment: fiery, smart, self doubting

Own Assessment: introverted, well read

Favorite Food: Red bean soup

Least Favorite Food: Spicy food

Desired Opponent: Serial Rapist

Favorite phrase: "Every flower blooms differently"

Hobby: Reading, crossword and sudoku puzzles

I looked up from my registration form with its Constipation Picture, finished writing, the neat little scribbles making the page below the photo look almost completely black. I was waiting outside a spare Academy classroom, swinging my legs lightly below the wooden waiting hall bench. I was nervous, and I couldn't help but turn my eyes toward the door in front of me. The Hokage himself was there in that next room, and I would be meeting with him as soon as the previous new ninja was finished. He would be assessing the most personal document I would ever be giving to the Konoha Village Ninja Archives. I had never met the commander before.

Suddenly, so suddenly I jumped, the door opened and a boy in a turtleneck with messy dark hair came out. He looked alright. He was physically unharmed, emotionally stable. I wasn't sure what else I'd expected. I vaguely recognized him from my class, but I couldn't remember his name. I tried raising my eyebrows in his direction, looking for some sort of sign as to how it had gone, but apparently I was bad at giving off telepathic signals because he just gave me a friendly sort of acknowledging smile and walked off. There went my promising future career as a failed-ninja-psychic.

Taking a deep breath, I stood and walked into the next room, clutching my form. I had seen him make speeches, but there he was in the flesh: the Hokage. I knew about him; I'd memorized everything about him in school, dutifully, as was required. He was known as the Professor, and he had one of the widest-ranging and most encyclopedic knowledges of ninjutsu spells in the world. His three best students had gone on to be the famous, infamous Sannin trio. He had a jonin-ranking son who had spent some time guarding the Daimyo up in the capital of our Fire Country, and a daughter who had died, leaving a son behind whom the Hokage raised in name, but who actually had a whole host of servants taking care of him in the Hokage's Mansion.

The man in life was smaller than I'd expected, his traditional red and white robes engulfing him. He was very tiny and thin, wrinkled and spotted with age, his nose large and with crow's feet around his brown eyes. He certainly didn't look like one of the most powerful ninja in the world. Could looks be deceiving? Maybe. We were ninja, after all.

I put the registration form on the table for his perusal and sat down on the other side of the table, folding my hands tightly together in my lap. I watched as he took up the form silently, his eyes scanning down the page.

After a few moments, he spoke. "Serial rapist?" He raised an eyebrow as he looked up at me.

I blushed, already regretting putting that down. "You know," I said feebly, "because I'd kill him."

"Ah. Well, don't let me stand in the way of that," he replied dryly, and returned to scanning the page. "... You really should learn to sell yourself, you know," he added in a normal, almost grandfatherly tone of voice.

I blinked, sitting up straighter. "E-Excuse me?"

He looked up and explained, "This form is going to be seen by everyone, in every Hidden Village, in every Bingo Book, everywhere. And yet your teacher speaks more highly of your 'ninja personality' than you do."

"Do you want to me to redo it?" I asked, becoming more nervous as he spoke.

He seemed vaguely amused. "No," he said, "but keep that in mind for the future."

He reached down and stamped the form. SEEN.

"Report to your old Academy classroom at 0800 tomorrow morning for your first ninja assignment," he said, bored, looking away as he put the form in a pile, his eyes not even on me. Clearly, I hadn't left much of an impression. "Next."

It was the morning of my first assignment as a ninja, and I was trying to make myself look halfway decent up in my bedroom. I couldn't decide if I wanted to look pretty or if I wanted to look ninja-like, and there was half of my problem.

My room was full of shelves. I don't know what it is about bookish people, but they usually really like movies and music, and I was no exception. There was one bookshelf full of books and crossword puzzles, a separate one for movies, and another for music. My music player was next to my bed and my television was diagonally across the room from my bed. I had a collage of photographs from my childhood hanging above my bed, which was messier than it probably should have been - or at least, that's what my Mom would have said. The blankets were crimson, because for some reason I'd always had an affinity with the color red, and my cat had his own bed but usually slept on a corner of mine. Scattered throughout the room were workout materials, because you didn't get to be a ninja by sitting around and eating ice cream all the time - it would be awesome if that was how it worked, but it doesn't - and hung on my closet door was a cloak with an edge of flames that said Fighting Spirit on the back in big, bold letters. I'd thought about wearing it to the explanatory meeting, but decided that would be cheesy and embarrassing.

I did not have a tall standing mirror, just a little one over my dresser. I regretted that on this particular morning. I was trying to assess how appropriately ninja I looked, but I could only see the first half of myself: the top of my crimson kunoichi dress, which was a dark deep red that looked brown from a distance, and my hair, which was as usual long and uncooperative. I had threaded my hitai-ate through it like a hair ribbon - cutesy but professional; you could still see the Konoha symbol - but after a few minutes of fiddling in the mirror, I made a face at myself and with an irritated noise I ripped the hitai-ate from my hair.

