So for those of you wondering why the heck I said in my ending A/N this chapter was being posted a couple minutes after the previous one, it's because I deleted this and made a couple event modifications.

For those of you wondering why this chapter looks familiar, see above explanation. I recommend reading through it again, or at least towards the ending, since I added a bigger (and most definitely changed) chunk.

Also, reminder: please read through the entire chapter and my ending A/N before making final judgments. Thanks.

Posted: 6/30/15

Last Edited: 6/30/15

The clock ticked loudly at the front of the classroom as I frantically colored graphite circles in my answer sheet. Mediocrity had never been encouraged in my household, so I'd wasted precious time in the beginning trying to find exactly the right answer for every single question I came upon. Of course, now I had fifteen questions left to do in merely ten minutes, and though it was only a piece of paper, my eyes scanned the questions and the answer choices as if it was a life-or-death situation.

"Five minutes."

I jumped in my seat, and then berated my own foolishness. I'd almost forgotten about the silent proctor seated at the front desk of the empty classroom. So I'd answered them faster than I thought—I had only three questions left. Those were completed with ease, and I glanced through my test in the last minute, too quick to really catch any mistakes I might have made. Must have made.

With a sigh, I handed in the test booklet. Mathematics was done. He exchanged it for a history booklet, and when I seated myself again, he restarted the timer. Tick, tick, tick…

o0o0o0o

The morning was over by the time I finished with the written portion. I pulled out lunch—Sasuke packed it—and ate it outside under the shade of the tree, where others were talking or fighting or playing Ninja. I wished I could join.

The moment I finished lunch, however, the proctor from before immediately approached me from wherever he'd been waiting. So he'd been watching me. Attempting to think logically, I'd attributed my increased unease to the single ANBU who watched me, as usual, but I was wrong to assume that the ANBU was only staring with more intensity than before.

"Listen to logic—instincts are driven by emotions, and emotions color things in ways you don't understand until it's too late."

Tou-san was wrong. But he was dead, too, so maybe that was obvious.

I followed the proctor to an empty Academy training ground, and he had me first throw kunai and shuriken into a target. He specified that he would not tell me, much less give any indication what was the minimum requirement for me to pass.

"Um…can I practice first?"

"In real life, you're not going to be able to 'practice' when an enemy comes," he said firmly.

I swallowed and reflexively threw my weapons. One kunai on the bull's eye. Two kunai just barely clinging onto the middle ring. The shuriken landed on the log, neatly spaced out and directly in line with each other like Sasuke had instructed, and he nodded. We moved on to other exercises, and I performed kata, dodged objects, ran through a couple obstacle courses, sprinted in a straight line, tested my ability to change direction, all subtly enhanced with chakra. While these were all things I'd learned and trained for in the past, it was Sasuke who had been refining everything over the past couple of days, and over the hours of work accumulated, my mind and body had finally connected some of the things I'd been struggling with.

Still, I didn't too well. I was sure of it. My body was weak, weaker than I liked, and the proctor dismissed me with a wave of his hand. It was the end of the day, and I entered my classroom to find Sasuke waiting for me, hands tucked coolly into his white pockets. My backpack was in his hand, and Natsuki-sensei was nowhere to be seen, so I took it gratefully and pulled it over my shoulders, fluffing out my short, wavy hair with a grunt. Sweat dripped off of me like condensation off a can of cooled soda.

"How was it?"

I glanced tentatively over at Sasuke. He appeared nonchalant. I didn't want that superior glint back in his eye, however, so I kept silent and gave an ambiguous "It was okay."

We walked home in silence.

The next day, I headed straight for the front office, and Sasuke didn't bother giving me a farewell this time. The "bye" I said came out oddly, belatedly, just as he was turning the corner, and I felt my face flush before I turned away and headed toward the receptionist. She looked up with a smile, and I exhaled.

"Hi," I said. "I'm Uchiha Shiroko. I…recently took a test to move up a grade?"

And while I didn't like how it came out like a question, it was the best I could do with the anxiety that always took ahold of me in situations with authority figures.

"Ah, yes," she said, turning in her chair to reach for a sheet of paper behind her. On closer examination, it was a schedule with my name on it. "You're back in Iruka-sensei's class. Unfortunately, you're on probation. We also took the liberty of signing you up for after-school kunoichi classes, since you used to be in them, and as you can see on your schedule, those will be on Mondays and Tuesdays. Because you are on probation, there are mandatory tutoring sessions you will attend after school on Thursdays and Fridays, and if you pass your Semester Exam with a certain grade or higher, to be determined by Iruka-sensei, you can be taken off of it."

