Disclaimer: Me no own, me no sell, and you no sue.
Authoress' Note: Well here is my unedited chapter 3. Hope you like it. It may take me awhile to get the next chapter up and to get around to editing the other chapters, but I'm sure if I get some reviews...even if all you write is "good job", "nice work", "I like your story", or even "Meh, it was Ok but not my favourite"(I prefer the first three) I'll be motivated. Say it with me, motivated. M...O...T...I...V...A...T...E...D. Well, I'm sure you've had enough of my rambling, thanks for the lovely reviews. Mwah! (That's an air kiss blown to all you who read my story). Now, we're live in 3...2...1...WAIT!
P.S. Umm, I really haven't edited this chapter...like at all...so there may be a few weird things in it as well as mistakes. Anything you notice that seems to not make any sense, or that you think might sound better worded another way...or changed completely, please tell me in a message or a review. Also, ideas you have for the Houses are welcome. I already have something that I'm thinking about, but its not one hundred percent set up. Thanks. Alright already, here's the story. We're live in...no seriously this time...3...2...1...ACTION!
"Oh my gosh!" Sakura gushed at the sight of her friends in their school robes, "You look so cute!"
"Shut it Pinky," Temari snapped. The four girls were outfitted in black pleated skirts, white blouses, and black robes that clasped together at the neck. They were each wearing their own socks, but she expected that they would be told to wear black knee socks and black shoes with the school outfits.
"Ah, Miss Haruno. Oh and Mr. Potter, Mr. Weasley, and Miss Granger decided to follow you after all. Girls, you can go change," Madame Malkin said turning to Ino, Hinata, TenTen, and Temari who were standing on stools being poked at by pins that were floating around and pinning the material of their own accord. Temari sprang from her stool, and sprinted into the nearest changing room, followed by the other three girls.
"Miss Haruno, your uniform," she then said while handing Sakura a bundle. She then accepted the roll of white from Ron, and a page that Sakura had pulled out from one of the design books. "Lovely choice, the dress will turn out beautifully. You three, come on. Let's give the girls some privacy." Then she left, shooing Ron, Hermione, and Harry out with her.
Sakura examined the small crest on the robes and noticed that it consisted of a hand curled into a fist emitting sparks, underneath of it, in a flowing script it said 'The Konoha School of Magic and Chakra'. She smiled, it was pretty cute. She wondered who had thought of it. She turned around and entered the only remaining changing room. She quickly threw on the uniform and stepped out of the little cubicle to see her four friends waiting for her.
"So how does it fit?" TenTen asked.
"Perfectly!" Sakura exclaimed happily as she twirled around in front of a mirror. The bewitched pins seemed to agree as they didn't start attacking her like they had attacked the other girls.
"You, you l-look good, Sakura," Hinata nearly whispered.
"Thanks Hinata," Sakura replied admiring how well the outfit fit her.
"So what took you so long, forehead girl? We thought you had bolted on us or something" Ino asked.
Sakura shot Ino a glare and stuck her tongue out, then explained what had happened between her, the slime ball, and the little trio.
"And you didn't call me," Temari complained, "I would have shown the creep."
"Sakura, are you sure you didn't hit him too hard? We don't want the whole school to be scared of us," TenTen asked, her voice full of concern.
"Positive. I held back, even though I really should have punched him harder," Sakura answered.
"Punched who?"
After Temari had run to tell them to pick up the girls' books then disappeared again, the guys had done just that. The rest of their morning thankfully passed without further incident. They managed to pick up all their supplies without Naruto doing anything else...unique? Then, dutifully obeying the girls' orders, they had then gone to Madame Malkin's to get fitted for their uniforms. They opened the door and entered to find the shop empty and silent, but almost immediately, a chatter started up from behind a curtain. Naruto ventured toward it and pulled it back to reveal Sakura, in different clothes than those she had been wearing that morning, speaking to Temari, Ino, Hinata, and TenTen, who were all dressed normally.
"Positive," she said, "I held back, even though I really should have punched him harder."
"Punched who?" Naruto asked.
Sakura nearly died of fright as she was the only one who hadn't seen the curtain being pulled away.
"Naruto you idiot! You scared me! I could have had a heart attack!" she picked up one of the stools and threw it at him. Naruto ducked and instead of hitting her target, the stool hit Shino.