When I was little, my hair had been short, chin-length. I would never admit it, but the only reason I'd grown out my hair was because I'd heard Uchiha Sasuke liked girls with long hair. And even though I had no idea how someone would be able to figure out something like that, and even though it was probably just a stupid rumor, and even though I knew Uchiha Sasuke would never like someone like me, I'd grown out my hair anyway. The only problem was that my hair just did not look good long. And it was inappropriate for the field. What if someone made a grab for my long hair? What if it got in my face while I was running or fighting?

At last, I decided grimly to sacrifice fashion for utility; I pulled my hair up into a messy bun and wound the hitai-ate tightly around it to hold it in place, like a scrunchy. I kept my bangs away from my forehead, remembering Ino's advice that hiding something only made people want to pick on you for it. I did not look good, but for some reason, I felt better that way. Like with the way I'd foregone a brighter red kunoichi dress for one that more resembled a blending in with dirt, I felt safer as a plain girl. Men in the field, I remembered, were less likely to pick on a plain girl.

I did not envy lovely, showy kunoichi. I had when I was younger. Teaching at the Academy had quickly forced that delusionout of my head.

As usual, I tied the equipment and weapons pouch in place at my leg, and then I stood there looking down at my own appearance. I looked up - there was my face. This was who I was now. A ninja. Despite myself, I felt a thrill of excitement and dread. I'd stayed up late last night, elated and terrified at the same time, my head full of thoughts. I felt scattered, strained, anticipatory, like before a taijutsu hand to hand spar at the Academy.

"Sakura! Shouldn't you be leaving by now?" I heard my mother call to me from the bottom of the stairs, where she'd been making breakfast.

I checked the alarm clock. "Sh -!" I stopped myself just in time. Anytime anyone in our house swore, they had to pinch themselves. Self-harm was not how I wanted to start my career in the forces. "Coming, Mom!" I called back, harried and irritated - though not at her - and then I hurried down the stairs into the kitchen. I felt naked without my bookbag with me. The Hokage hadn't told me to bring any materials for my first assignment.

"Gotta go!" I grabbed some breakfast and ingloriously stuffed it in my face on the way out the door.

"Sakura!" my mother called after me in exasperation. "You always eat on the run! Why must you always be so late?!"

"It's not like I try to be!" I heard my father chuckle from behind his newspaper as I opened the front door of our house and went down the steps to the outside street.

I lived in a house, Ino lived in a compound attached to a privately owned street-level shop. This was the difference between our families, one civilian and the other a famous ninja clan. But we lived just down the street from each other. When I was leaving my house, Ino was just leaving hers, and so we fell into step beside each other. Two blocks down, we picked up Hinata from her own clan compound, and she fell into step beside us. Us girls, we stuck together.

"What are you going to do after this, Sakura? Without us around to help you anymore?" Ino grinned, but she was only half-teasing. "I have my family's ninjutsu spells and Hinata has her family's special style of taijutsu fighting, their special chakra-enhanced eyes... What about you? All you have are the basics you learned at the Academy."

"I'll find a way to get by," I said simply, more confidently than I felt.

"We're always around for you if you need it, you know," said Hinata, looking over at me in concern. (Hinata had an older sister complex, which was why she always lost in fights to her younger sister. Their father, despite all his decades in the forces, did not seem to have picked up on this little fact and appeared to be under the impression that Hinata was weak. Hinata practiced far too often to be weak. And her hits hurt really bad. I would know.)

"I won't need help." I toughened my face from letting it show any emotion. Something about spending the rest of my life relying on my friends to help me fight filled me with an unpleasant emotion. I wasn't sure how to define it, but I didn't like it. "I'll make my own way as a ninja."

For some unaccountable reason, my friends smiled.

We made it to the classroom and Ino's eyes were like a hawk's; she immediately ran toward an empty seat, and I was halfway behind her, dragging Hinata behind me, before I stopped and realized that the seat was between Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto. Both of them were among those waiting who had passed. One was expected, the other not so much. I halted in place with a jolt, Hinata nearly ran into me, and then Ino just had to cry out, "Can I sit with you, Sasuke-kun?!" And as Hinata and I gasped, shutting up completely, both boys' eyes turned in our direction: Sasuke's, and Naruto's.

Sasuke just sat there and stared at us - it was impossible to tell what he was thinking, but he seemed caught off guard - while Naruto stood up, smiling, and as Hinata stiffened up involuntarily, he ran over to... me?

"Hi, Sakura-chan!" He grinned, and he seemed completely genuine. Sakura-chan? The suffix was affectionate, only used for pretty girls and small children.