She eyed me. "Any questions?"

"No," I said, flustered. After a beat, I amended, "Er, actually. I do have questions. Um. Are the after-school kunoichi classes required?"

She hummed. "Not for graduation, necessarily. But it is highly recommended you take them. And while this is generally something I would speak to parents about, as an orphan you must take full responsibility of yourself. Attending these classes will greatly help your career as a kunoichi in the future, if you pass the Graduation Exam, but if you would prefer not to take extra classes, it is understandable if not recommended. What is your decision?"

"Uh…," I said nervously, "I'll take them. Are there other classes for other…specialization?"

The secretary smiled, then. "Yes, but those classes will be taken as a genin. There are kenjutsu, poison, espionage, medical, and other classes available that you can take as a genin if you wish to specialize, although often it is according to your jounin-sensei's recommendations."

"Okay," I nodded. "Thank you."

"You know how to find Iruka-sensei's class?"

I nodded again. "Yeah."

"Then good luck!"

"Thank you."

I turned away and left down the hallway, locating the room from memory. The last time I'd entered that classroom had been when I was seven years old. I wondered if my classmates would remember me. Nervously, I remembered the uchiwa on my back boldly declaring my heritage, and exhaled before knocking and entering.

All eyes landed on me. I shuffled closer to Iruka-sensei, staring at the scar across his nose before I bowed hesitantly and showed him my new schedule.

"Ah," he nodded. "Right. How about you introduce yourself?"

I turned toward the class. There were around 20 people, maybe less, and they stared at me in silence. I found Sasuke sitting off by the side, gazing out the window and completely ignoring my presence, although at least he was one person less to be staring at me. There was another with his head lying on his arms, and I recognized him as Nara…Nara something.

I swallowed. "Hi. I'm Uchiha Shiroko."

They stared at me for a bit longer, and then a boy with red triangles on his cheeks and a white puppy lying on his head raised his hand. Those were characteristics of the Inuzuka clan, weren't they?

"Iruka-sensei, I thought there was only one Uchiha left," he said, shooting a not-so-discreet look at Sasuke. At this, Sasuke's hand left the chin it had been propping up and he turned to shoot a dark look at the Inuzuka, which the boy ignored.

"I told you to wait for me to call on you before you speak, Kiba," the man barked, gesturing and smiling quickly at me for me to sit. I clambered up the stairs, keeping a sharp eye out for feet darting into the middle of the row to test my reflexes, but fortunately there were none, and I scrambled into a seat by a girl with pale lavender eyes.

"Okay, okay," Kiba grumbled, "but can't you answer my question already?"

"Show some respect," Iruka-sensei snapped, but he sighed. "She used to be in our class, and she was a survivor of the Uchiha clan. Now please, if you really want to know more, ask her herself about it, or ask Sasuke. I'm not guaranteeing you an answer."

Kiba subsided with the puppy whining on his head. "Quiet down, Akamaru," he said, taking him off his head and putting him in his jacket. I grimaced at the sight before turning to look at my desk partner.

She fidgeted, and I felt calmer at seeing someone more nervous than I.

"Hi," I said, and she echoed me with a greeting.

"I'm Hinata," she said, "if y-you don't remember."

So apparently she remembered me.

"Hyuuga Hinata?" I asked, and she nodded timidly. Iruka-sensei called our attention back to the front of the classroom after that, however, and I didn't exchange anymore pleasantries with my shy classmate until lunch came, after some exercises. It seemed that most classes followed the general schedule that Natsuki-sensei had told me when I'd first met her, although with varying lengths of each block.

I took out Sasuke's prepared bento for me out of my blue backpack—my favorite color; Sasuke remembered that and got me blue everything—and hesitated. Yesterday, I'd seen Sasuke sitting alone and occasionally flocked by fan girls that he walked away from if he became too irritated. I'd seen a couple other loners as well, but now, I noticed specifically a Hyuuga Hinata sitting by herself under the shade of a tree.

I wavered. I wanted some friends, at least one friend, but I'd rarely ever spoken to anyone in the past three years. Even with the small bit of conversation I had with Sasuke, I was exhausted…and also excited. I liked human interaction, and I'd desperately craved it in the past, even before I'd left Konoha.

I stood and approached Hinata.

She looked up with wide pale eyes, and I offered her a small, tentative smile. "Hi. Could I sit here with you?"

