A/N - My chapters need to start getting longer so I don't have like 50 chapters.

Anyway, here ya go. Enjoy.

DISCLAIMER - I do not own Naruto

"Their meals here are pretty delicious," I commented with a sigh of contempt, my belly full. Lunch at Dawnstar left you pretty stuffed.

Hinata pushed the door open as we left, giving me a smile, "Yeah, it is pretty good."

With a glance around, we both watched as students chattered and walked about. But in the crowd we noticed two different school uniforms: One had a black sweater vest with a weird crest on the left side of the chest. Under the vest students wore a short sleeved white collar shirt with a green tie- which matched the crest. For bottoms they wore these loose baggy pants that were a deep off color green (like an army green) with black boots.

For the students who didn't wear that uniform, they looked pretty normal; Average school uniform with white and blue. It would seem the girls and boys in the battle type school uniform both wore pants while in the other uniform girls wore skirts and boys wore dress pants.

"Huh," I mumbled with a glance towards Hinata, "I wonder if we will be sent one. And why are there two different types of uniforms? Is one for Lorums and one for Certos?"

"No," Hinata answered as she stared curiously at the students, "This school has academics as well training. I'm guessing the students in regular uniform are the ones attending just for school. But I do believe Lorums wear that uniform as well. So technically you are right, the battle school uniform is probably just for Certos."

"Awesome," I grinned, checking out how cool they looked as they walked past, "I'm going to look so bad ass."

"Yeah, while I have to skip around in a skirt all day," Hinata replied with a grumble, "Lovely."

I laughed as we started to wander off. During our walk, I kept glancing around, making sure we could see the girl's dorm from where we were. The place was so big; I was worried we would get lost without having some sort of general direction of how to return. But our building was so tall, no matter how much we wandered it was still visible. Eventually, we landed ourselves next to a lake, which made me believe that we were now at the park.

I threw a rock in as Hinata stood and took in the scenery. As the rock splashed, I noticed that across the lake was a sudden flare of red and green energy. Stiffening, I stared.

"Hinata," I mumbled in warning.

"Yeah," She said softly, "I can't see their Ki, but I can feel it… so powerful."

Whatever was happening across the lake, it seemed to be escalating. As the two forces stood, gathering more and more Ki, the leaves and branches shifted around them. I watched as the green Ki rounded perfectly in a circle. The deep red energy didn't look as neat as the green. Instead, it flared at all ends, raging into the sky like spikes. Then, in a blink of an eye, a roar burst through the air as they both charged at each other.

"Take him down, Gara!" Yelled a girl. I shifted and saw someone standing behind the red force with a smirk on her face.

"Choji, show him who's boss!" With another shift, I saw a boy standing behind the green, his arms crossed with an analyzing expression.

The forces hit each other at full strength. The energy around them slammed and rebounded against each other, forcing a gust of air to speed our way. Trees around us wheezed and bent just by the sheer power of the wind. Without thinking, I turned to Hinata and wrapped my arms around her, my body shielding her from the gust.

I held her tight until it calmed down. Glancing at her, I checked to see if she was ok. She nodded, a bit shaken but otherwise fine. With a glare, I whirled back to the fight.

"Choji can roll all he wants; it's no match for Gara's Ki!" Yelled the girl from one end of the field.

"Too bad there is no strategy in simply using Ki as a wave of sand!" The boy shouted in response as both of the Certos darted for each other again.

"What the hell," I murmured, watching the Certos hit each other again and again, each time a blow of wind being thrust somewhere. Luckily, they were all pretty distant from us.

"What's happening?" Hinata asked from behind my shoulder because I had refused to let her be completely exposed to the fight.

"You can't see them?" I asked with a glance back.

"No," She shook her head in response, peeking out a little more, "They are moving too fast to see."

With a frown, I turned back to the battle. The round green Ki was tossed in the air, but as he fell, the energy started to spin like a huge ball hurtling towards the earth. On the ground, red Ki darted at each direction before making a sharp turn into the sky.

"BACK OUT NOW AND HE WON'T GET HURT!" Yelled the girl.

"Temari the day I forfeit a match to you, is the day I give up on life completely!" Yelled the boy in response.

"Shit", I mumbled, turning back to Hinata and wrapping my arms back around her.

"What?" She asked worriedly, but allowed me to tower over her.

"It's about to be a fucking tornado." I gritted while holding her close and shutting my eyes.

After a moment, though, nothing happened. I opened eyes slowly in fit of confusion. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw that now there were just four people grouped together, the boy and girl shaking hands as the Certos simple stood by.

"Good thing you aren't crazy," The girl joked with a grin.