"Don't make fun of me, Naruto." My eyes narrowed threateningly. As surprise passed across Naruto's face, I refused to blush. I tried to emanate an "I will hit you" aura into the air around me.

Maybe it worked, because he seemed nervous. "What are you talking about, Sakura-chan? I was just saying good morning... No jokes at all! Really!" He held up his hands, eyes widened convincingly. I still wasn't sure if I believed him.

"... Good morning," I said at last, stiffly. He beamed again, widely, brightening up. There was something about Naruto. He expressed emotion pretty much everywhere. It really didn't make for a very stealthy ninja.

"Great! So... do you wanna sit with me?" He leaned forward winningly, eyeing me sideways.

Me? "Don't you want to sit with Hinata?" I held the poor, embarrassed girl up before me for his appraisal. "She's my best friend and she's really nice!"

"Uh..." Naruto blinked, nonplussed. "Hey, Quiet Girl." Then he frowned and looked at me again. "Sakura-chan, I was really hoping to sit with you! Why don't we just...?" And then he turned around and swore like I wasn't supposed to, sort of loudly.

A bunch of girls, including Ino, had taken over his seat and were now arguing over the seat next to Uchiha Sasuke. Sasuke was physically leaning away from them, looking a little weirded out. They were already giving me a headache.

"Let's go sit somewhere else," I muttered to Hinata, sort of embarrassed on behalf of the entirely shameless Ino, and as we turned away we heard Naruto speak.

"Good idea!" he said, and he hurried after us to sit as the third at our table. "What?" he said, looking in my direction, as I sat down. Apparently, I'd been giving him a weird look. "I wanna sit with the sane girls!" He grinned.

I rolled my eyes, but was more amused than I should have been. "Right, because you're so sane yourself."

"Exactly."

"Yeah."

"Glad we agree."

"So am I - Look. You want to tell us what you're really doing here?" I gave him a challenging sort of look.

He looked around and then leaned closer. "Yeah," he said, cupping a hand to his mouth. "I'm secretly a spy for men everywhere. We want to know why you're the only two women on earth who don't like Uchiha Sasuke."

"Ah, screw you! I thought you said no jokes!"

Naruto leaned back, laughing shamelessly.

Hinata was looking between us with huge, scared deer eyes.

"And how do you know I don't like Uchiha Sasuke?" I added before I could stop myself.

"Ugh." He gave a shudder. "You don't if you have any taste. I prefer to be optimistic and think you do have taste."

"Just because he's better than you in every subject..."

"No." He pointed at me decisively. "You know what? Everyone thinks that. And that's totally not it. He has this empty, zoned out stare. It's slightly horrific. We sat next to each other for ten minutes and the guy didn't say a goddamn word. And I spoke to him. I swear to God, he has the personality of a tree stump."

Slightly discomfited, I nevertheless defended my crush, thrusting my chin upward. "Well, maybe he's just shy."

Naruto actually snorted and started laughing behind his hand - a genuine laugh this time, not just an obnoxious one. "Yeah, that's it," he said. "Sasuke's just shy."

I blushed despite myself. "Oh, shut up." I looked away, punching him playfully in the arm. "Stop being mean or you don't get to sit with us."

"I'm not being mean -!" He feigned earnestness again.

We continued messing around with each other till Iruka came in (a little injured for some reason) calling the class to order. I wondered at myself. Talking to Naruto was more painless than I thought it would be. Judging from her expression, Hinata wondered at me too.

("I wonder why Iruka's all banged up? Did he get in a fight?" I asked as the man walked in to give us our assignments.

I didn't entirely miss the way Naruto's blue eyes slid carefully away.)

"Starting today, you are all official ninja. But you start out at the lowest rank: Genin. From here, things get hard. You thought the Academy was hard? This gets harder - especially if you hope to advance up the ranks to Chuunin or Jonin."

Iruka's final speech to us was very inspirational.

"You will be put in groups of three, and from there, each group will accomplish missions under a Jonin-ranking instructor -" I raised my hand. Iruka almost smiled. "Yes, Sakura?"

"Why are we put under a Jonin instructor? Why not a Chuunin, like at the Academy?" The idea of putting my meager skills before one of the legendary Jonin of Konoha filled me with trepidation.

"There are several reasons," Iruka replied. "It is thought a Jonin would be able to offer you more training in the field, and would be better able to protect three young people should a mission go south. It's also thought that it might be good if the highest ranking ninja of Konoha kept in contact with the lowest ranking - to foster better awareness and relations, things like that."

"So it's political?" I asked.

"It's strategic," he answered evasively.

It was political.

That was when Sasuke raised his hand - a rarity. Sasuke had a silent kind of reserve. "Why three people?" he asked, and for some reason he was frowning. "Why not a one-on-one mentor relationship with the Jonin?"

