Small Fish, Big Pond by fang_shinobi
Summary: Sakura has always been number one… until she transfers to a new school of the weirdest kinds of geniuses around… 'Small fish in a big pond' has now become an understatement.
Disclaimers: If only I were Masashi Kishimoto, which I'm not, I'd own Naruto, but I don't. I don't own Jump either.
…
Chapter 3
Sakura glanced around the busy canteen, seemingly populated by what seemed to be upperclassmen. It seemed like your everyday, ordinary, loud and messy canteen. Tables were rearranged to match the number of its occupants, while stray chairs littered the area. Some of the tables were loud and obnoxious, while one was having some sort of food fight.
"There's my niisan," said Ino upon spying her brother. She took Sakura by the wrist and led her to his table. "Come on."
"Um, Ino-san-"
"Ino would be fine," she interrupted. "Enough with the formalities already."
"Okay, Ino. Anyway, I don't think it's a good idea to join you brother. He's with his friends."
"Friends, shriends," replied the blonde as they neared the table. "Niisan!"
"Imoto-chan, shoo," said her older brother amidst his friends' laughter. "I can't have my li'l sister hanging around me!"
"Shut up, Aniki, I'm not here for you. Hey, sempai!" she greeted the upperclassmen at the table.
"Hey, Ino-chan," most of them chorused in response, some more cheerfully than others.
"Everyone, I'd like you to meet the new girl, Sakura-chan. Sakura, this is Sasori, Tobi, Nagato, Yahiko, Konan, Hidan, Kakuzu, Kisame and Itachi."
"Um, y-yoroshiku," stammered Sakura, embarrassed.
"No need to be shy, sweetie," said the only female at the table who wore her midnight blue hair back in a bun. "My name is Konan," she said with a friendly smile, holding her hand out. "I hope we can be good friends."
Sakura took the outstretched hand in reluctance. "Yeah, I hope so too."
"And I'm Yahiko," suddenly announced the boy with bright, orange hair, putting his hand on the two girls', only to have Konan glare at him and slap him on the shoulder.
"Behave, you," she scolded.
"Whaaat?" he complained.
"I'm Tobi!" announced the tall one with spiky ink-black hair and the pale, yet cheery face as he raised one hand into the air.
"Nagato," said another one with the long, raven bangs.
"Sasori," said the redhead sitting beside her brother.
As the all the sempai introduced themselves in a similar manner, Sakura couldn't help staring in surprise when the last of the introductions were made.
"Itachi," said the one sitting at one end of the table. He had long ebony-black hair pulled back in a ponytail, eyes just as dark and skin so pale it contrasted heavily against his darker features. He looked just like –
"Maybe you've met my otouto, Sasuke," he added with a small smile. "I believe you're in the same class."
"Uh, yes, it seems so," Sakura said with a slight blush. Though he looked just like his younger brother, he had this lighter, friendlier aura about him quite unlike Sasuke.
"Hang out with us sometime," said Yahiko. "We hang out at the-" he was interrupted, but it was Deidara who shoved him in the face this time.
"I already told you to go, Imoto-chan," he ordered. "Shoo, shoo."
"Hai, hai," replied his sister. "Seeing as we're not wanted…" She took Sakura's hand and led her away.
"Later," said Konan with a small wave of her hand as some of the sempai followed suit.
"Well, they seemed… friendly," commented Sakura, waving back hesitantly. "What was that for anyway? Dragging me all the way to your brother's table?"
"Well, you can't get by high school without knowing some sempai. They're pretty handy friends when you need them. They'll be very good help with homework, projects and even with our research paper."
"I wasn't really counting on asking for help from sempai while I'm studying here," said Sakura.
"Don't be silly! We'll need all the help we can get!"
"And that was Sasuke's brother?" the pink-haired girl asked after a while.
"Yeah, they look a lot," said Ino, "but don't go around saying that out loud. Sasuke resents that."
"He does?"
"Yeah, some sort of little brother inferiority complex or something like that. You probably get the idea."
Sakura was an only child, so she didn't really understand it too well.
"They're really different once you know them well enough though," added Ino.
"Really? In what way?" Sakura asked, curious.
By then, Ino had pulled her in line, where they met Hinata and one of their dorm mates, and the blonde was unable to answer her question.
"Hey there, new girl," greeted the upperclassman, her brown hair pulled up in buns on either side of her head.
"Tenten-sempai, right?" asked Sakura.
"Yup. How's your first day here?"
"Uh, just fine. It's… not exactly what I was expecting…"
"Not as you were expecting, eh?" The sempai smiled, as if she had expected that answer.
