Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or most things mentioned in the story. I do, however, own my OC and her background story.

A/N: I apologize now if there is some out-of-character parts in this story. I didn't originally think of the Naruto characters, so I can't know for certain how all of them would react in certain situations. Anyway! Enough of me trying to sound intelligent and creative, let's go onto the story! XD

The setting of a morning in Konoha was always one of happiness and stability. Working people got up early in hopes of fully waking themselves before they would have to skip off to their jobs. The sun barely rose in the east, hitting the village in such a way that the shadows seemed less mysterious. The buildings came to life as the town's colors moved from the dark blacks of the night to the light browns and oranges of the day.

Of course, not all of the houses acted in such a way on the inside. By simply looking at the Kurosawa residence, no one would assume the potential tension that could occur behind those closed doors.

Stuck in a deep sleep, Kurosawa Mizuki tossed and turned. Ever since she was a little girl, she had a recurring nightmare of her past. It always started with the assassination of most of her clan and ended with her step brother, little sister and herself running to Konoha for safety. Of course, there were many events that happened in between, but Mizuki never spoke about what truly occurred in the happy family everyone they encountered wanted to be like. Like any other day, Mizuki's eyes flashed open as she sat up quickly, waking up in the sweat of her fear. The first times Mizuki had this nightmare, she had cried soon after waking, but after many years of accepting the events that haunted her, she had grown indifferent towards every traumatic event she had gone through. At most, she felt sorrow while reminiscing. After all, ninjas are not supposed to cry.

Shaking her head some, Mizuki wiped away the sweat from her forehead and got out of bed. Her black hair frizzed slightly as she walked over to her closet to pick out her usual outfit for the day. Like most kids in the village, she had only one sort of outfit that she wore every day: a purple shirt layered over a black shirt, creating a tough aura, a pair of black shorts, and the usual ninja sandals. In addition, she wore bandages over her arms and legs, covering up the scars and bruises that were obviously present on her skin, as well as leather fingerless gloves. The function of those gloves, though, Mizuki didn't even know. Her older sister had given them to her when she was younger and said that they would look nice when Mizuki became a ninja. However, that was a long time ago and Mizuki hadn't seen her sister for years.

Now dressed, Mizuki walked out of her room and to the kitchen of the little one-story house she lived in with her step brother, Shirou, and her little sister, Misaki. Running her fingers through her choppy, black hair, Mizuki walked to get some cereal.

"Are you ready for today?" A man's voice came from the entrance of the kitchen.

Mizuki turned to see the familiar face of her step-brother Shirou. His dirty blond hair stuck up this type of morning and his body was mostly exposed, since he was only wearing a short-sleeved muscle shirt and baggy shorts. He was quite handsome and muscluar for being only 19, but Mizuki knew so much better than to fully trust this confident man. "Yeah... They're assigning teams today," She quietly replied. Honestly, she never talked much, especially around Shirou. Her mind was always just in some other dimension.

"Hoping you'll get on Kakashi's or my team?" Shirou grinned widely as he got himself some breakfast to eat. He was a Jounin and good friends with Kakashi, so they would always train with Mizuki. In the long run, it really helped having experienced ninjas close to Mizuki, since she was at the top of the class with none other than Uchiha Sasuke.

"I guess," Mizuki closed her eyes for a moment as she ate. It would be nice to already know her sensei, but she was indifferent on who her sensei was. Either way, she had the same goal in her mind.

"Oh, I know what you're thinking," Shirou chuckled and sat across from Mizuki at the dining table, "Just hoping you're on the same team as that Uchiha kid? Oh! Or that Izumaki child that somehow graduated?" He then went on listing all of the boys from the village. For some strange reason, Shirou always wanted Mizuki to get a boyfriend. Maybe it was because he could see the sorrow in her heart sometimes and suspected that a boy could solve it.

"Please, Shirou. I don't have a crush on anyone. I just want to become a stronger ninja... Is that so wrong? You're acting just like Misaki," Mizuki rolled her bright blue eyes and stood up to put her dirty dishes in the sink. She then walked to a closet close to the entrance of the kitchen, where the weapons were kept and hid some kunai in her shorts.

"You're just... different," Shirou shrugged some and ate a spoonful of cereal. A few seconds later, he just had to open his mouth again to speak, "I mean, that shy girl you hang out has a huge thing for that Naruto character and every other girl in the village like the Uchiha. You're the only female that doesn't have a crush on someone." In all honesty, Shirou just wanted Mizuki to be like the other girls. She always acted too mature for her age and it just hurt him to see how serious she was for being only 13 years old.

"I'm not Hinata or a fan girl," Mizuki rolled her eyes and started walking towards the front door. She stopped in front of the door and glanced over her shoulder, "Tell Misaki-"

"That you wish her a good day. I got it," Shirou smiled and gave Mizuki a thumbs up, "I'll do it! And I'll hopefully see you later at school!"

Mizuki cracked a smile and nodded, then left to go to the Ninja Academy. Her mind started to wander to who she would want on her ninja team. Honestly, she just didn't want someone really weak on her team. She was fine if Naruto was on her team, since she was all right acquaintances with him and knew that he had a lot of potential to be a strong ninja. All she knew what she didn't want was an annoying fan girl on her team. Hinata and herself seemed to be the only ones that didn't stalk the Uchiha. Besides, Mizuki had no clue what was so great about Sasuke. She had to admit, he was very attractive and smart, but he was not affectionate what-so-ever. There was no way he would get a girlfriend any time soon.

