Shattered by Sasuke

Silence, again.

Sasuke was now, more than ever, aware of this fact. Or rather, it seemed like she was paying more attention to the silence. For brief seconds, Sasuke kept her eyes closed. She was half-hoping that the Silence was only in her imagination, that henever killed her family,her clan. She was also hoping that maybe, just maybe, her mother would come into her room and scold her for not being up. Sadly, it was not meant to be. Getting up, Sasuke looked at her surroundings. It was her apartment, nothing changed. Putting her hands up to her face, and trying to rub the sleep out of her head, she remembered faintly how weak she had just been.

" Tch." was her response. She didn't care.

Glancing at the clock, she cursed. It seemed she had gotten up earlier than she had planned. The kunoichi thought about going back to sleep but knew that her mind would never allow it. With this fact, she got up from her bed and walked into her bathroom.

While her bathroom was rather small, it filled the requirements. Sasuke, stripping off her pajamas, got the shower ready. When it was to her preference she stepped in, and let the soap and water cleanse her.

" ... What should I do?" it might be something about the water, but every time she is taking a shower, she tends to think. And think she did.

She thought about him. Her past, and Naruto.

"Naruto?..." she thought, wondering how he had gotten on her mind.

It was true that she was curious about him. It might even transcend curiosity, but Sasuke was never going to admit to that, or even recognize it.

" It's just curiosity..." Sasuke blushed slightly, but attributed it to the hot water gently pelting her.

Getting out, she quickly wrapped a towel around her body. After drying off properly, she went to put on her clothes. Sasuke glanced at the clock one more time. Still too early to head out to the training ground. Still, she wasn't really the type to sit still for extended periods of time. So, she exited her apartment, and went out for a walk.


"Sasuke! Over here!" a blonde Yamanaka shouted to the Uchiha while she was walking.

Though she had not planned for meeting Ino, she went over to her anyways. Meeting up with her, Sasuke found her other friends nearby.

"Good timing! We're just about to head to Ichiraku's. Wanna come along?" Ino said, smiling at the brunette. Sasuke thought about it for a couple of seconds. "Should I?" In truth, Sasuke didn't really feel like she belonged in the group. Unlike the other ones, she wasn't that princess like. While she may come from a clan, she didn't really feel like royalty. And it was because of that, she always felt slightly guilty that she was hanging around them all the time. It felt like she was a pencil in a box with three other pens.

Nevertheless, Sasuke nodded her head.

"Sure." Sasuke replied. Smiling slightly at the group she followed them to Ichiraku's.

"So? Our team assignments were awesome!" Ino said, but then she looked at Sasuke, " I mean... At least you weren't stuck with Kiba..." Sitting down on the left most stool, Sasuke agreed.

"Yeah... But I stand by what I said earlier. I would have preferred it better if I had at least one of you on my team.

The usual, please," Sasuke said, turning to Ayame, whose notepad was ready to take her order.

Since this was close to the place where they meet, they come to Ichiraku's to eat. It really didn't take much time to have the ramen prepared. In no time Sasuke saw a steaming bowl of ramen right in front of her.

"I almost forgot. You all should skip breakfast, unless of course you enjoy hurling your stomach out through your mouth." Sasuke stopped dead in her tracks. She had her chopsticks raised, ready to attack her food.

" Well... I already ordered it. Plus, I highly doubt that our first mission would really require me to skip eating..." With that in mind, Sasuke started eating.


"So? How are you holding up with Naruto and Shikamaru?" Sakura said, looking at Sasuke with mild sympathy. The Princess Four had finished eating, and now took to discussing matters that seemed important, and Sasuke's plight was number one.

"Well... Shikamaru is lazy. And Naruto... Well, Naruto. I don't really care about them, as long as they don't hinder me in my goals." Sasuke responded curtly.

"Oh come on... You so cold to boys Sasuke! You should be interested... But it is Naruto and Shikamaru so I don't blame you." Ino chided in. She then smiled at Sasuke.

"We all know that Shikamaru is Lazy. What we, or rather Hinata, wanted to know was about Naruto." Sakura said, winking at Hinata, who blushed at the mention of her blonde crush.

"Like I said, Naruto is Naruto. There isn't much to him." Sasuke knew that wasn't true. There was something to him, something that she really couldn't place about him. If she really had to put her feelings about him into words, it would have to be confusing.