The indigo-haired girl nodded quickly, and I sat down against the trunk with our shoulders brushing. We ate in silence for a minute as I searched for a topic, and I finally commented on her eating habits as she picked at her umeboshi-filled onigiri.

"Do you not like your food? It looks pretty good to me."

"W-what?"

I concluded that I didn't like her short blue hair as a couple strands floated up in the wind—not that I had a right to say anything about it considering my own recently-shortened black hair.

"Your food looks really good," I said. "Who makes it?"

"Oh!" She blushed. "I-I make my own."

That was actually surprising. I was fairly certain that as a girl of the Main House, she had servants from the Branch House to make her food. I knew she didn't have a mother to make her lunch, since my mother was her mother's older sister (therefore keeping me well-educated on the Hyuuga clan's structure as well as internal affairs) (and sadly, like my aunt's death), and also therefore making us cousins, but Branch House members were required to assist Main House members in any way possible.

"Wow," I said. "I can't cook anything. Sasuke makes my lunch."

"S-Sasuke?" Her eyes widened.

"He…he's my adoptive brother, or something like that," I said. Everyone knew I was an Uchiha, but no one knew what our real relation was. There were whispers, from children and adults alike, whenever Sasuke and I walked together in the marketplace or through school or wherever in Konoha, really, and I hadn't missed them when I'd left Konoha. Back then, the whispers were accompanied with sympathetic glances, and while the majority of it was for Sasuke, they also knew my family had lost a father as well. I'd hated them. I still hated them.

"O-oh," she said. She said nothing else, and I waited a moment longer before relief settled.

"So," I began, "what do you like to do besides cooking?"

"U-um…"

I didn't comment on her stutter, despite the fact that it was beginning to irritate me. Lunch ended shortly after mild conversation between us, constantly interspersed with quiet, and we entered the classroom together with Sasuke's sharp eyes on us.

I noticed a blue-haired man standing in the front of the classroom with Iruka-sensei, and vaguely remembered him from before, too. He and Iruka-sensei were discussing something, and I watched as Iruka-sensei gestured at me and the other man nodded. We took our seats before Iruka-sensei informed us "Mizuki-sensei" had had something going on in the morning. Mizuki-sensei glanced in my direction, and now that he caught my eyes, he gave me a warm smile.

We began class with a study of chakra. It still seemed mostly to be review, but after several more tips, he called us to the front of the classroom.

Dog—boar—ram—"Henge," Mizuki-sensei said in a clear voice, and he transformed into Iruka-sensei. He even possessed Iruka-sensei's sheepish gestures as he rubbed the back of his head and laughed before dispelling the jutsu.

We lined up in random order. I chose to situate myself in the middle so that I wouldn't be memorable either way, and I watched as various classmates attempted it and had varying degrees of success. Some people didn't have the back of Mizuki-sensei right. It was still the back of themselves. Others were missing an ear or eyebrow or other detail they'd missed, and I managed a complete image of Mizuki-sensei for about one second before my concentration wavered and it dispelled.

Sasuke neatly pulled off an Iruka-sensei, and several of the girls erupted in exaggerated cooing and applauding. First of all, it was original. Most of us had been copying Mizuki-sensei's image. Second of all, it showed off his great eidetic memory, even if all of us had (or at least supposedly had) this ability, since it was important for mission reports to identify each opponent encountered.

Well. He always looked as if he hated the attention, but it didn't look like he avoided it, either.

Hinata was right after him, and considering the Hyuuga clan had good chakra control (something my mother had informed me about), her henge into Mizuki-sensei was flawless. She held it for a good ten seconds, and probably could have held it much, much longer, as Mizuki-sensei scrutinized his own image before nodding and congratulating her. There was vague applause, and she flushed and scurried to her desk, seating herself back beside me.

After everyone had attempted it, Mizuki-sensei worked with a couple people on fixing hand seals, and when he came to me, I showed him my hand seals and he frowned.

"For the ram seal, you want to cross your thumbs, like this," he explained. He bent and showed me, flipping his hands over, and I observed his right thumb latched over his left before I nodded as Hinata glanced over.

"The textbooks don't show it, but it helps you concentrate better instead of just placing your thumbs side by side," Mizuki-sensei elaborated, and I nodded again, thanking him. I felt Sasuke's eyes on me, but when I glanced in his direction, he was seated quietly at his desk, waiting for the final bell to ring. As Mizuki-sensei went through each student, Hinata gave me a hesitant look.

"Sh-Shiroko-san," she said.

"Shiroko's fine," I reassured her.

