Authors Note: Well, this took an unreasonably long time to write didn't it? My excuse is that I was having many difficulties writing this, no matter what I wrote, it didn't seem quite right. Everyone knows what I'm talking about, right? I guess Sasori is just a pain to write with. Sorry about a shortish chapter that feels... meh, I'll try to do better next time without taking a month to update.
Alas, I don't own Naruto (But if I did SasuSaku would have never been canon. Salad? Really?).
-Midnathething
The Principle's office, Sasori reflected, had been no where near as intimidating as the teacher had made it sound. The trip to the office had been bland, or in Hidan's words, "Really goddamn boring." The trip might have been more entertaining or useful if the teacher had been willing to answer the questions of the tiny ninja instead of glaring and telling them to be quiet in the hallways. The visit to the office itself, however, was just as bad, if not worse, as the walk to the room had been.
Half an hour of being yelled at by a balding, middle aged man was not Sasori's definition of fun, it was in fact far from what the redhead would have called 'fun.' The main takeaway from the principle's rant had been that they were all delinquents, he'd be calling all of their parents or guardians, and, while he'd expected this kind of behavior from the orphans, he'd expected better from the children with families. Sasori, an orphan in the true world, was very proud of himself for not stabbing the man to death with one of his pens.
Much to the former Suna ninja's surprise, he hadn't been the first one to lose his temper, and neither had Hidan, even with his tendency to seek conflict. No, the first ninja to lose their temper had been Deidara, who seemed to think he'd been born to challenge authority.
The blond had pointed out that the longer the man yelled at them, the more class time they'd be missing because of him. The former Iwa ninja had told the principle that he had been wasting their class time, which the blond proceed to point out he claimed he valued. The principle had turned a color somewhere between red and purple and given them all detentions for the rest of the week.
It was Monday.
. . .
It was while the group of ninja were walking up the hallway - they'd been pushed in it's direction by the Principe's secretary - that Hidan voiced the thoughts of the ninja around him. "That guy was a power-drunk asshat."
There were nods and murmurs of agreement as the group of tiny ninja looked around, clinging to the small hope that they'd be able to find out where they were and where they were meant to go. Itachi had began searching his remarkably well organized bag for some sort of clue.
Sasori watched curiously, raising an eyebrow but saying nothing. The Uchiha pulled a paper from his bag, which Sasori couldn't help but notice was spotless - he suspected noticing had something to do with being an artist. Printed on the paper was Itachi's schedule for the school day. As all the other missing ninja began searching for their own schedules Itachi seemed to decide to memorize the paper, at least, that was the impression Sasori got from from the intensity which Itachi was observing the paper with.
Once the tiny ninja had all located and memorized their own schedules they compared the paper to see if they'd have classes together. Unfortunately, the majority of the time, the answer was no. With the acceptation of lunch, which appeared to be something everyone in an age group would have together at the same time, no more than three of them would be in the same classroom at once. It was an unfortunate setup, Sasori thought with a frown, especially considering that they still didn't know how to return to the true world.
After they'd compared their schedules and figured out where they were meant to go, Nagato formed a plan. If there was an important message, he'd explained, they could get it to each other by passing the message to the other ninja in their class, who would then pass it on to the ninja they shared the next class with, and so forth until they'd all received the message. If all else failed or they required elaboration on something, he'd added, they had the bus trips and lunch break to use to meet and discus things. The plan wasn't ideal, but considering that they had been given no warning that they were going to be flung into the chakra-lacking world, it was decent.
"One more thing everyone, try to stay out of trouble until we know more about what's going on in this world. We don't want to cause ourselves, or this world's versions of us, more problems than we already have. And Hidan?" Nagato asked, turning to face the Jashinist as he gnawed on his thumbnail.
The Jashinist hummed and raised an eyebrow.
"Try not to start too many fights, we don't know if your immortality carried over with you to this world when we were sent here. You might be able to die now." Chilling warning given, the redhead spun and began walking up the hallway.
"Dismissed." He called over his shoulder, ending the brief meeting.
Sasori sighed. It was going to be a long, inconvenient, day.
. . .
Sasori's schedule, History, Art, Mathematics, Japanese, Lunch, Wood Shop, Study Hall, Science, and Physical Education, was boredom in its purest form stretched over the course of eight hours. At least, that was the conclusion the redhead had reached during Mathematics, which was a class so simple he'd have been able to do most of the equations the class was shown in his sleep. Instead of listening to the teacher attempt to explain basic number theorems to the students in vein Sasori had decided to think about something important.
A way to return to the true world.
The Uzumaki's strange message continuously replayed itself in the former Suna ninja's mind, but, much to his frustration, he was still no closer to an answer as to what the message meant. The message had implied that the Akatsuki was going to learn an important message in the strange world, but all they'd received were lessons so simple children could understand them. What baffled Sasori the most about the message was its mention of friendship. No one in Akatsuki considered each other friends, in fact, most of them hated each other. Was the message referring to Konan and Nagato?