"A few reasons: we don't have those kinds of resources." Iruka was nothing if not honest. "And we try to put students in teams of three to better keep a balance between the team members."

"So you pair the worst students with the best?" Sasuke asked, raising an eyebrow. He seemed unimpressed, displeased.

"Well - try not to think of it so much in those terms." Iruka winced. "And besides," he added, "there are invaluable skills and connections to be built up by learning to work together." Whatever that meant. Judging from my classmates' puzzled expressions, they didn't understand either.

Now, of course, what he was trying to tell us is clear. But we were only twelve years old.

Ino raised her hand. "Do we get to choose who's on our teams?" She was smiling and eyeing Sasuke out of the corner of her eye. He seemed to be trying very hard not to meet her eye.

"Your teams have been pre-assigned," said Iruka, and it was impossible to read what he was thinking.

"By you?" Kiba asked.

"By the Hokage," Iruka replied.

I frowned and raised my hand. "But that's not fair! He doesn't know us!" There was some grumbling from the classroom around me.

"He knows me," I heard Naruto mutter.

"Getting in so much trouble you meet the Hokage doesn't count," I hissed back at him under my breath.

"Relax, he knows us," said Nara Shikamaru in a perfectly normal tone of voice - to everyone's surprise, because he was usually the first to complain in class. "Iruka's probably been feeding him information about us the whole time. Right?" Iruka cleared his throat and looked away, uncomfortable. Shikamaru sat back in grim satisfaction. "See?"

"Oh, no," Hinata murmured, eyes wide.

"What?" I turned to her in concern.

"He's been telling the Hokage how awful I am..." She crossed her arms before herself and sank down lower in her seat, looking around herself self consciously. Hinata had some self esteem issues.

"Don't say that! You do great!" I turned to her in concern, but she could barely hear me over the shouting of our classmates around us. Some people weren't too happy about being reported on.

"Quiet! Until the end of the day, I'm still your teacher!" Iruka snapped then, losing his calm, some of the old fire flaring in his eyes. The grumbles quieted into silence. Iruka took a deep breath, and straightened, holding a piece of paper before him. "I will now announce the teams."

It won't be that bad. It won't be that bad. It won't be that bad...

"Team Seven: Uzumaki Naruto, Haruno Sakura, Uchiha Sasuke."

Holy. Shit.

Maybe Sasuke would turn out like Naruto, not as scary as I'd imagined? Yeah. Fat chance of that.

"Team Eight: Hyuuga Hinata, Inuzuka Kiba, Aburame Shino."

I turned to Hinata and winced. Sorry, I mouthed. Not only was she not on a team with Naruto, she was on a team with the most extroverted boy around besides Naruto and a boy who had been collectively termed as "creepy bug kid."

"Team Ten: Yamanaka Ino, Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Chouji."

And then I had to wince and mouth, Sorry, to Ino. Ino was on a team with the boy who hated school and never tried at anything, and the boy who spent all his time eating.

My friends were both shooting me death glares.

And... both my friends hate me. Great.

To top it all off, the announced name of my Jonin instructor hadn't even been female. That piece of luck was reserved for Hinata.

No sooner had Iruka finished his announcements than Naruto stood up and pointed furiously at Sasuke. "Iruka-sensei! Why is a great student like me on a team with someone like him?!"

Immediately, springing into action, I leaped out of my chair and pushed Naruto back down by the head. "Sorry, sir, he's mentally deficient. I'll explain it to him." There was some snickering. But I'd already figured it out. And no way was Iruka explaining it to all the other Genin.

Iruka looked surprised, but not displeased. He nodded in amusement. "Please do."

I sat back down with a big smile, and then turned quickly to Naruto and got deadly serious, getting right up in his face. "Listen," I said under my breath, as he was sitting there gaping at me, "you don't have to like Sasuke. You don't even have to agree that he's a good ninja. All you have to understand is that in the eyes of the authority, Sasuke is what everyone else should aspire to. He is the elite. Remember what Iruka said about balancing? We were placed on a team with him because," I swallowed, "because we're weak," I finished softly. "You're the one who's always skipping class and failing tests, who never gets anything right. And I'm the one with nothing going for me."

Naruto immediately frowned. "But -!"

"I know. It sucks. But we can change that," I added on a sudden inspiration. "All we have to do is stick together and try to learn as much as possible from Sasuke and our instructor. They put us with them so they could up our power levels. That way, when we get back out of the team again, we'll be much better off than when we entered it.

"You don't have to like Sasuke. You just have to learn from him."

Naruto had slowly deflated, looking at me thoughtfully. "... Beat him at his own game kind of thing," he surmised at last. Then he grinned, his most evil and mischievous grin, the kind that filled his whole face, the kind I had always feared. "Yeah," he said. "I can do that."

