Let's face it. Moving in the middle of the week? Not such a great idea.

Heck, I'd have to prepare myself. I'd assertively demand respect. As a daughter of the former Fourth Kazekage, it'd be an injustice to our clan's reputation should I, or any Sabaku, be a pushover.

My siblings I could speak for in this aspect too. I knew Temari was just as strongly dignified as I was, intolerant of disrespect. She'd probably chew out anybody who dared to disrespect her. Kankuro had zero tolerance as well. Gaara, well, he's always had the faculty of this deadly stare that'd effortlessly shut the perpetrator up somehow. I had absolutely zilch idea how, but it must've been Gaara's adamancy in striking fear into the person's heart. Though, neither of us ever allowed our physicality to consume the best of us. Deep down, although strongly dignified, we simply weren't programmed to behave like barbarians, despite Rasa constantly emphasising his desire for more hard-ass offspring. But there was a time and a place for everything.

Hell, I was still so physically exhausted. I wondered if I'd ever acclimatise to the foreign routine I'd start practising from today onwards. Being homeschooled for ten years of my life surely disfavoured me at this point in time.

It was already 07:10 and I barely felt less tired than the previous night. How the hell did students —or anybody —manage to get out of bed and prepare for work or school on a daily basis before this time, two, three hours earlier? How the hell would I manage this shit every day?

Even if I wished to catch up on sleep during after school hours, I honestly dislike sleeping during broad daylight. It's never been my thing. For some reason, my body simply refuses to shutdown during the day. I couldn't exactly speak for my siblings. We obviously had different sleeping patterns. Kankuro slept like a bear in hibernation. Temari was diurnally inclined just like Gaara and myself.

I sighed wearily, ruffling my disobedient crimson hair as if to shake the fatigue out of my head somehow. I needed at least five more minutes in bed to ponder how tired I was.

"Get up, boy. Get up." I heard Father growl across the hall. Rasa was obviously patrolling the hallway to keep us in check.

I just knew it was Kankuro annoying Father. Gaara didn't value sleeping to the extent that Kankuro did. I could practically feel Father's murky aura emanating the walls as he sauntered with his arms crossed past my door, obviously unimpressed.

I immediately yanked the covers off of myself, stuffed my hair into a messy bun and made a beeline towards the bathroom for my daily hygienic routine. I stepped out of the shower five minutes later, black towel still wrapped around my glistening body as I raided my closet. I threw on a plain grey Sabaku clan T-shirt, tucking it into my navy blue skinny jeans and slipping on black combat boots. My hair hung in it's usual sleek style, falling loosely around my waist.

I was one to always take pride in my appearance, although not on an excessive level. Of course, who didn't want to look good all the time? If you looked good, you felt good, and if you felt good, you did good. All the factors were interlinked, and confidence was key.

"Finish up." I overheard Father order as I emerged into the kitchen.

Wow, 'Officer' Rasa on high patrol. Rather strict if you ask me.

I struggled to suppress a giggle, although soft enough that only I heard.

Father must be really passionate about this new system, whatever it's like. Whatever makes today so deserving of his attention? He usually never gave a fuck.

Judging by Rasa's tone, he was presumably impatient at this moment. "These children are clearly not familiar with external education." Rasa shook his head pessimistically.

"Well duh. We can't be familiar with something we've never been exposed to." Kankuro retaliated audaciously, earning a frigid glare from Rasa as if daring Kankuro to speak again.

His mouth sealed shut without another word.

I greeted my family as I seated myself next to Gaara, pouring myself a cup of freshly brewed black coffee.

Rasa's attention shifted from Kankuro to me suddenly. "You almost overslept. Let it not happen again, Akane. I don't care what time either of you go to bed or what time you desire to wake up, but you will wake up at seven." Rasa's eyes fixated on us, deadly stern. "The principal requested you be there slightly earlier today. Don't be late. It wouldn't leave a good impression." And with that, Father disappeared without another word, leaving an intensified atmosphere behind.

After gobbling our breakfast within minutes, I slung my crimson backpack over my shoulder, heading towards the porch as I awaited my entourage.

Many adolescents heading in the same direction passed us. The tone amongst the passerby's radiated lazily, the buzzing of husky and high pitched voices filtering the streets of Konoha.

Stalls stood cheerily alongside the roads, determined to produce sales for the day. Two ANBU patrolled the area between constant chatter and swift change of location, although there were no signs of a breach anywhere.

A trio consisting of two guys and a girl silently sauntered ahead of our squad. One guy, tall, fairly skinned with thick brown locks, wearing tinted round spectacles.

The girl, of average height and crystal clear porcelain skin. She resembled a beautiful porcelain doll with her long midnight blue hair, and eyes such a light grey, they almost appeared white.