"Oh... We just thought that, since you're on the same team now, you might know why he changed his suit..." All four girls were very interested in his sudden wardrobe change. It too was on Sasuke's mind as well. Why the sudden change?

"I don't know, why?" The sudden talk of Naruto was making her rather curious.

"It's a girl's natural instincts to want to know everything, and we know nothing about Naruto. Personally I think if it wasn't for his personality he would be better liked." Sakura said casually.

"Y-you think S-o?" Hinata said meekly, stumbling on her words.

"I certainly agree. He has the looks, but his personality is just so cold. It seems like he really just doesn't care. That is such a turn off." Ino scoffed a bit on that last sentence.

"How so?" Sasuke said numbly, trying to get Ino to a point of interest in this conversation.

"Well, first off, he acts like he doesn't care. Like, at all. It's quite off putting to see a kid act like that. He even stopped playing with kids his age. He always kept to himself. That's not normal... And..." Ino was trying to find the right words to further describe Naruto, but she couldn't find them, or form them into an understandable sentence.

"... The thing that bothered me was his test scores. They were nearly perfect..." Sakura, the book worm, said. The rest of the girls agreed.

"Was he really that good? I mean, he never showed it. And that thing with Mizuki..." The girls shivered. All of them had remembered the look Naruto gave when he had said that. Unknown to the three, Sasuke has seen that look. That look plagued her in her nightmares but the face wasn't of Naruto, but of him.

Sasuke looked at the clock at Ichiraku's and cursed. She needed to head out to Training Ground 7. Getting up, she started walking away from them.

"Maybe I will see what Naruto has been holding back today, we have a mission."


Shattered by Ino


Life was hectic for the blonde kunoichi. In fact, ever since she became one of the most popular girls in the academy her life became busy. It was never easy being a girl, especially one that was as pretty as her.

Yawning, she put those vain thoughts to rest as she got up and rubbed her eyes. Then she opened them again to clear away any drowsiness that remained. When Ino looked at her clock, she was surprised to see that she woke up earlier than expected.

In all honesty, her mother was quite right in making the observation that a kunoichi should be rather punctual, but Ino was Ino, not an expert ninja.

" ...Yet. I'm not an expert ninja, yet." she mumbled out, getting up from the bed, and going to the bathroom.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she cringed a bit. What a total mess. Her hair was unruly, as it had always been like that in the mornings. To Ino, Nature was almost always anti-beauty and her natural hair in the morning was proof of this. Ino finally looked away from the mess, and started to draw a bath.

"Ahhhh." she sighed heavenly as she submersed her naked body in the water. While showers were practical, baths were blissful. Yamanaka Ino would never have survived in a world with out baths, ever. She started to go over what happened yesterday at the academy. She had finally become a ninja. It was something she had dreamed about since she was a little kid when her dad told her stories about his adventures and the wide world.

She had finally taken her first steps into her own adventures, she was sure of it.

While she was happy that her squad consisted of her friends, she was rather unhappy about Sasuke's situation.

While Ino had the best possible situation, Sasuke didn't. Sasuke, Ino thought, got the worst possible situation. Normally you would expect, at the most, one person on your team that you won't like, or even want, but Sasuke has two. She had Shikamaru "Lazy Ass " Nara and Naruto " Dead-last" Uzumaki. Both were not ninja material in her opinion.

Ever since they were children Shikamaru and Naruto were like that. When they were young, Ino always saw Shikamaru and Naruto playing together, that was, until Shikamaru stopped hanging out with him.

What possibly happened?

The water gently blanketed Ino, making her feel more relaxed. It was during those moments of clarity and relaxation, that she tended to deduce and think. While not a genius like Shikamaru, she did tend to think things through correctly when she was in the bath. Not this time.

"Maybe he did something to make Shikamaru mad? No... It's Lazy Ass Shikamaru! He can't be bothered being angry at anything! " Ino thought to herself, smirking at her reasoning.

"... If not that?...Ugh!" Ino shook her head, trying to divulge Naruto's past is impossible. That boy certainly is a mystery. Pushing it out of her head, Ino felt herself fully relax in the bath. In fact, she relaxed so much, she even forgot that she was thinking about the blonde boy in the first place.

Feeling clean and relaxed, the girl stepped out of the bath. The sudden cold that her body felt made her rush to get to the towel, and dry off.


"...I am so glad that she didn't get picked to be put with him....Hokage-sama must've listen-" Ino's mother whispered before she got cut off by her husband.