I had never paid much attention to Uchiha Sasuke's techniques before. Maybe that sounds kind of strange, but I'd always been too focused on him, what he'd just done or said, or the awe of the finished result of all his practice during a spar maybe. So this would be a new thing for me. But I already had one thing to add to the list:

Stuff I need to learn:

silent spells

Iruka announced that we'd be meeting with our Jonin instructors in the same classroom later that afternoon, but before that we had a free lunch. We could walk wherever or do whatever we wanted for one hour.

Walking outside to the Academy front courtyard afterward, I immediately went to find my friends. "I'm sorry, you guys," I said immediately, as Ino and Hinata turned toward me, "I didn't mean to -"

"Oh, it's fine." Ino waved a hand breezily.

I paused. "... Really?" That seemed too easy.

But then Ino gave a grin not unlike Naruto's (oh, if I'd told her that) and said, "No, see, I've got a plan. Sakura, you have to go make friends with those two boys. So you can introduce us to them." She turned to a surprised Hinata with growing excitement. "Don't you see? This is great! They could have been placed on a team with people we don't know and they'd have been lost to us forever!"

Then Hinata turned to me and smiled shyly. "It looked like you had a leg up with befriending Naruto already," she said, and she didn't even mean anything bad by it. She was genuinely happy for me. Hinata really was too nice.

"Go, girl!" Ino turned me around and shoved me in that general direction. "You've got a mission!"

So now I had two missions I couldn't talk about: one was to learn from Sasuke. The other was to befriend Sasuke and Naruto.

I can do this, I told myself feebly. Really, I can.

But soon enough, I stopped feeling sorry for myself and my brain began working. I could get this done, as long as I didn't think too hard about how scary it would be. Learning from Sasuke meant staying close to him, so I could combine the two objectives, for now, into one. I had to stay close to my teammates today. That meant spending this lunch with them. I had the perfect pretense: it looked like we'd be working together for the foreseeable future.

So, Step One: Find Sasuke and Naruto.

Naruto, predictably, proved the easier of the two.

"Sakura-chan!" I whirled around to find him right behind me. How did he do that? "Let's eat together since we're in the same group now!"

I ignored my own inner trepidation and said, in what I attempted to be a reasonable tone, "Fine. But we have to find Sasuke, too. Do you have any idea where he went?"

Naruto scowled. "I don't see why we have to find him. Can't it just be the two of us?" He was almost whining.

His bizarre fascination with me aside, I replied firmly, "No. We're a team now. Remember what I said?"

"I don't see what I'd learn from Sasuke by eating lunch with him!"

"Naruto! We're going to be performing missions together! You don't think getting to know him a little might be of value?"

Naruto's face worked furiously for a long moment. I could see every instinct inside him told him not to eat lunch with someone like Uchiha Sasuke. "... Okay," he said begrudgingly at last. "Fine. But I don't see Sasuke around anywhere, do you? Clearly, he isn't taking the time to try to befriend us. Big surprise," Naruto added in a mutter out of the corner of his mouth.

I winced and tried to be the optimistic one. If I was blinded by my own admiration, I reasoned, Naruto was probably equally blinded by his own dislike. "I'm sure he'll be fine with eating lunch with us if we just ask him. Let's start looking around campus..."

And so we set off around the perimeter, me determinedly, Naruto reluctantly. We passed by several other teams eating lunch together, but no Sasuke. At last, Naruto blurted out all at once, "Sakura-chan, can I ask you a question?"

I sighed. "Sure, Naruto, what is it?"

"What do you really think of me?"

I laughed slightly and said, "I think you're obnoxious," but I immediately knew from his stop and silence that I'd misjudged the situation. I paused and turned around to find him looking into my face searchingly.

"Really?" he asked, and all of a sudden I'd come upon an entirely different Naruto - a self conscious one.

"W-well," I sputtered. I'd thought he was kidding. "Naruto, I..." I considered how to put this. "I think you're really funny, Naruto," I said at last, carefully, "and... a little different. And you should use your powers for good instead of evil."

For some reason, his eyes widened infinitesimally. "What do you mean?" he asked at last.

"I mean that humor is a powerful thing," I replied. "It's not every day people come across someone like you, Naruto." And wasn't that the truth? "You have the power to change people's minds about stuff. So... you have to be careful not to use that to make fun of or hurt others."

"I'd never do that!" Naruto said immediately, and for a minute I almost believed him. "So... I have power, huh?" He puffed up a little, seeming to like the idea.

"Yeah... I guess you do. I'd never really thought of it like that before." Before I could start second-guessing all my own assumptions, I shook my head and said, "Look... let's just get back to finding Sasuke, okay?"