"GET OUT OF THE WAY!" an angry girl's voice came from behind Mizuki.

Moving quickly, she got out of the way to see Sakura and Ino running to the ninja academy. Chuckling lightly at the sight, Mizuki watched them run all of the way to the ninja academy. They might not be the strongest ninja out there, but they really knew how to fight each other. Their transition from best friends to moral enemies was definately strange, but it was sort of entertaining to watch them bicker from afar.

"H-Hi, M-M-Mizuki-chan," A familiar, quiet voice came from behind.

"Hey, Hinata," Mizuki kept her eyes forward as she recognized the voice as none other than the young Hyuuga's.

"H-How are y-you?" Hinata stuttered as she increased her speed to walk next to her good friend.

"All right, I guess. I'm curious to know who's going to be in my team," Mizuki shrugged as they approached the Ninja Academy, "You?"

"S-S-Same," Hinata nodded as the two of them walked into the school and paused as they came upon a big group of loud and obnoxious girls. Mizuki and Hinata looked at the girls, then at each other, both of them wondering whether or not they should attempt to fight their way through the crowd to their normal seats closer to the front. Honestly, both of the girls knew that they wouldn't be doing much of anything academically, so they walked the opposite way of the crowd and took two seats closer to the back. The two talked amongst themselves, actually not really noticing their surroundings until Naruto burst in and Iruka-sensei started listing the teams. Hinata was with Kiba and Shino while Mizuki was paired with two other kids from their class: Shizuma and Kenji. Soon enough, most of the class left until there were only six people left in the classroom: Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, Shizuma, Kenji and Mizuki.

"WHY IS SENSEI SO LATE?" Naruto questioned loudly and groaned. Mizuki watched as Sakura bickered with Naruto as Sasuke just sat there in deep thought. Sometimes she wondered what goes on in all of their minds and why they act the way they do. Mizuki was starting to think deeply when a pink haired girl stopped her.

"Hi, Mizuki! Haven't talked to you in a while!" Shizuma, not Sakura, stood in front of Mizuki with a big grin on her face. She had long, light pink hair and wore a dark purple dress (much like Haruno's) as well as ninja sandals with her new leaf headband on, well, her forehead. Mizuki knew her as the 'hidden potential' of the class. She did only satisfactory when tested in class and the senseis didn't really like her, but Mizuki once saw her practicing outside of school and saw that she was actually very good at genjustu. It seemed that she was just bad while under pressure of being graded.

"Yeah... like, yesterday," Mizuki chuckled softly and smiled lightly towards the girl.

"Really?" Shizuma looked at her with a wide eyes and an overall shocked expression on her face.

"Yup. You asked me to pay for your ramen when you forgot your wallet," Mizuki replied, a light smile on her face. Shizuma's expressions were quite amusing to her.

"OH! Thanks, by the way! You're a life saver!" Shizuma exclaimed and smiled sheepishly, rubbing the back of her neck and chuckling nervously.

"So I'm in a team with two extremely hot girls? Sweet!" A brunette boy walked over to them. Both Shizuma and Mizuki automatically knew who it was: Kenji. He was very muscular and tall for their age, but he was also very dumb. He did better than Naruto, but he still wasn't a very 'good' ninja. Naturally, he wore earthy colors like green and brown because his main tactic for fighting was hiding and waiting until his opponent was either weak or frustrated (so they would give up and he wouldn't have to do anything). Mizuki knew better than anyone else, since she trained with him one day. It just wasted ten minutes of her time as they played more of a game of 'hide and seek' than anyting.

"Why so excited? It's not like we're going to like you or anything," Shizuma smirked widely and crossed her arms.

"Hey! You're going to have to tolerate me! We are going to be on the same team!" Kenji smiled his signature goofy smile, then looked at Mizuki, "You tolerate me already, right Mizuki-chan?"

"Sure," Mizuki chuckled lightly and smiled, then heard some commotion from the front of the room.

"I can't believe I fell for that!" Shirou exclaimed as he held a chalkboard eraser in his hands.

"HAHAHA! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU FELL FOR THAT!" Naruto burst out laughing that a sensei would become victim to such a juvinile prank.

"NARUTO! YOU BAKA!" Sakura smacked Naruto as a familiar Kakashi-sensei walked through the doors after Shirou.

"Did I miss something?" He asked Shirou, his expression showing confusion behind his mask.

"Just me being an idiot... Oh, and one of your students being an idiot, too," Shirou grinned, then looked to Mizuki, Shizuma and Kenji. "Mizuki! Come down here with the rest of the group! We have stuff to do! Fish to fry! Not really!" He exclaimed as Mizuki shrunk in her seat lightly.

"You know our sensei?" Shizuma questioned Mizuki as the three of them walked to the front of the classroom to meet up with Shirou.

"I live with him..." Mizuki sighed and smiled sheepishly. Shizuma and Kenji kept on quietly questioning her about his personality, his likes, his dislikes, what he wants in a girlfriend/boyfriend: all of the things a student would want in order to stalk their sensei. As they approached their teacher, though, the questions came to a stop even though none of them had been answered. Without much talk, the three ninjas then followed their sensei out of the Academy and to a place they weren't completely familiar with.

(To be continued)

Hope you enjoyed! Sorry for not much going on now... I promise it'll get better later on! If not, then, well, I suck. :P R&R? Whatever floats your boat. :)