The other guy's height balanced between the girl and nerdy looking guy's height. He, too, had messy chocolate locks, but he was rather tan. He had a red fang stroke on either of his cheeks. He strolled silently beside them with his hands relaxing in his pockets. He suddenly rotated his head to meet my oceanic orbs, contact lasting a matter of seconds, before he swiftly snapped his head forward and downward to follow a trail of tiny white paws that trotted about his shoulder.

The porcelain beauty suddenly stole a glance back at me, smiling bizarrely with cheeks tinted pink, before she, too, snapped her head forward again as they continued to walk off.

I glanced at the back of the girl's head strangely, narrowing my eyes. Why had she sent me such a bizarre look? My eyes automatically fell on my garments, scanning for anything unusual or comical.

Nothing unusual or out of place.

I shrugged it off.

The remainder of the walk was rather silent. As usual, Gaara kept to himself. Temari and I admired the dominantly green scenery we passed, whilst Kankuro whistled stupidly along the way until Temari demanded he shut up.

I inhaled a deep breath of our green surroundings when we reached Konoha High, familiarising myself with my new daily environment. This would be my modern routine for the next two years, whether I successfully acclimatised or not. That applied to all four of us.

"The principal's office must be in the main building. This sounds like a complete drag, but let's get it over with." Temari's teal eyes beamed with nervousness and excitement simultaneously.

The hallway led to an inestimable number of duplicative doors, certain doors containing a small middle window to allow transparency.

In the blink of an eye, an orange flash sped in our direction, abruptly stopping dead in their tracks when Temari's arm gripped the stranger's orange shirt.

"Hey, you," Temari addressed a little more fiercely than she intended. "Would you mind directing us to the principal's office?"

The whiskered blond guy stared at her with puzzled oceanic pools, his tan cheeks slightly reddened. "Eh?" was all he managed to stagger out before he frantically shook his head as if snapping out of a trance. His deep oceanic orbs stared into Temari's aquamarine ones for approximately a minute, processing her seemingly incomprehensible question. He suddenly grinned wider than I had ever personally seen. "Oh, yeah sure! Further down to your left, first door on your right! The door's transparent, but you'll probably recognise her by her chest!" he exclaimed loudly before sprinting off swifter than he came before we could delay him with any further queries, leaving us in abrupt confusion.

"Eh?" Temari's arm found its way back to it's usual position on her hip as she stood and turned to us in absolute bewilderment.

Kankuro rubbed his ear, grimacing. "Man, does that guy have a loudspeaker down his throat or somethin'?"

Gaara narrowed his eyes. "His grin alone gave me a headache."

I chuckled in amazement at my earlier vision, ignoring my brothers' complaining. "Were those actual whisker scars on his cheeks?" a laugh escaped my lips. "It's adorable!"

Kankuro's face distorted in disbelief. "What could possibly be adorable about whisker scars on a human face?" he rolled his eyes. "His imagination of living a cat life is wild." his voice was soaked in mockery.

"Don't be absurd, Kankuro. That's obviously not it. There must be a specific reason behind it.." Gaara narrowed his eyes knowingly, a possible explanation seemingly on his mind. "And Akane loves cats. It's rather obvious that she'd think it's..cute." Gaara murmured, abasement detectable in his voice as if to imply that Kankuro was ignorant of obvious information. And in a way, he was.

Temari simply rolled her eyes, finding nothing significant about anything we were babbling about. "Shut up." she hissed as she knocked on the door.

The platinum blonde lady abruptly looked up from her swamped desk, nodding in acknowledgment.

We respectfully bowed in greeting as soon as we entered.

"Good morning. I'm Principal Tsunade," the woman introduced sternly. "You four must be the Sabaku's, yes?"

"Correct, Tsunade-san." Temari nodded.

Tsunade cleared her throat, her expression harder than before as she reached into the drawer beside her, pulling out a stash of documents. "Here's a booklet for each of you. This booklet is essential for a comfortable lifestyle here at Konoha High, I assure you," she said sternly, as if to imply that brutal consequences lie ahead should anybody dare to lose their booklet. "The booklet consists of four pages: a map around campus, your class schedules, including your locker number and location, a classroom registration form that's mandatory to return signed to your homeroom teacher, who'll handle the rest of it. Lastly, Konoha High's code of conduct, clubs and policies." she concluded, staring at us with steely amber eyes. "Any further enquiries directed to me. Dismissed." She was obviously a busy woman. She couldn't invest too much time in student introductions.

Briefly thanking Tsunade with a bow, we exited the office.

"I've got Kakashi-sensei for homeroom." I said, eyes still scanning the remaining pages.