"We'll get you at Lodus, don't worry." The boy replied with a smirk

Straightening out, I turned and frowned slightly as I watched the group disperse and go their separate ways. After a moment of silence, I mumbled, "Looks like they were just practicing. Jeez, how dangerous."

"How can you tell?" Hinata asked, finally stepping away from behind me.

I scratched my head and replied, "I heard them talking from here. They were actually pretty loud."

"Your senses are incredible," She mumbled. Over the past couple of days, she has stated that to me quite often. In response I grinned.

Then with a thought, I darted my vision to find the girl who was just fighting, "I wonder if they have a team."

"Don't you think you should be worrying about school first before joining a legion?" Hinata asked with a roll of her eyes. Even though she disagreed, she followed me as I started to walk across the lake.

"They looked pretty powerful, Hinata," I explained while searching, "If I can get in with them, I should be set. And maybe they are looking for a defense Certo. I'm grade A after all, I should be able to convince them to let me in."

"Sakura," she whined from behind, but I ignored her.

We eventually made our way around the lake and to the field where the two Certos were fighting. The ground looked scared and bruised from past battles besides the one that just happened. It suddenly hit me that we weren't at the park, but at one of the training areas. Turning to the right, I walked where I saw the girl last.

While there was an open field, there were trees all around us. It was through here where I saw the girl walking, and I hoped it was easy to find the main sidewalk if we traveled deep enough. To my absolute relief, the small forest wasn't thick at all and I could see students laughing and passing by. In the midst of the traffic stood the girl and her Certo.

But it wasn't only them, Ino and Naruto were there too.

"Hey!" I called, jogging up with a grin, "We thought we'd never see you again in this huge place."

"Oh hey!" Naruto grinned, waving us over as Hinata followed me, "Did you get to figure out what you were?"

"Idiot!" Ino scolded from beside him, "Why don't you ask how they are doing first."

His grin turned into a sheepish smile as he rubbed the back of his head, "I'm sorry, it's just our captain is desperate for a new member, and I've been trying hard for her."

"Oh," I nodded as I came to a stop in front of the small group, "It's no big deal, I understand. Anyway, I found out I was a grade A defensive Certo with natural Ki control!" My tone came out boasting as I grinned.

Naruto's eyebrows raised with a low whistle, and even Ino looked impressed. Hinata, on the other hand, dug her elbow in my rib, "Why don't you act a bit more humble?"

Wincing in pain, I gave a small smile, "Oh, yeah sorry."

"No, that is amazing! Grade A defense? You must retain a lot of yourself when in Mortem. Not very many can say the same," Naruto gushed with a twinkle in his eye.

In the middle of feeling like I was absolutely awesome, a girl's voice came from nowhere, "I'm sorry, you don't know me, but you said you were defense right? Have you already been recruited?"

I turned to the voice and saw a tall sandy blond hair girl with brown eyes staring me down intensely. Blinking, I shifted and said with some embarrassment, "Well no. We just got here see, so I haven't really been able to find a team."

"No reason to look any further," She pressed as soon as she was finished, "My name is Temari and I would like to formally invite you to Legion 7."

The announcement surprised me to the point of speechlessness. In my shock, Ino stepped in, "What the hell you guys? Seriously, why don't we ask her about her freaking day before we start talking about Lodus."

"This is what we've been looking for, Ino," Naruto pressed with a glance to her before giving me a desperate look, "We've been a member short for half of the semester. Our last guy completely left us with no word of warning. We've been out of competitions ever since. With you, we can get right back into it!"

I opened my mouth to speak, but Hinata stepped in, "Is your squad any good?" Blinking, I turned to her and gave her a look, but she only shrugged and explained, "You are the one who wants to get into a good legion. I'm just checking their status."

"We were pretty good when we had Shikamaru," Temari explained, not looking too upset about the question, "But he formed his own group and, like Naruto said, that kicked us down to only two Certos and two Lorums. You are required a team of 6 to compete, so you guys will be perfect."

I opened my mouth again, but Hinata stepped in another time, "What are your Certos like?"

Huffing, I rolled my eyes to Hinata, but she merely shrugged.

"Naruto here is pretty wild. His Ki is powerful, but hard to control. Maybe you've heard of him, he's known as the fox demon." Temari informed with a point at the grinning blond.

Blinking, I perked and gushed, "You are the demon fox Certo?"