We weren't having any luck. Sasuke didn't seem to be anywhere. I'd been about to finally just give up, but Naruto suddenly had an idea. "Why don't we try a high place? We'll be able to see more that way."

He had moved to jump up to the nearest roof, when I paused and pulled him back by the arm. Now I'd had an idea. "Isn't there a water tower facing the spare empty classrooms on the other side of the building?"

Naruto looked at me curiously. "Yeah..."

I smiled in triumph. "Where better to look for him than in an abandoned place?"

We jumped up, ninja-like and silent, to the nearest tree branch and then to the nearest roof top. We crossed over till we were perched on top of the water tower. We looked around, scanning for a moment, and then... There he was!

"He's there!" I cried, pointing, and just as I'd figured, there he was eating lunch in an empty classroom alone. Hordes of admiring people always so surrounded Sasuke that I'd never really processed him as someone who maybe just... didn't like company. "Let's go down there," I said, determined to get to know him, for real this time, and I had just moved to jump down when Naruto grabbed my arm.

I looked up at him, and he was grinning, an entirely dangerous look that I wasn't sure I was a fan of. "What is it?" I asked in impending dread.

"We've spent all lunch period looking for him," said Naruto. "Let's play a prank."

"We're not playing a prank on Sasuke," I said immediately.

"Come on, Sakura-chan. It'll be fun. Where's your sense of adventure? I'll tell you what: I'll pretend to sneak up on him and attack him. He'll beat me -"

"Because he's better at taijutsu than you are," I interrupted, nodding in agreement.

Naruto winced. "A minor technicality. But anyway, he'll subdue me, and then I'll do the spell to replace myself with something outside, and a bunch of copies of me will burst in through the window behind him and attack him when he's not expecting it!" Naruto put a fist in hand in premature triumph. "It'll be great!"

"You can't even create copies of yourself, Naruto," I reminded him, rolling my eyes. "Every time Iruka tested us on that spell, you failed. I'm not even sure I'd feel safe entrusting something like that to you."

"But, but I learned how to do the Kage Bunshin, the shadow version of cloning spells, just a few days ago!"

"Liar!"

"I am not a liar and I'll prove it to you -!"

"How did you learn it?"

"As long as you don't ask me that part!"

He winced again as I stared at him.

"... So, if I don't ask, you'll genuinely show me the Kage Bunshin technique?" I said at last. It was a somewhat famous spell, forbidden from mass use because of its enormous power. Most cloning spells only created illusory after images or masses of some element which could be defeated easily. But Kage Bunshin, shadow clones, were actual physical copies of the person, with all their power and abilities. There were probably Jounin out there who couldn't do the Kage Bunshin ninjutsu spell.

"Yes!"

"And how to do it?"

He paused, gaping at me. "You want to learn it? I'm not sure if you have enough chakra energy... I mean, you have great control, but..."

I was a little disappointed. "Who wouldn't want to learn it? It sounds useful." I tossed my hair and crossed my arms. "And by the way, where do I fit into your great plans, if I might ask?"

"Well..."

"I have a better idea." I stood and announced, "I want to try something."

Naruto looked up at me curiously as I closed my eyes and concentrated. I made a hand seal for a simple genjutsu, one we'd been taught the beginnings of at the Academy; genjutsu required fine chakra control and Naruto had always been hopeless at it. But I didn't say anything. I didn't speak. Instead I let the illusion weave itself around us...

"Hey!" I heard Naruto suddenly shout. "We're gone! No one can see us!"

I smiled slightly and opened my eyes; the invisibility genjutsu faded away. I'd done it without speaking.

"Okay, here's what we'll do." I turned to him. "Show me your Kage Bunshin."

He bounced to his feet and announced, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!" And there, easily, appeared one solid copy on either side of him.

I had a thought. "Naruto," I said curiously, "how much chakra do you have?"

"I dunno." Naruto shrugged and simplified, "A lot."

"You must, to be able to do a technique like that... So you have a lot of chakra, and I have great chakra control. This should work. It'll just be a simple joke. You'll come at the classroom from the window on the outside, and I'll come from the hallway on the inside. I'll weave the genjutsu so he can't see either of us - silently, so he doesn't hear it. Then I'll step out from the doorway and call his name. He'll turn around, but he won't see me. Then you'll come up behind him, silently, like you do, and -

"I'll jump him with my Kage Bunshin!" Naruto said, catching on.

"But don't hurt him," I frowned. "The goal is just to surprise him. It'll be like a joke. He'll laugh. And then I'll reveal us and we'll go, 'Surprise! We found you!' Like that, okay?"

"What if we lift him off his feet and you slide across the floor to be right there in front of his face?"

"That works!"

"It'll be like a surprise party! You know," Naruto said cannily, then. "He won't like it."