"It's always like that once you get to know us," supplied Hinata. "We're… different…"
"Very different," added Ino, laughing, as the upperclassman pointed at this and that at the display tray.
"Oh, and I want this too," said the brunette. "And that one too."
"Um, Tenten-sempai has an… insatiable appetite…" explained Hinata.
"Insatiable? So mean… I just have a fast metabolism," whined Tenten, taking her tray loaded with pastries. "Girl's got to eat, you know. Besides, we're playing volleyball after class."
Sakura stared on as Ino kept berating her sempai, who wasn't one to back down from the argument, still insisting that her body was just that way.
Hinata was right. The people here were definitely different…
…
"What's going on?" inquired Sakura upon hearing the commotion coming from the nearby courts.
She was already returning to the classroom with her classmates, having already eaten their snacks.
Ino merely shrugged in reply, not even bothering to stop walking. "Must be the boys playing basketball. They always make a lot of noise."
"Basketball?" Sakura shook her head. Surely, they can't be good at that…
"Sakura-chan?" said Hinata, noticing her friend's sudden curiosity. "Do you… want to watch the game?"
"Come on, let's get back to the room," whined their blond friend, "it's just a bunch of guys sweating it out on the court."
"I think it's our classmates," observed Sakura as she started heading for the court. Hinata followed suit, and Ino did so after some hesitation.
Sakura couldn't believe what she saw. Well, it wasn't at all NBA-worthy, not even close, but surprisingly, the boys were playing quite well. It was nothing like watching otaku or geeks playing. They played no worse than her classmates from any of her previous schools, which says a lot, for a bunch of geeks, that is.
Incidentally, the player most evidently the best amongst them was no other than Sasuke. For someone who was that smart, did he have to do so well at sports too?
She noticed a group of girls cheering him on from the sidelines like a bunch of groupies. He barely looked there way, much less acknowledged there support.
"The boys like to play ball a lot," remarked Ino. "Some of them are pretty tall, you know. Sometimes they even play baseball or even volleyball. We don't get to compete in interschool competitions though, so everyone's out of practice."
Out of practice? Sakura thought incredulously. "Well, they play a lot, so isn't that practice enough?"
"Not really. I used to be in the girls' varsity volleyball team, and this is not training," replied Ino, cocking a thumb at the game. "Shouldn't they at least put this off till later though? We still have class hours left, even if they are still informal. I do not want to have class with those sweaty, smelly guys later."
Sakura cringed at the thought. "Well, isn't there some sort of school regulation against playing during breaks?"
Ino shrugged. "We're already socially deprived as it is," she joked. "Taking games away will probably turn the boys into zombies."
Sakura didn't find her joke too funny.
…
"I don't know if you've noticed, Naruto," said Ino, hovering over Sakura's desk, "but you're absolutely soaked."
"So's Sasuke and half the guys in class," he countered, wiping the sweat off his brow as he took his seat.
"It's April. How can you even sweat that much?"
"What? I sweat easily, okay?"
"Ew, I did not want to hear that."
Sakura was a bit surprised to see how nonchalantly Ino talked with the boys in class. In her case, she wasn't too friendly with the opposite sex back at Ichinoe, which was the case with most of the girls there. Here, the line was blurred a bit, and she recognized the raven-haired girl who'd chosen to fight for freedom against the aliens chatting casually with some guys, while the twin girls with yellow highlights joked with one of the boys. Things here were definitely too relaxed.
"Oi, Naruto, catch!" called out one of the boys from the other side of the room.
The blond boy ended up catching some sort of book with his face. "Ow! That was intentional, Kage!" he accused, his face red, either from the impact or from mere aggravation.
"Nuh-uh," denied the other boy, dark-haired with amber eyes.
"You just have horrible reflexes," added the one of the boys, pale and aqua-haired, also shouting from across the room.
"Urusai, Suigetsu – Hey, wait! What issue is this?" gasped Naruto in surprise when he saw the cover of the book.
"This weeks'," replied Kage, rolling his eyes. "Duh."
"No waaaaay! I didn't get to buy one this morning!"
"And you're the extern" – that was what they called non-dormers – "who lives near the convenience store, for crying out loud."
"That's because Naruto's always up so late," supplied Sasuke in a sarcastic manner, as his blond friend was already too engrossed on the book to come up with a good comeback.
Sakura eyed the blond boy curiously from her seat. A book, huh?
"That's Naruto for you," giggled Ino. "No book on earth can make him read except for Jump. Wait a minute, Jump's not even a book." She laughed.