He nodded proudly as Temari continued, "Gaara over here is my little brother and my Certo. He has some pretty good conscious and Ki control in Mortem. Instead of raging energy like Naruto, Gaara's Ki actually flows and pools outside of his body." I glanced over at the red head boy as she spoke. When he noticed my eyes, he gave me a small smile, but it was so faint that I might have imagined it, "It allows him to manipulate it, like into waves or sharp rods. He doesn't have a special name, but he's usually referred to as Gaara of the Sand, because of the way his Ki flows and shapes so easily."

"That's pretty awesome," I complemented. With a definite smile, Gaara thanked me.

"Lorum wise, I am the captain. In competitions, I'm usually the one to come up with the strategy. Ino over here is our distraction guru," Glancing at the small blond, she gave me a smirk. I smiled back, "It might sound pretty dumb, but honestly it's useful as hell. Um besides that, that's pretty much it. What about you two, do you want to explain a bit more of what you can do?"

"Oh, well," I started, looking at my hands as if they would suddenly give me answers, "I have natural Ki control. Shitzune said I'm able to gather more Ki at a certain point of my body. During my test, I almost smashed Kakashi to bits. She said that if Guy hadn't saved him, I would have crushed him and demolished the land."

Naruto did another low whistle while Temari nodded thoughtfully with a cross of her arms, "That's pretty impressive. Can you manage to gather your Ki and shoot it outward?"

The question stumped me. I opened my mouth with a confused 'uh' while Hinata stepped in for the save, "She doesn't know much beyond what was told her in this morning. I'm sure with some training and practice we could see what other skills she has."

I gave Hinata a grateful smile as Ino piped in, "And what about you, Hinata? Do you have any special talents?"

"None that I can think of…" Her gaze fell to the floor.

"No worries," Temari said with an assuring smile, "At practices we will see what you are good at."

"So… you will join us, Sakura?" Naruto asked, giving me a worried look. When I smiled and nodded, he fist pumped, "Finally! Legion 7 is back in the game!"

Even Ino was smiling as well as Temari gave me a grateful look, "You won't regret it. With some hard training, I think we can have our first competition about next month."

"So soon?" Hinata asked, sounding surprised.

"Don't worry," Gaara spoke, giving Hinata a smile, "Temari's training is elite. With her help, Sakura will be set for battles in no time."

I grinned in excitement. After the fact, Temari and Gaara had to leave. She said that she needed to file the paperwork to officially have me signed into the team and get me a uniform for the squad. Gaara naturally tagged along with her. With them gone, we were left with Ino and Naruto. They admitted to not having lunch yet and asked if we wanted to tag along.

"Well we actually just ate," I said with a meek smile, "If we would have known we'd run into you, we would have held off to eat with you guys."

"Aw," Naruto deflated as Ino gave us a smile and said, "No worries, we can always see each other at dinner."

"Actually, Sakura and I already unpacked and everything already," Hinata chimed with a smile, "if she doesn't mind, we can still keep you company."

When Ino glanced at me with a questioning eyebrow, I grinned and said, "Hell yeah, we would end up just sitting in our room alone anyway."

"Great!" Naruto shouted, wrapping his arm around with smile, "first rule of amazing team work is getting to know one another!"

"Honestly, can you talk about something other than Lodus for two seconds?" Ino asked with a roll of her eyes, falling into step as we all made our way to the cafeteria.

"Sakura was the same way," Hinata informed with a small laugh, "As soon as we ate lunch she wanted to find a team."

"Lucky you ran into us," Naruto boasted with squeeze of my shoulder, "Grade A defensives are picked up quick. Even Grade D defensives don't last long on the streets. Honestly, if you ended up talking with anyone else along the way, you would have been taken at the spot."

Looking over at the laughing blond boy, I smiled, "Well than it's good that we found you guys, and that we already knew you from the welcoming before."

"See Ino!" Naruto barked with a grin, "Greeting them as soon as they arrived turned out to be an amazing idea." Ino rolled her eyes, but couldn't help smiling as she admitted he was right. Laughing, Naruto turned to me and asked, "What is your favorite color?"

"Green," I replied. Naruto looked back at Hinata and she answered, "Purple."

"Mines orange!" He stated, "And Ino's is purple as well."

"Well clothing wise," Ino explained, "But other than that, I would say my favorite is yellow."

"Weird color," I teased with a smile, but she only poked back, "And green is lavish huh?"

I laughed as she smirked. We walked into the cafeteria, and thankfully it wasn't as crowded as before. It seemed they were only open for another half hour before lunch time was closed and dinner preparations started. In the emptiness, it was easy to find a table. Naruto and Ino sat on one side as me and Hinata sat on the other.

"So," I started, with a sudden thought, "I don't exactly know how Lodus works."

"Oh, it isn't very complicated," Ino stated as Naruto inhaled his food, "You see it's like a game of capture the flag."