"O-oh, okay, uh, Shiroko, I-I know Mizuki-sensei i-is the teacher, but…," she paused carefully. "M-my father has n-never done that. H-he taught me all the hand s-seals, and he has v-very good chakra control."

It was common knowledge that performing the seals with precision contributed to better chakra control. Though hand seals were only methods to help ourselves concentrate on the technique we were performing, and therefore weren't necessarily required, seals performed precisely let us concentrate less on what technique we were doing and more on directing the technique itself.

"Oh," I said, blinking. "Uh, we can ask Sasuke, I guess."

I stood and waited, and she stood after a moment as the two of us approached Sasuke. As expected, a couple girls were flocking him again, congratulating him about his perfect henge, and I wondered why no one was a lesbian to congratulate Hinata on her just-as-flawless henge. She obviously needed the confidence more than Sasuke.

"Excuse me," I muttered, edging past a couple of them. "Excuse me."

To my dismay, I realized Hinata had hung back, but I finally found my way to the front of Sasuke's desk. Because the classroom was leveled somewhat like a stadium, I found myself peering much higher than I usually did at his brooding face.

"Sasuke," I said.

He eyed me. "Hn."

"Um—" I glanced quickly at where Mizuki-sensei was. He was clear across the classroom. "So, Hinata said that…we shouldn't cross our thumbs while performing the ram seal. Is that true?"

He gave me a blank look. "Hn."

I blinked and glanced at the girls giving me irritated looks, seeming not to have found our conversation at all enlightening.

"Okay," I nodded quickly, "thanks."

I squirmed my way out of the crowd and back to Hinata, and reported to her what I'd discovered. She nodded knowingly, and five minutes before class was dismissed, Iruka-sensei finally returned.

And so it was that my first day back at the Academy passed uneventfully.

Or so I thought.

I entered my kunoichi class late, since I'd walked halfway back home with Sasuke before he'd asked to see my schedule, and I'd darted back to school with only a hasty "Shoot!" in response. Perhaps he'd said that on purpose to remind me of my after-school commitments, although then it would certainly be cruel to only mention it when we were halfway home.

I burst into the classroom after checking the room number on my schedule, and a curly-haired woman turned to me with a severe look on her face. She looked familiar, but I couldn't quite remember her name, so all I could stammer out was a, "I'm sorry, uh, Sensei! I forgot that…"

I trailed off as her severe look turned more severe. Her small glossed lips tightened to the point they were almost nonexistent, and with the light reflecting off her glasses like that, I literally couldn't meet her eyes.

"Uchiha Shiroko," she thundered, "you will not be late next time. Now. Get out your kimono and hurry. I want to see if you remember what we learned last week about how to properly wear a kimono and tie an obi."

Girls around the classroom were in various states of dress, and I quickly closed the windowless door. Curtains were drawn as well across the windows, transforming the classroom into a temporary changing room with the desks pushed to the sides and plenty of room for girls to scatter in the middle.

"Um, Sensei, I wasn't here last week."

"I know," she positively snarled, and I blinked. "Just wait on the side. If someone happens to have an extra kimono, see if they'll lend it to you."

I sullenly slinked away and scooted to the side of the room. A pink-haired girl I recognized from Iruka-sensei's class stood near me, neatly folding her own clothes away as she retrieved her kimono from her backpack, and she gave me a quick once-over before pulling on her kimono over her slim, toned body.

Well, all the girls were doing that, actually. I was doing it myself. It was an automatic gesture we did to see how competition was going. Clearly, my scrawny, shorter stature didn't help here, and a couple girls snickered at my plight when I glanced around the room and found…no one familiar. Not as if I knew anyone except Hinata, but it was expected that the Hyuuga clan head's daughter would not be attending such a lowly class—she was supposed to have more than enough ability that she didn't need to blend in and assassinate her target if that was her mission directive.

I sighed and turned toward the pink-haired girl. "Hey," I said. "Do you, uh, have an extra kimono I can borrow?"

She quickly shook her head. I nodded and mumbled something along the lines of "thanks, sorry," and scoped out the room again. There was a blonde I recognized from my class, although I couldn't quite remember her name either, and she was chatting animatedly with another girl as they dressed. Her blue kimono matched her light blue eyes, and the pattern of birds sweeping across the bottom was etched in white.

I gathered my nerves again and approached the pretty blonde girl. "Hi. Do you have an extra kimono I can borrow?"

To my relief, she grinned at me and without reserve reached into her backpack before tossing me a kimono in pink, piling a black obi on top of the mass of silk in my arms.

"Thanks," I smiled at her, and she tossed me another grin.