"Oh, he can't be that stuck up," I dismissed. "He'll be impressed. We'll prove to him we're worthy teammates!" I smiled, liking the idea.

Naruto didn't say anything, but he didn't seem to believe me.

"You know, Naruto," I said then, "you're actually pretty good at this whole strategy thing."

"I am?" He was ridiculously surprised. "I always just thought I was kinda dumb."

So did I. "If you approach stuff in the field like a gigantic prank with a goal, that could be really useful," I said. I hadn't counted on having a fellow strategist, except maybe from Sasuke.

Naruto looked thoughtful. "Huh..."

"By the way," I added, "I've been wondering... How did you graffiti the Hokage Monument without anyone finding out till you were finished?"

"I started early in the morning... The only reason you guys saw me as late as you did is because there was this big chase afterward. I'm not a bad runner. And, you know, ninja equipment. That kind of thing. So anyway, I started early in the morning. I went up to the viewing platform on top of the heads, and then snuck through the window and down to hang off by the side of the cliff while the guard detail around the viewing platform was being changed. I used ninja wire for string and a kunai knife as a tether to hold myself up by my belt loop. And because it was so early, no one down below saw me painting until I was nearly done. The guards up above couldn't see me hanging there below the cliff, and they didn't think to look.

"It's funny, what people won't notice if they're not looking for it."

No kidding. Until a few days ago, I'd been under the impression Uzumaki Naruto was an idiot.

I was nervous as I walked down the empty Academy hall, silent and invisible. I liked the idea of proving myself to Sasuke, but dreaded failing, and was unsure how I felt about working so closely with Naruto. Still, I couldn't concentrate on this too much. It was hard, keeping a genjutsu over a wide enough area to cover Naruto as well. Naruto's invisibility was a must, what-with the obnoxious orange he always chose to wear.

I thought of asking him about that, too, the next time I had a chance. Maybe he just liked orange, the way I'd always liked red. I hadn't been aware of how curious I and everyone else was about Naruto until I really started talking to him.

And then I was at the right door. My stomach fluttering, I stepped slowly into the doorway... and Sasuke didn't see me. There he was, eating, and it was interesting just watching him when he thought no one was looking. He seemed so much more... comfortable, that way. An unseen tension had been lifted from his shoulders, and his expression was relaxed.

My chakra was woven so tightly around Naruto, I felt it when he stepped slowly onto the window ledge on Sasuke's other side. I knew immediately it was him. The other Kage Bunshin, lying in wait below the window, did not need to be hidden and so I couldn't feel them.

It all happened at once. This, I was to learn, is how it always is.

"Sasuke," I called softly, swallowing before I said the name, quieter than I'd meant to. His head shot up and he whirled around, looked intently right at me - and was uncomprehending. He couldn't see me. Then, as his eyes widened in angry panic, he was jerked upward into the air by invisible hands, and I knew immediately from Sasuke's expression that Naruto had been right and I was very, very wrong.

I ran forward, not to surprise Sasuke anymore, but to wrest him from Naruto's grip. I was so stupid; perhaps Naruto knew more about Sasuke than I did, or perhaps he was just better at reading people! "Sto -!" I started to say, but I could not finish because in a flash Sasuke had broken his arm out of Naruto's grip in a taijutsu move and shoved a fist in the exact direction he had heard the noise.

He hit me in the throat.

I came back to myself, gasping for a breath that never came, my vision fading in and out, as a hand clamped tightly around my neck. Then I heard distant shouting - Naruto's voice - "Stop! Sasuke, stop!" - a distant vision of a pair of dark eyes widening in surprise -

And then I could breathe again.

I slumped to the floor, coughing, drool coming out of my mouth. Sasuke was frozen in place in surprise where he had released me. My genjutsu spell had broken, and he had seen me, and how he was surrounded by physical copies of his other new teammate.

"What in the hell possessed you to do that?!" Naruto seemed furious; he physically shoved Sasuke.

Sasuke immediately turned an indignant glare on him. "Me?! What the hell possessed you two to sneak up on me!?"

"It was just a joke!"

"I don't like being surprised by physical assault!"

"Yeah, asshole, we can tell!"

"We were... we were just trying to prove ourselves to you..." I gasped out, still lying on the floor, humiliated. They turned immediately to me, pausing in surprised silence. "W-we were trying to show we were worthy teammates..."

I looked down, blushing furiously, tears hiding in my eyes as I sat up. For this reason, I almost missed Naruto turn to Sasuke and give him a furious, 'see what you did?' sort of look. Sasuke, for the first time, looked down.

"... Look," he said after a moment. "I'm going to be honest. I didn't want teammates in the first place. I knew any teammates would only weigh me down and it didn't have anything to do with... who you are... as individuals." He seemed to struggle, subtly, to find the right words. Then he looked up and smirked. "Well, except for you, Naruto," he said. "That was totally personal."