"Oh my gosh Shino I'm so sorry I didn't meant to hit you I was aiming for Naruto but he ducked so instead the stool hit you and oh my gosh I am so sorry I mean I was just so scared and everything and I reacted without thinking are you okay are you hurt oh my gosh Shino I am so sorry," Sakura rambled on covering her face with her hands and peering out at Shino from between her fingers.
Ino and Temari were doubled over from laughing so hard and were leaning on Hinata and TenTen for support. Shino massaged his wounded head, then picked up the stool, which earned a yelp from Sakura. Since the blow hadn't hurt him that much, and since he did still hold a minor grudge against Naruto for not recognizing him a year back, he dropped the stool on Naruto's head.
Sakura giggled nervously in relief, and Ino, Temari, and even TenTen were laughing especially hard now, they were clutching their sides and leaning against the wall to keep themselves from falling. Hinata rushed to Naruto's side and quickly dragged him across the floor to a corner where she carefully massaged his head. This made room for the other guys to come in and see what was going on.
"What the hell?" Chouji asked.
The three laughing girls looked up to see everyone else staring at them. They were quickly silenced with looks from Gaara, Neji, and Sasuke, and rapidly assumed decent positions.
"Who did you punch, Sakura?" Lee asked. He had been standing behind Shino and had heard Sakura's statement.
Most of the boys looked at her in surprise. Even though Sakura had trained under the hotheaded Tsunade, she was reluctant to lash out unless absolutely necessary.
"No one," Sakura replied putting on as innocent an expression as she could.
"Yeah right! She punched out some guy that tried to hit on her," Ino contributed with obvious delight.
Kiba looked at Sakura, "What's with the clothes?" he asked.
"Those clothes are your new uniform," said Madame Malkin as she stepped through a hidden door. "Oh, Miss Haruno, a perfect fit! You can go change now. As for you," she continued motioning to the boys, "just step over here and I'll take your measurements." She pulled out her measuring tape and note pad and then started grabbing the boys and measuring them in turn as Sakura changed. She stepped out of the room dressed in her normal clothes.
"Madame Malkin?" she asked, "did those other kids leave yet?"
"The ones you came in here with?" Madame Malkin asked for clarification as she started to measure an uncomfortable looking Gaara.
"Yeah."
"No, but they'll probably be leaving any time now, I just finished with them," she answered as she scribbled a few things down and beckoned for Naruto to come over.
"Could you hold this?" Sakura asked as she thrust the bundle of clothes into Neji's arms. "Thanks," she finished as she ran out the door.
Sakura emerged into the main room to see Hermione's hand on the door knob. "Hermione!" she called out.
The bushy haired girl turned to look at her and smiled warmly. "I just wanted to thank you guys, for earlier I mean," Sakura said.
"Thank us!" Ron exclaimed. "We should be thanking you. I haven't seen anyone hit Malfoy since that time Hermione smacked him in third year."
"Yeah, well I would never have had the courage to defend myself if you guys hadn't come in, thanks a lot."
"Your welcome," Harry answered her. "Will we see you on the train tomorrow?" he asked.
"I don't see why not. Bye," she finished with a wave and turned back into the room she had come from. The three wizards looked at her and smiled. If the rest of the exchange students were only a little bit like her, this would sure be an interesting year.
Madame Malkin had finished measuring the boys and had run off to get her preliminary pieces of clothing. They were all standing around looking quite uncomfortable, especially Lee who seemed disappointed that he couldn't wear his spandex suit at school, and Neji who was holding a very feminine blouse and skirt in his hands.
Naruto laughed at the boy, "Well, aren't you going to try them on?" he asked.
Neji shot him a glare filled with hatred and quickly threw the clothes to Sakura as she walked through the door.
Naruto had been itching to rest, and eat, for awhile now, and he was getting rather impatient. The girls were talking quietly amongst themselves and the guys were just staring at things. When Madame Malkin came in and handed packages to Lee, Chouji, Shikamaru, Kiba, and Shino, and told them to go try them on a relief flowed through the room. The girls distanced themselves from the changing rooms and positioned themselves in a place where they could easily see all five stools.
Everyone waited expectantly for the boys to come out, but when after a few minutes not one of them had appeared everyone was pretty irritated.
"Get your lazy asses out of there, now or I'm going to come into those changing rooms and..." but Ino didn't have a chance to finish her threat as Shikamaru quickly interrupted.
"Alright," he uttered lazily.