"I heard about that," Hinata said carefully with her palm propping up her chin, "But you don't just capture the flag, right? There is something else you have to do."

"Yeah," Naruto started as he took a moment to breathe, "You see, you go against one other Legion. Each legion starts off on separate sides of the field. The field is filled with trees and two lakes on each side. The goal is to capture the enemy's flag and get it back to your base. The complicated part is doing it without losing."

"How do you lose?" I asked, leaning forward in interest.

"There are a couple of ways," Ino stepped back in as Naruto went back to eating; "One way is taking out the captain. That's an automatic game over."

"But Gaara does a very good job protecting her, it hardly ever happens," Naruto chimed as Ino continued, "The other way is taking out the other two Lorums- Well, it's a technicality not exactly an actual rule of winning or losing. Because, when you think about it, if the other team even touches the opposing team's Lorums, the Certos are pretty much guaranteed to lose focus and change course to save them."

I nodded, "Makes sense."

"Is there a way to stop that from happening if we do end up being caught?" Hinata asked beside me, also getting interested.

"Well," Ino started, leaning back in her chair as she thought carefully, "It's hard to say. The only way to keep a Certo from going ballistic about being touched is releasing their Ki. Then again, if you release their Ki, they are vulnerable for attack, which leads to another way of winning."

"If all Certos are taken out with opposing forces still standing, the team loses. Without Certos there is no way to fight against the enemy team, leaving you completely dead in the water, pretty much. No way to move forward or backwards. It's an instant game over," Naruto explained with a sip of his drink.

"Besides that, the only way to officially win is to have your flag and the enemy flag back at base. If the other team manages to take our flag while we took theirs, it's a stalemate until one of us manages to get the home flag back to win the game," Ino said with a huff and a cross of her arms, "Honestly; competitions are pretty much an all-day afar. Still, one game is maxed to an hour and a half, which is not very long when in Lodus."

"There are rules of no killing and no major injuring in the games," Naruto said as he pushed his plate aside, already finished with his food, "But that doesn't stop the teams from receiving some wounds and damages in each game. It's tough and brutal, but a lot of fun."

Leaning back, I glanced at Hinata and asked, "So, what do you think? Sounds like fun to you?"

Hinata gave me a small smile, "As long as you want to do it, I'm up for it. I just wish I knew how I could help in the games."

"We will find it out tomorrow," Ino assured with a smile, "Training is every day after school. So it won't be too long until we are finally getting to see each other's strengths and weakness."

"Sounds great," I grinned with a glance at Naruto, "And I can't wait to see what you are made of."

He laughed, "Yeah, well I wanna see what you got in that body of yours too. You seem powerful."

"Can you tell by smell?" I asked with a small smile.

"Yeah actually I can," He said with a grin, "Only a few other have the ability. I know this one guy, his name is Kiba, he has an amazing nose when it comes to scent and Ki. He's a bitch to fight against in competitions."

"Ah well, I can see your Ki." I informed, watching him perk at the information, when he asked if I was serious, I grinned and nodded, "Yeah. Are there a lot of people who can do that?"

"Not many," Ino answered with a smile, "Most people can just feel it, you know the shift and change in the air. It's pretty rare to find Certos who can sense Ki by smell or sight. There are some who can tell by touch, which I don't completely understand how that works. Oh, and there's a very very FEW who can tell by sound. I'm not sure how to explain it, but it's like a different hum to them. I think that's the coolest one."

"Yeah, that sounds pretty interesting," Hinata nodded.

"Doesn't matter," Naruto interrupted with an excited bounce, "Tell me what my ki looks like!"

I laughed and tried to explain, "It's red, but right now it's just little bubbles floating around."

He deflated at the description, "Seriously?"

Laughing again, I nodded, "Yeah, but it's like theses cool shades of red, all filled with Ki and energy. I feel like if one pops, a burst of power would suddenly explode. I can only imagine how it is when you are in Mortem."

He seemed happier about that description.

"Well, Naruto and I have to get going," Ino sighed as she stood up, "We have some homework due tomorrow that we would much rather have done before dinner, isn't that right Naruto?"

He only huffed as he stood up as well, "Yeah yeah yeah. It was great having lunch with you guys. We'll see you for dinner tonight, right?"

"Yeah," I nodded, standing up as well, "Just knock on our door before you head out and we can go together."

"Great," Ino said brightly, "See you later."

"Bye," I waved and watched them leave as Hinata stood up besides me.

Next chapter will include dinner and first day of training! Exciting!

Review, tell me what you think, all that jazz.

Shycadet loves, out.