Sakura looked at the front over. It was quite colorful, the main protagonists of some of the manga within seemingly jumping out with their vibrant colors.
She looked around the room once more. The game had ended a while ago, and the sweaty boys had filed into the classroom, bringing with them the "atmosphere" that clearly stated "I just got back from a game", just as the girls had feared. Almost everyone was back in the room now, and she saw some of the boys reading the same publication. The curly-haired girl from before was already arguing with Kage over something in one of the manga.
"No way, that's not how Fang would have seen it."
"What would you know, Mikan? Besides, if you haven't noticed, Fang Shinobi Chronicles is shounen."
"Well, I've read more shounen manga than you have, even if I happen to be a girl."
"Ha. As if."
"Remember her?" Ino asked Sakura as they gazed at the squabbling duo. "She's Mikan, our beloved manga and anime addict. Ask her about any manga or anime. I bet she would know about it. Just don't ask too much about shoujo, coz she comes out blank."
Of all people to turn out to be an otaku, it was this girl.
"She fights with Kage a lot – and, oh," Ino suddenly said, as if as an afterthought, "she's a lister too."
Sakura felt her mouth pop open as she gaped at the girl. Her?
"Hey, guys!" suddenly chirped one of the twins, the one probably named Yuriko, with straight bangs and golden highlights falling over her ears.
"We made up a dance!" said her sister, Maya, whose raven hair was parted in the middle, the lock of blond highlighted hair pushed behind one ear.
The two bounded up to the platform in front of the blackboard and started singing one of those repetitive-lyric songs and dancing in a comical fashion.
One of the boys, the incredibly tall one with the brown, spiky hair and glasses, got up and danced along with them, and so did some of the guys. Ino sang along to the weird song, while Naruto managed to look up from his book long enough to break into loud laughter.
Even Mikan and Kage stopped fighting to watch, while Sasuke seemed amused.
The classroom was in chaos when Jan appeared at the door, the boys doing exaggerated versions of the dance while the twins continued leading the performance.
"Yo, peeps, what's up?" he greeted them, and they all rushed back to their seats.
"Now, now, no need to be so hasty," he laughed. "Mind teaching me that dance? How do you do that again?" He made what seemed to be the most hysterical version of the dance anyone could possibly come up with, and the whole class laughed. Even Sakura couldn't help laughing at him despite her reluctance. This was a teacher! Students usually don't laugh at their teachers! And yet she laughed, crying out loud, "Sensei, please stop acting like that!"
"We found something out!" chorused a bunch of boys as they barged into the room, either unaware or not caring about the fact that they were late.
The one with the blondish brown hair exclaimed, "Jan-sensei graduated from Kuhai!"
"He had some of the same teachers we have now!" added the redhead with him.
"No way!" exclaimed the class.
"Ah, I've been found out," laughed their teacher.
"Knew it!" exclaimed Naruto. "Any teacher that kooky has got to have graduated from Kuhai!"
"Eh, but all the teachers here are kooky!" laughed Ino.
"Oi, Kouji, Rei, who did you hear that from?" Naruto inquired excitedly.
"Sarutobi-sensei said so," replied Rei, the one with reddish-brown hair.
"Dang! I wish I found that out myself."
"We have to thank the teachers for being so chatty!" laughed Kouji, the one with blondish brown hair.
"Cool! I want to teach here when I graduate too!" announced one of the girls, Hana, with long mocha-colored hair.
"No way!" exclaimed Mikan. "And work with our old teachers? That's so strange!"
Sakura stared on in disbelief for the nth time that day. Everyone in the room was noisy, messy and utterly incoherent. Some were laughing so loud they were falling off their seats while others looked like they were getting an asthma attack. Furthermore, the desks and chairs were in more of a disarray than they were before, while some of the students had wandered so far from their seats in their bouts of hysterical laughter. Was this really a school or some sort of circus?
…
Notes: i: Aniki : another way of calling one's older brother
ii. Fang Shinobi Chronicles: I've been recycling stuff from my DBG, so what? LOL. I can't have Naruto reading his own manga, right? In DBG, FSC has both a manga and a video game. I better note that it has an anime as well.
iii: OC's: It doesn't really matter if you want to know them or what. Just ignore there presences for a while unless they start getting important roles. Most OC's based on me and my high school classmates. Yes, even the twins and Fuu Jan.
iv: Plot: Is there even one? I'll think one up later… oh well… just let the chaos ensue, ne?
A/N: Hell! College is hell I tell you! I've died and been thrown into hell! I want to go back to high school (sobs)… huhuhu…
Next Chap: How will Sakura fare in academics? Next chapter better be proper classes!