He, Chouji, Lee, and Shino stalked out of their changing rooms and out onto the stools where the pins started attacking them.
"Kiba that means you too!" Ino screeched.
"I look ridiculous! I am not wearing this," said Kiba from behind the safety of the closed door.
"I'm counting to three. 1...2..." Ino didn't have a chance to finish as Kiba darted out of the changing room. Ino could be deadly when angered.
Now that all five boys were standing next to each other, the girls took a chance to look at their uniforms. A white shirt, black pants, and a black cloak like theirs with an identical crest. Madame Malkin had even managed to find a cloak with a high collar on it for Shino.
"You look ah-dorable," Sakura laughed.
"Like gentlemen," TenTen added. All the girls, including Hinata, looked at each other and laughed simultaneously. Their friends were no where close to being gentleman. And they looked pretty strange in their uniforms, so proper. As the pins finished poking the embarrassed boys, Madame Malkin gave them the okay to go change and they all darted back into the rooms they had come from.
Next she handed bundles to the remaining five shinobis, Gaara, Kankuro, Neji, Sasuke, and Naruto. Naruto was the first to emerge from the changing room and stepped out unsurely. Hinata blushed deeply at the sight of Naruto in a colour that wasn't a shade of orange, and even Sakura was shocked. He actually looked civilized. Next came Sasuke who looked the same in the dark robe as he did in his usual clothing. Then came Neji, Kankuro, and Gaara.
The clothes were unfamiliar and impractical for fighting in, but they weren't as horrible as the boys before them had expressed. The only thing that really seemed to bother them was the possibility that the shirts might have to be tucked in. They were relieved to find the pants weren't dress pants and that the cloak had many pockets sewn onto the inside. The perfect place to hide some kunai and shuriken.
As the girls finished laughing, the pins finished poking. "Alright, you can go change now boys," Madame Malkin said as the boys hoped off the stools and walked back to their respective cubicles, "now as for your dress robes, I've decided on the pattern and colour that I think suits you best. Boys just don't seem to have the same fashion sense as girls," she said with a wink to the five kunoichis. "Anyways, I'll send those to the school tomorrow with the girls' dresses. Oh, and I believe you all have a card of some sort to show me."
Everyone reached into their pockets and pulled out the cards that Hagrid had given them. Madame Malkin wrote down something on her notepad. "Tell the boys in the stalls not to worry about those silly little things," she said as she walked through the curtain back into the main room.
When the boys were done changing, all fifteen teenagers walked back into the front room and received packages from Madame Malkin.
"Thanks," Lee, Naruto, Kiba, TenTen, Ino, Sakura, and even Hinata and Temari chorused. The remaining boys nodded in the shopkeeper's general direction. Then they walked out of the store and headed to the place where they had last seen Hagrid.
"Why did you disappear?" Tsunade asked Dumbledore when her and the four jounins arrived back at the Leaky Cauldron.
"It could have saved us a bit of confusion," Kurenai added.
"I'm sorry," the old man said and smiled, "but I had to get a few things in order."
"It might also have done some good to inform us that your friend was, rather large in size," Kakashi contributed thinking of what more Naruto might have said had he not been scared by the two violent girls.
"I guess," the old man laughed.
"So," Asuma started, "why did you need to meet with us?"
"Well I need to tell you where you'll be staying and how you and the children will be getting to school tomorrow," Dumbledore stated as if it were quite obvious. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small bag from which he pulled a yellow candy that he popped in his mouth. "Care for a lemon drop?" he asked offering the bag to the five adults.
Only Gai reached for one.
"Mmm delicious, so where was I, ah yes. Well you and the students will be spending the night here. I have already made the reservations," Dumbledore said. "Now as for how you'll be getting to the train station tomorrow we'll..." Dumbledore was interrupted.
"Train station?" Gai asked.
"Yes, train station. You and your teams will ride the Hogwarts express to school like everyone else," Dumbledore said.
"I thought we didn't want to attract any unnecessary attention," Kakashi said, "Sakura's hair alone will have everyone's heads turned our way."
"You do have a point, however, I feel we might as well get the gossiping out of the students' systems as early as possible. Are there any objections?" Dumbledore looked at the faces of the five ninjas in front of him. When no one spoke he continued. "So you'll use the same method to get to the train station as we used to get here. You'll arrive in an alley close by and from there you'll walk in. You'll head to platform nine and three quarters and board the scralet train there. It will take you to Hogwarts along with the rest of the students."