"Fuck you!" Naruto said immediately. "Just watch me prove you wrong!"

And then the fight was over, and they were smirking at each other, and - Oh my God, I realized. They were sitting next to each other because they're friends.

And then I was just sitting there on the floor, staring at them stupidly.

Naruto came over to me then, and kneeled down next to me. "Hey," he said, looking me closely in the face, in that way people who have no real concept of personal space do, "you okay?"

"Umm." I pulled my face away from his. Felt my throat. Coughed once. "Yeah," I said. "I think I'll be okay." I stood up, ignoring Naruto's hand. Then I took a deep breath and made an effort to look Sasuke calmly in the eyes. "If it's not too much of an inconvenience," I said quietly, "we were thinking we could eat lunch together. That shouldn't interfere with any of your great plans as a ninja, should it?"

To his credit, some emotion that was not necessarily happy passed across Sasuke's face, so quickly I couldn't catch it. He looked away, and nodded once, seriously. "That's fine."

And despite everything, I still liked him. It was awful.

We all sat down on the floor of the empty classroom in a circle to eat, each of us looking down, silent and awkward, with no idea of what to say. The silence was only interrupted by Naruto suddenly standing upright, clutching his stomach. "Bathroom," he said to our surprised faces, wincing, and then he left rather quickly.

It was just me and Sasuke. I had never dared to dream of an opportunity to like this. But now...

Sasuke seemed to have some sort of the same thought. He looked over once, quietly, at the bruise across my neck. Then he looked down, and winced ever so slightly. "... Sorry," he said, seeming much more like a human boy. "For. You know."

I looked down, too. "... You were just being a good ninja," I replied, though I still couldn't quite get the memory out of my head, of his furious black eyes and the hand around my throat. "How did you do that, break out of someone else's grip like that?" I said, shaking my head and looking up at him. "Where did you learn to do that?"

Sasuke looked up, guarded, cautious. "Those are two different questions," he pointed out at last.

I waited, a little angrily. "I think I deserve to know. You got out of Naruto's grip. How would I get out of your grip?"

"Are you planning on attacking me again?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"No. But for the field. I'd think it would be useful."

He assessed me for a moment. "I can respect that," he said then, surprising me. "Stand up." I did so, as did he. "I grab... say, your shirt." (He had looked at my neck and then decided against it.) He grabbed the lapels of my shirt. "Your job is to hurt my limb at the joint, to dislodge it from your body. Pull my arm straight, in this case by stepping back. Then hit under the elbow..." he grabbed my hand, which made a fist mostly out of nerves, and showed me slowly, "... and then over." He brought my fist crashing, comically slow, down over his elbow. "That should hurt them enough that you'll be able to pull free of the arm."

He dropped my hand immediately and then stepped back, his face business-like. "Do you have it?"

"I do," I said, not admitting the truest part. Those reflexes I'd seen from him - the result of extensive practice. They were unmatched. "Where did you learn that?"

He looked away darkly. "From old scrolls," he said after a while.

"That's right." My eyes widened. "You're like Ino and Hinata. You're from a big clan. So..." My nose wrinkled in confusion. "Why didn't you learn it from your parents?"

"They're dead," he said flatly.

There was a very heavy silence as I realized my mistake. He still wouldn't look at me.

"Naruto is, too, you know," was the first thing that flew out of my mouth. He looked over at me in surprise. "Naruto's also an orphan," I said quietly. "I didn't know if you knew that. And I used to think Naruto acted out and was an idiot because he didn't have any parents. Now..." I took a deep breath. "I was wrong," I admitted boldly. "About... a lot of things. Concerning both of you.

"I guess I just still have a lot to learn about my two new friends."

"I don't have the luxury of friends," Sasuke said immediately, looking over at me warningly.

I smiled sadly, because I'd seen the way he looked at Naruto. "What does that even mean?" I asked, and he didn't seem like he knew how to answer me.

As we were looking at each other, Naruto burst back into the room. "So what'd I miss?! He's not hurting you again, is he?!" Naruto looked suspiciously between us.

"I was just saying you two are my newest friends." I looked over at him, smiling, putting my hands behind my back.

Naruto paused wonderingly, his eyes flying open as he looked at me as if in a whole new way.

And then he seemed to think about something. "You're willing to be friends with someone who just strangled you? Wow. I'm impressed." He raised his eyebrows frankly. "But there's something kind of weird about that, isn't there?"

I blushed. "Goddamnit, Naruto! You just ruined a perfectly good moment!"

Naruto just laughed. Sasuke was exasperated, but he also seemed faintly amused.

As the three of us were walking back together, I pinched my arm behind my back, but I couldn't say I minded.