"I'm Yamanaka Ino," she said, expertly tying her white obi around her midsection. "You're Shiroko, right?"

Relief settled over me. "Yeah."

I fiddled with my clothing and then pulled it off awkwardly, stuffing it into my backpack as it left me only in my undergarments.

"Hey, grasshopper," a girl jeered, "how are you going to wear that kimono? It'll fall right off your little stick body."

I flushed and mustered a glare at her before looking away and ignoring any other taunts that came from her and her friends.

"And how are you going to wear your kimono? The obi's not even going to tie around your supple waist."

"Supple" put it kindly. Quite frankly, she was fat. The girl's mouth fell open before she burst into tears, and that drew the teacher's attention. Meanwhile, I gave Ino a similar look of shock that had been on Supple-Waist's face before she'd cried, and Ino rolled her pretty blue eyes.

"She deserved it," she declared. "And besides, I think you're pretty. Way prettier than her, you know. You should grow out your hair and then even I'll be jealous of your looks."

"Oh," I blinked. "Thanks, I guess. Uh…"

I floundered frantically. "Your kimono looks good on you."

What a stupid compliment. But she gave me a sweet smile and thanked me anyway, and then I smiled back and she offered to help tie my obi as Sensei gave a sharp warning to Ino before returning to the front of the room. I knew how to tie it—all girls in the traditional clans learned formality and manners as soon as they could walk and talk—but I gratefully handed her the obi to wrap tightly around my waist. I'd always found that part the hardest.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked curiously.

She gave me a conspiratorial snicker. "You see that girl, Sakura? With the pink hair? She's always trying to beat me. And she usually gets second place, but she brags about that a lot in Iruka-sensei's class, because Suzume-sensei always shows off the two girls in the top two places."

Oh, right. Suzume-sensei. That was her name.

Smugly, Ino said, "I'm almost always first place. But anyway, I can't let her think she's super good at all this since I was the one who taught her confidence and everything in the first place, so you just have to get second place, Shiroko."

I rolled the words around my mouth, afraid this would break whatever fragile friendship was forming between us, before I said them anyway. "And what if I get first place?"

Ino smirked. "Well, better you than her. But don't worry about that—if that happens, then you'll just have to make sure you let me get first place next time, right?"

Whatever came out of her mouth always surprised me—but they were nice surprises. In the back of my mind, I wondered if she was befriending me for her own purposes, too, other than out of the kindness of her soul, but then I realized wasn't that what we all did?—and it really didn't matter. She seemed to be a girl with higher social standing than I, anyway, and if she chose to be my friend, well, I wouldn't complain.

"There," she declared. "Perfect."

I offered to check her obi, and she turned around, letting me make small adjustments until all the creases were smoothed into perfection and all the sections of her obi were at the exactly correct length I remembered my mother instructing me they should be. She resumed conversation with a girl she called Miyako, and while I occasionally joined the conversation, I had very little experience with what they were discussing. Nail polish had never been a concern of mine.

A couple minutes later, Suzume-sensei called us to attention. Unsurprisingly, Ino was congratulated. And though I'd somewhat expected it, Suzume-sensei announced I had a very well-tied obi as well. I wasn't sure why she didn't mention that Ino had been the one to tie it—because while we'd attempted discretion by standing behind a couple desks and pretending we were rummaging through our backpacks, I doubted we'd fooled most of our classmates, much less our teacher. Strangely enough, no one had helped their friend, and even stranger, Ino hadn't offered to help Miyako. Perhaps Suzume-sensei was hinting that working together wasn't breaking the rules, and perhaps Ino was only networking, and she didn't actually like Miyako. Perhaps I was merely reading into Ino's minute facial expressions too much, or perhaps it was just because I didn't like Miyako's continuous complaints about how she always spent, like, hours when she was trying to make a really nice design on her nails, and that was why her nails were oh-so-gorgeous.

Class was dismissed, and I walked home after quick farewells to both Ino and Miyako. I entered the quiet house, trooped to my room, and tossed my backpack onto the floor before there—

Now I could finally say that my first day at the Academy had been…well, not necessarily uneventful, but definitely memorable. I smiled to myself and went outside to train with Sasuke.

…Come at me, bro. Throw all the questions/doubts you have about my ideas and this story at me all you want. (Of course, if you'd like to be nice about it, I would greatly appreciate it.) I'll provide you with as many explanations as I can, provided that you use your account when reviewing.

But if you have no problems, then please review disregarding what I just said. Thanks!

~Wobble Knife