"Oh well is that all?" Tsunade asked sarcastically.
Dumbledore smiled at her. She was the same now as she had been when she was only a little girl. "Yes, not too hard. Now you and the children will meet the members of the Order soon," again he was interrupted.
"The Order?" Asuma asked.
"Oh my, did I forget to tell you." Four semi-irritated faces and one bored one looked at him. "Well some witches and wizards, including myself, have been working together to gather information about Voldemort and to protect families, muggle and wizarding, from him. The Order of the Phoenix is a group that has no ties to the Ministry so there is a much lesser chance that a spy resides in our midst, whereas the Ministry is so large that Voldemort is bound to have spies in nearly every department. You will all have to meet them at some point so any information you have gathered can be shared."
"With all due respect, there seems to be a lot that you haven't told us, sir," Kurenai said.
"There is, isn't there? Well, I will meet with you again as time progresses, but right now all you need to know is that you have to protect Harry Potter, and gather as much information as you can about Voldemort. That and how to get to the school tomorrow," Dumbledore finished with a laugh.
"Do you think we could go over that again?" Gai asked.
And the six continued to talk until they heard a deep voice from somewhere behind a door.
After the teens had joined up with Hagrid again, he quickly made sure that they had picked up all their supplies, then led them back to the pub they had come from. "Hello?" the giant bellowed as they passed through the door. Tsunade, Kurenai, Asuma, Gai, Kakashi, and Dumbledore all came out of the small room they had been speaking in.
"I see you met Hagrid and bought all your supplies. Good!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "I just finished explaining to your senseis how you'll be getting to school tomorrow."
Shikamaru looked up at the old man and asked a question he had been thinking of since they had received their shopping lists. "How come we didn't buy any of those sticky things?"
"Perceptive," Dumbledore started. "If you would all take a seat," he said motioning to one very large table in the center of the room. As they all sat down, Dumbledore took a place at the head of the table. He looked at each person in turn and cleared his throat. His eyes were twinkling brilliantly and he seemed overjoyed by the group of people sitting in front of him.
"Wands. The way a wizard focuses his magic. You see, a wizard is someone who is born with magic flowing through their veins. Not everyone can pick up a wand and instantaneously begin casting spells you see. The wand only focuses the wizard's magic so that he may manipulate it to do the various activities he wishes, it is not what creates it- or else than anyone could be a wizard. Or witch," he added looking apologetically at the females at the table.
Dumbledore began fingering his own wand. "The way you focus your chakra is similar, except you don't need a wand as an outlet. I suppose I could have had Ollivander design a wand that would allow you to manipulate your chakra like magic, however instead Tsunade and I decided that we would tell the students of my school that you perform wandless magic. In some classes this may prove to be a bad choice, however the teachers have been informed of your unique usage of 'magic' and will allow you to perform certain tasks in ways that you find fit."
Naruto looked confused, but nodded his head as if he understood. He was hungry, and when his stomach growled quite audibly, everyone around him knew it.
"I guess you would all probably like to enjoy your lunch now," Dumbledore said while flashing a smile to Naruto.
Naruto looked up at the man and prayed that no misfortune would ever befall him. And when laden plates were brought to the table, Naruto nearly hugged him, however was quickly distracted by a bowl of steaming ramen. They ate lunch together in relative peace, and when they were all done, Dumbledore left the shinobis to find their rooms.
"Miss Haruno," Dumbledore called as she was about to climb the stars.
Sakura turned around and approached the old man. "Here," he said as he pulled out his wand and pointed it at the table. He muttered a few words and a thick book appeared. He picked it up and handed it to her, "'Hogwarts: A History'. I thought that if you wanted to learn a bit about the school before you arrive there you could read a few passages from this book."
Sakura graciously accepted the gift, "Thanks."
"Your welcome," Dumbledore replied. He turned around and took a few steps towards the door, but before he got there he disappeared. Sakura blinked a few times, but accepted the unexplainable. She turned on her heels and ran up the stairs.
When they all had gathered in the second floor hallway all hell broke loose as most of the people gathered there tried to grab a room. "Quiet!" Tsunade yelled. Silence followed. "Only eleven rooms were available for our use so pretty much everyone has to share," Tsunade said. "Including me," she mumbled under her breath. "Asuma. Gai. You're in room 3. Neji and Lee, room 4. TenTen and Hinata, room 6. In room 7 Kiba and Shino. Kakashi, you're in room 8. Room 9 is Gaara's and Kankuro's. Room 10 is Temari and Ino's. Shikamaru. Chouji. You'll be in 12. Myself and Kurenai will be in room 13. Sasuke and Naruto, you two will share room 15, and Sakura you'll be in room 16."
