Gaaahhh! I'm gonna be late for the Chuunin exam! Why do I always wake up so late! Arrgh…my teammates are gonna kill me! Better hurry!

Maaya was already expecting a huge blast of fire from Shijo that will burn her to crisps but then she realized that wasn't going to happen. She arrived at least ten minutes early because of all her panicking. Good! She told herself.

So I'm the first one to arrive. Well that could only mean one thing… It's payback time.

While thinking of how to get back at her teammates for all of their evil punishments, she silently walked towards the tree where she usually sat. She sat under the tree and intended to wait for her teammates under the tree's cool shade.

"Hn." a deep, low, cold voice muttered in front of her.

Maaya looked up and saw a pair of light blue eyes staring right at her. He stood right in front of her. His stare demanding an answer or else.

"Um… Hi! Can I help you?" she answered calmly. She didn't seem to notice the anger in his voice.

"You're in my spot." He finally sent his point across.

Maaya looked around; the tree she was sitting under was surrounded with big bushes, practically covering anyone who sat under the big old tree. If one was to climb up the tree, he would be able to have a good view of the academy but the tree stood in an area away from where most of the people were. Hmm... No wonder he likes it here. It's so peaceful. Can't believe I never noticed it before. I just sat here because of the falling delicious fruits.

"I'm sorry. Do you want to sit beside me?" she finally answered.

"I don't want you here! Get out of here or else I'm gonna have to kill you and I won't regret it!"

"I... I..." Maaya was speechless but she found him to rude to even fear him, "Hey! You have no right to talk to anyone like that!" she fumed.

The boy gave her a frown and sand came out of the boy's gourd. The sand crawled towards Maaya and was starting to cover her whole body gripping her tightly. The boy intended to end her life but was spared by a weird occurrence.

"AaaaChooOoo! Excuse me."

As she sneezed, a strong gust of wind blew away the sand and even the boy was blown away. Turns out, some sand got into her nose and made her sneeze. Sand is one of her weakness, she can't stand it.

"I'm so sorry. Your sand was ticklish." She giggled and walked over to him and offered him a hand.

"You will pay for this!" he shouted angrily. His anger caused the sand in his gourd to move violently and swirled around both of them. Just as the sand was about to attack, a whip of water saturated the sand which caused it to fall to the ground.

"Gaara stop! She doesn't know you; she has no idea of who you are. Forgive her." Keiji interrupted.

The boy said nothing but stared intently at Keiji.

"I'm sorry. Whatever it is I've done, I'm sorry" Maaya cried back.

"Hn." The sand around them gathered itself and went back to the boy's gourd. "You're not worth it."

"Hey, I know you're at least a year older than me but that doesn't mean you can be rude to--" Shijo cut her off.

"Maaya stop it. Let's just go. You shouldn't even be talking to him."

With that, Keiji grabbed Maaya by the shoulders and pushed her away from the scene. Shijo followed close behind.

When they were at least ten meters away, Maaya asked

"Who was that? What's his problem?"

"That's Sabaku no Gaara. He loves killing people."