The idea was a possibility but something - Sasori wasn't quiet sure what - didn't add up properly. The redhead groaned and wondered once again what the Uzumaki could possibly want from the ninja he'd trapped.
. . .
Much to Sasori's surprise, when the group of missing ninja met up during lunch Orochimaru showed up too. While it made sense that he would, they were after all the only ones there from the true world other than him, it still seemed odd that the Sannin was willing to meet up with a group of ninja, the majority of whom hated him.
While the lunch room was larger than most classrooms in the school, the gymnasium had been much cleaner and much bigger, it was still nowhere near big enough to comfortably fit all of the school's students. Sasori had, after seeing the glop on plastic trays the students received, decided he didn't feel like taking the risk of eating one of the new world's strange school lunches. The rest of the missing ninja, it turned out, agreed with Sasori on the 'Not-Risking-Eating-The-Potential-Poisonus-Lunch-Thing' plan because when they met up in the quietest corner of the lunchroom none of them had a school lunch.
Even in a quieter corner of the lunch room it was far too loud for the tastes of a group of trained killers, so they slipped out of the noisy room and into the much quieter hallways. After a bit of wandering in the hallways, the ninja found an area tolerable for holding meetings during the lunch break hidden under one of the flights of stairs. A bit of swearing and some dusting later and the area was even clean enough that it might take more than a few minutes to get lung problems from being there.
Once everyone had sat down and was mostly comfortable Nagato cleared his throat. "It looks like we're this world's equivalent of an academy student right now, so we probably won't be able to get away with killing people." There was a pointed look at Hidan. "So, has anyone made progress on the Uzumaki's message?"
Sasori scowled. "It doesn't make sense, it talks about us learning some valuable message while we're here then goes off on some speech about friendship."
"The Uzumaki does know we all hate each other, right?" Kakuzu asked in a dry tone.
Nagato was biting his thumbnail again. "Konan, any ideas?"
"The message could apply to specific people in the group, but that seems unlikely since the Uzumaki's message was addressed to everyone..." The blue haired girl trailed off, before adding, "It sounds like the Uzumaki intends to challenge friendships formed within the group, but..." The blue haired girl looked away without finishing her sentence.
The fact that most of the ninja in the group hated each other, however, was well enough known that the ninja all knew what Konan had avoided saying. Orochimaru sighed.
"I... Have a theory, but it has little to no support so far. I'd hoped someone else would reach the same conclusion as me because that in itself would be support, but," The snake Sannin sighed again. "It sounds like the Uzumaki intends to teach us something about friendship." Even if Sasori hadn't been able to see Orochimaru's face he'd have known the Sannin was sneering from his tone.
The Sannin received baffled stared from most of the other ninja.
Itachi glared at Orochimaru before sighing. "As much as I hate agreeing with you, your theory makes sense."
Sasori rose an eyebrow. "Forgive me if this is some sort of Konoha friendship thing, but that makes no sense. Most of us can't be in the same room for more than an hour without trying to kill each other."
"Maybe the Uzumaki knows that..." Tobi mumbled thoughtfully, Sasori got the impression that the masked ninja hadn't meant to speak out loud.
The ninja all stared at Tobi, waiting for further explanation. The masked ninja stared back from under his mask.
"What? Was it something Tobi said?" He asked, scratching behind his ear sheepishly.
"That... Actually makes sense when you think about it." Konan said, blinking in surprise.
The school bell rang, dismissing the ninja to their next classes.
"We need to think this over... If any of you come up with something else like this, tell us during detention." Nagato called as he ran off in the direction if his next class.
Sasori sighed. only half of the day had passed and he was already irritated and resisting the urge to stab someone.
. . .
When the group met for detention, directions provided by Itachi, they weren't surprised when they were told that they weren't allowed to talk. They settled for communicating with hand signs in a manner similar to the Anbu. If the teacher had noticed, they didn't seem care enough to say anything. Sasori got the impression the teacher didn't want to be in the detention room either.
Itachi, it turned out, was the only one well enough equated with the Anbu hand signs to have full conversations that flowed well. No one was particularly surprised, but Deidara had sulked about it for a few minutes. In the end the ninja had, in broken hand seal, decided to save their conversation for until they were on their way home.
Sasori didn't fail to notice the impressed nods from other students in detention. The redhead also didn't fail to notice the disbelieving stares directed at Itachi from other students in detention. It appeared the Uchiha had a reputation.
When the clock finally decreed the students could leave the ninja quickly left for their bus, Hidan making sure to glare at the school one last time before getting onto the loud machine.
The ninja took their seats and turned to face each other.
"If we really have to do this for four more days, I may kill someone." Kakuzu growled.
Hidan swore. Sasori groaned.
One day had been awful enough, but they would have to do this four more times?
Sasori nearly cursed the Uzumaki who'd banished them to his seal world. Nearly.