"Why does Sakura get her own room?" Naruto complained.
"Just shut up and be glad she didn't put you in a room with Gai," Kakashi whispered in the boy's ear.
Naruto visibly shuttered, then ran into room 15 screaming, "Fine then, I call the bed by the window!"
For the rest of the day, everyone did pretty much whatever they wanted. Many of the shinobis explored Diagon Alley and others started leafing through their textbooks. Shikamaru climbed up on the roof of the building and spent most of the day looking at the clouds, Sakura read the book Dumbledore had given her, and Sasuke trained as silently as he could in the room he shared with Naruto. That evening everyone ate dinner together downstairs, in the now busy pub, and afterwards headed slowly to their rooms where they drifted off into sleep.
She was walking down a dark hallway. No, running. She was looking for a way out. She passed by hundreds of locked doors, looking for the one that would open, the one that would take her out of this place. All of a sudden she came to a door with light seeping out from underneath of it. She reached out for the handle and slowly turned it. Then she pushed the door inwards. It swung forward on its hinges and she passed through it quickly hoping it would lead her outside.
Instead she ended up in a room with a single light illuminating a spot in the center. The door shut behind her and she turned at the sound. Then she turned back to face the center of the room and saw that in the middle of the spotlight, there stood a person, head bent, with what seemed to be half a head of dark hair.
"Sasuke?" she called out. No one answered her.
"H-Harry?" she tried. Again there was no response.
Then the person looked up and she stumbled as she took an instantaneous step back. Half of the person's face resembled Orochimaru's in every way, but the other half was more snake like. The nose flattened out into only a slit, the eye glowed red, and the mouth became two thin lines. She turned to leave but saw that the door was now only a speck in the distance.
She started to run, and it seemed like she could make it there. Then she slipped and fell. She sat up and looked around the floor near her to see that she was in a red, sticky puddle. She heard laughter coming from where she had last seen the gruesome figure and quickly tried to stand up, but she was frozen in place. She tried to move, even in the slightest way, but couldn't even lift her fingers. The figure was approaching and had started to laugh again.
She began to shake in fright, she couldn't even defend herself from this...creature...and then...she could move her hands! She lifted them up as the thing took another step towards her...
Sakura threw the blanket off of herself. She had broken into a cold sweat and her pyjamas and hair were sticking to her. She was shaking and crying silently. She brought her knees to her chest and started rocking back and forth. The dream had seemed so real, she had felt so helpless and scared. She let herself sob. The moment she had locked eyes with the man, she had thought her life was over. She looked at the clock on her bedside table, 4:07. There were a few hours left before she was supposed to wake up, but she knew she wasn't going to be going back to sleep tonight.
He was staring into faces. Faces that he had once known and recognized, faces that he had tried to forget. Then as fast as they had appeared- they disappeared, and he was walking down a street, people were smiling at him and he...he was smiling back. He passed homes and shops and continued to follow the street. Soon there were no shops or houses and only trees and bushes on either side of the road. But he continued to follow the path.
Suddenly the road ended and in front of him there was a graveyard. He slowly and cautiously approached the first two headstones. Then he gazed at the names on them. He took a few steps back, then turned to look at the other headstones. He walked up and down the rows, stopping in front of each one in turn. Then he came to the last two. They were blank. He looked on the opposite side- still blank.
Then there was a laugh. He looked up to see Orochimaru standing not five feet away from him.
"You weren't strong enough," he cackled, "you weren't strong enough to save them. Not then, and not now."
Two names instantly started to spread like ink over the blank surfaces. He stared at them, confused, until two words could easily be read. On one, Naruto. And on the other, Sakura. He looked up only to see that Orochimaru had disappeared and in his place stood another man. One who looked more like a snake than a human. His nose was nothing more than two slits, his eyes glowed red and his skin was pale and almost scaly.
The boy stared at the headstones and watched as more started to sprout up next to them. "And you weren't strong enough to save them either," the snake man hissed as the names of his peers, including the boy, Harry Potter, inked themselves over each one.