"Shh!" the father quickly hissed, indicating that their daughter was on her way towards them. They wanted to keep her ignorant on the matter of the Kyuubi boy, after all they didn't want to be killed. With forced smiles, the pair looked at Ino, who had just entered the kitchen where they had their discussion.

Ino, truth be told, liked eavesdropping. It was a very bad habit, but being a ninja encouraged information gathering, and that sanctioned her indulgence. So she had naturally heard what they had been talking about.

The thing Ino wanted to know was who they were talking about. That piqued her interest.

"Ino? Aren't you supposed to meet up with Hinata and Sakura for breakfast?" Ino's mom questioned the young blonde. Her hands were on her hips, and the look was a mix of amusement and anxiety.

"How much did she hear?" Ino's mother had thought to herself.

It was then that Ino's eyes widened at the sudden realization that she did make an arrangement to eat with Hinata and Sakura at Ichiraku's.

With hurried steps, Ino rushed past them, and out the front door with a shout, " Thanks, Mom!"


"So? Where is Sasuke?" Ino asked her friends when the met up.

"Well, after that whole incident with Ami, we couldn't catch up with her to talk to her about it." Sakura said, sympathetically remembering what happened to Sasuke's clan.

"T-that was very U-unfortunate." Hinata whispered with just enough volume that only the two of her friends could hear.

Neither of them knew the specifics of what had happened that night, and none of them could really imagine how anybody could have killed one of the best ninja clans in the village in one night. They couldn't think of a single person with that amount of power, not even the Hokage.

That was the scary part.

Ino hated prolonged silence, it usually didn't mean anything good. So when the dialogue stopped, she quickly thought of other things to discuss.

"Ya know... Wasn't Naruto acting strangely? " Ino said, remembering the blonde's behavior at the graduation. Talking about Naruto wasn't well received anywhere, and Ino expected some strange looks.

She wasn't disappointed.

The looks the two of them gave her were to be expected, but it was the looks from the other villagers that were the shock.

All of the looks were mystifying to the blonde. How could they make such a look? The looks were unanimously filled with Hate or something along those lines.

"Naruto? Why would you talk about him? Did you go rouge on us now, Ino? " Sakura, with a look of gross wonderment on her face, remarked before looking at Hinata and quickly apologizing.

"Not funny Sakura! It's just that he has been acting strangely!"

It was then that the group had glimpsed Sasuke walking down the road.

"Sasuke! Over here!" Ino shouted, getting the Uchiha's attention. It was very lucky, they were about to talk about something that Sasuke might know more about, seeing as she was Naruto's newly established teammate.

When Sasuke walked up to Ino, the blonde smiled.

"Good timing! We're just about to head to Ichiraku's. Wanna come along?" Ino asked, hoping she would say yes. She continued to smile at the Uchiha, who hadn't replied immediately.

To Ino, Sasuke was something else. She always had to think hard before ever accepting anything. When she first became friends with her, it was a bit strange. Now though, she thought nothing of it.

When Sasuke finally nodded her head and replied to her, Ino walked with the rest of them to Ichiraku's.

"So? Our team assignments were awesome!" Ino said to the group excitedly. Sitting down, she looked at Sasuke with a guilty expression, " I mean... At least you weren't stuck with Kiba..."

When seeing Sasuke agree, Ino breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yeah... But I stand by what I said earlier. I would have preferred it better if I had at least one of you on my team. One bowl of Ramen, please." Sasuke replied, looking at the menu.


The three girls looked at Sasuke as she had just dropped the bombshell. A mission? With Naruto and Shikamaru?

Now that made Ino curious. It was apparent that she had an overwhelming urge to know. She inherited this from both of her parents, and because of that, it seemed to be stronger in Ino than in both of them.

The girls both looked at each other in with a puzzled expression, but then continued to talk about Naruto.

"...So? Sakura... What do you think of his new outfit?" Ino asked, wondering what the pinkette thought.

" I don't really know... It's Naruto, he's a mystery..."

That was the one thing all of the girls could admit about that boy.


A/N Note: Consolidating the Fillers so that the chapter numbers could more closely reflect the narrative's. I did some slight editing, which may improve the readability of these fillers (though these are considered canon with the fiction).

Hope you like both perspectives, be sure to vote on the poll on my profile for which of the Princess Four you like the most.

~SK