"He's my homeroom sensei too, Akane." Gaara said without glancing up from his schedule.

"Wow, really? Me three." Kankuro smirked, hands resting behind his head.

"Eh?" Temari shrieked in frustration, rolling her eyes for the thousandth time that day. "You have got to be kidding me." she face palmed.

"We're all in the same class? Fancyyy," Kankuro gesticulated fancy shaking hands. He seemed rather pleased with the fact that he'd have the opportunity to annoy the hell out of us on a daily basis, both at home and during school. "At least we'll have each other's backs." his voice contained a hint of mockery, smirking.

I sent him a mind-fucked expression, rolling my eyes. "We're not incapable of taking care of ourselves. Take a chill pill, your honour."

Temari shot him a glare. "This is going to be a hell of two years."

I gently knocked on the door when we reached our designated homeroom, peeking through the window to see a white-haired man lazily avert his gaze towards the door.

"Enter," he muttered as he leaned against his desk, a small green book in hand. The gentleman's eyes still bore apathetically into our own. His entire face, besides his one eye, was practically masked. "Good morning," his lazy voice began, "I'm Kakashi Hatake, your homeroom and Business sensei. And you're late," he sounded obviously unimpressed. Kakashi-sensei seemed intolerant of shit in any shape or form, hence his next concluding words, "Don't let it happen again."

We handed Kakashi-sensei our signed registration forms and he lazily scanned them and placed them on his desk, briefly thanking us before he faced the curiously silent class.

"Class, please welcome our new classmates. They're from Sunagakure." he stated nonchalantly, barely seeming interested in introductions. He immediately directed Gaara to an open seat in the first row next to a ghostly pale guy, me next to a blonde girl in the fourth row, Temari next to a black-haired girl in the third row, and Kankuro next to a white-haired guy with spectacles in the very back of the class.

I proceeded to my assigned seat as gracefully as I could under numerous stony gazes. My eyes discerned the same white pools from earlier during the walk to school. The shy girl hadn't seemed to have recovered from her shell. Again, she smiled shyly at me, and I returned an awkward smile. Hell, I felt as if I might've had to support this girl's backbone, if she possibly had any.

I glanced at Temari next to an apathetic looking girl who seemingly ignored the hell out of The Great Temari Sabaku. Oh hell, Temari was a natural blabbermouth, and she sure as hell hated being ignored. Her presence was to be front page news. Apparently, not this time. Konoha sure planned to send a hell of a blow to the Sabaku pride. Well, at least Temari's.

Kankuro obviously bore no desire to build friendships with these individuals at all, and judging by his neighbor's body language, neither did he.

"Kakashi-sensei tries to be intimidating and all, but trust me, he really doesn't give a fuck about any of us being late. That's his job. He probably just showed early today to leave a good first impression on you guys as the new students." I overhead heard the high pitched voice of the blonde girl next to me as she stared at me expectantly.

I simply blinked at her, idle.

The girl chuckled before speaking again, possibly noticing that she'd caught me off guard. "I'm Ino Yamanaka by the way," she smiled kindly. "It's nice to have some fresh faces around here. It gets boring with all these ugly familiar faces." her voice indicated that she was joking.

Automatically, I found myself sharing a laugh with Ino and introduced myself in return.

"...Troublesome." I overhead heard a guy with a ponytail mutter lazily beside our desk. He seemed to have grabbed Ino's attention too.

"What was that? I couldn't hear you over my pig headedness." Ino spat, glaring at him.

He sent her a bored look. "I wasn't even talking to you, Ino," he sighed, averting his attention towards his brunette friend next to him. "Women." he muttered.

The brunette guy smiled at me with a mouthful of chips —though he tried to obscure the big bag —excluding himself from the squabble between the two. "Sup,' I'm Choji."

The boy with the ponytail next to him then reluctantly took initiative. "Shikamaru Nara."

"And I'm Naruto Uzumaki! The future Hokage!" a loud voice chimed in from behind Ino, causing my ears to flinch as I recognized the blond boy that sped past us in the hallway earlier.

Next to him, hard onyx orbs met my own soft aquamarine ones. I met his mysterious stony expression as he sat with his hands folded in front of his face, jet black bangs falling perfectly around, obfuscating the rest of his expressionless identity.

He remained silent.

Ino jolted in surprise, raising her fist reflexively. "Naruto!" she bellowed. "You can't just introduce yourself like that every time, you little idiot!"

Heh. He sure makes himself known. What a character. I like it.

"Troublesome," Shikamaru muttered —what I assumed —was his catchphrase, earning himself another, harder glare from Ino.

--

Well, well. The tension between Shikamaru and Ino seems to be thick enough to cut with a knife. What could that be all about?