He watched as a final headstone sprouted up in between Naruto's and Sakura's. His name appeared on it. "And you weren't strong enough to save yourself, brother."
The boy looked up to see that his older brother now stood before him. All of a sudden roots wrapped around his feet and started pulling him down into the earth. He tried to yell, but something was in his mouth. He tried to move around and get it out...
Sasuke sat up and pulled off the blanket that had managed to wrap itself around his head. He was sweating and shaking. He had been having nightmares since he was a child, since his parents had been brutally murdered by his brother, but this one hadn't even contained that scene. He heard a gasp and a sob from the other side of the wall and turned to look at it. Sakura. He looked at the clock, 4:07, then he looked at the bed next to his.
He was fighting someone. A blurry figure that kept shooting sparks of light at him. He was dodging them easily, but there were so many that he was too preoccupied with defending himself from the flashes that he couldn't land a single blow on the man...maybe woman. He was getting frustrated with the battle. It was raging on and on and he was getting tired.
Soon he could feel the kyuubi taking control of him. He let it in moderation, he needed the boost of chakra. He could feel his legs shaking beneath him and could sense that what little stamina he had left was depleting. But after giving the fox demon a bit of control it started to take over him. He could notice the difference in his power, he could easily dodge the light, even when it started to come at him more frequently. He was getting closer, close enough to land a blow...
He was lying on a pile of dirt and he didn't remember a thing. He looked around himself and saw nothing but bare, desolate land. He stood up and took a few steps forward, only to fall from the weakness that resided in all his limbs. He sat up and looked around again, this time more slowly, looking for anything, anything familiar. And then he saw a man, a man who was walking towards him. He stopped before he was close enough for the boy to possibly identify them.
"Where am I?" the boy asked.
"You're lying on a battlefield," the man stated.
"Battlefield?" the boy said questioningly.
"You don't remember? You killed everyone," the man sneered. "All the villagers, your peers, your teachers, your friends. Sakura and Sasuke tried so hard to stop you, to help you, and you killed them without a second thought."
"That's not true. It's impossible," the boy stuttered.
"You lost control. You became the fox demon, and you murdered everyone," the man said.
He looked around and saw that now there were indeed bodies around him. The one's closest to him were his dearest friends, a raven haired boy and a pink haired girl.
"You killed everyone except your intended target." A flash of light was sent speeding towards him...
Naruto sat up in bed and opened his eyes. He was panting and was trying to slowly reduce the rate that he was breathing at. He had been petrified when he had thought that he had killed all those people, even if it had been only a nightmare. He looked at the clock, 4:07.
"Hey," a voice said from somewhere to his left.
Naruto nearly jumped out of his bed from fright. "You dumbass," he nearly screeched, "you scared the hell out of me, I should...Wait, why are you up?"
"I had a dream," Sasuke answered simply.
"Me too," Naruto started, but was quickly interrupted by a sound from the room next door.
Both boys stared at the wall behind them. They could hear hiccuping coming from Sakura's room, and the occasional sniffle. They looked at each other, then both climbed out of bed and walked across the floor to the door. They opened it as silently as possible and stepped out into the hallway, walking the few short steps to Sakura's room.
Sasuke knocked lightly on her door. The two boys waited silently as they heard her shuffle around inside, followed by silence. Seconds ticked by, then the door suddenly opened. Sakura stood there with a kunai in each hand. When she saw who was standing in front of her, she dropped them and placed her hand over her heart.
"You scared me!" she exclaimed taking a step back so she could lean against the wide open door. "So, what do you want?"
"We heard you crying and thought you might like some company," Naruto said.
"I'm fine," she said.
Sasuke looked quickly into her eyes, then watched as Naruto walked into the room. She was scared, more frightened than he was, more frightened than Naruto was. Naruto pulled a chair over to the bed, sat down on it, and turned to face her. He wasn't leaving. Sasuke followed suit and walked in, passing Sakura who was still standing at the door. He sat down on her bed and looked at her.
She sighed, picked up her kunai and shut the door. She walked over to the bed, placed the kunai on the small nightstand, and took a seat next to Sasuke. "So why are you two up anyway?" she asked. She pulled her gaze from her lap to look into their eyes, and they looked into her's. At that moment, they knew they had all suffered through a nightmare.
The three people, who had once had difficulty getting along, sat in a reassuring silence as the hours passed by. Comforting each other through their small actions and looks until nine o'clock came.