A/N - Hey! Here ya gooo. I'm having a lot of fun with this story. I should look into making it a serious piece of work on my end. Until then.

This is allll for my enjoyment.

DISCLAIMER - I do not own Naruto


"What you must understand is that Lorums are regular beings," My fourth period teacher explained as he walked the isle, "They have no special power or abilities besides those talents that they were birthed with; Like, a knack for math or a special affinity for music- Which leaves them completely vulnerable in Lodus unless they acquire a skill."

I listened with my arms crossed on the desk in front of me. This class was so interesting I ended up raising my hand for a question which, if you asked Hinata, never happens. The class was about the safety of the game Lodus though, so I wasn't too far off with my question: What do Lorums do in Lodus- the deadly Certo game.

"Now, let's see," My teacher thought with a hum. He was huge gorilla of a man; spiky blue hair with fighting gloves on. He informed us his name was Asuma, a Certo of our other teacher Kurenai who taught nature appreciation, "Have you found yourself a Legion already Sakura? I know you just got in, but new Certos go fast."

I was a bit embarrassed he called me out directly in class. With a shifting glance around at my class mates, I smiled meekly and mumbled, "Oh, yeah. Uh, legion 7 picked me up just yesterday."

"That's good," He nodded in encouragement with the cross of his arms, "Mind telling us your type so I can give an example about the game Lodus?"

Ugh, maybe it was a mistake to ask a question. Turning to Hinata, who sat beside me, she gave me an encouraging smile which gave me the small strength to answer, "I am a grade A defense Certo with natural ability to control Ki flow. My Lorum is right next to me." I turned towards her with a small smile.

The class murmured around, amazed. Some even cursed silently that I was already taken. It seemed quite a few teams are pretty desperate for a defense Certo.

"Impressive," Asuma commented as he turned around to the rest of the class, "Now, what it means to be a grade A defense is that Sakura here retains a lot of her thoughts and brain function while in Mortem. The reason this is deadly is because while most Certos swing their Ki wildly like a beast and have no real motions but completely offense and destroying the enemy- Sakura here can control herself and think a bit more rationally. Believe it or not folks, it is possible for a Certo in Mortem to drain their Ki completely. With training, everyone can control the output, but Sakura will have an easier time controlling it without very much training at all."

Twisting to turn down another isle, he continued, "Now, before we go any further, we must understand that there are stages of Mortem." He sighed as he glanced at the time, "Damn, I'm getting off topic. But Sakura your question is such a good one." I gave him a meek smile, "Now the stages of Mortem are like levels of sanity. It sounds scary, but don't worry, it isn't as bad as it seems. A Certo can gather their Ki while still retaining themselves. Basically, they can gather Ki without going into full Mortem. Honestly, Mortem is a stage strictly used to protecting Lorums, but of course it can be activated at any giving time."

With a huff, he turned to me and scratched his head with a grin, "Now Sakura over here has her Lorum right next to her, very common. It's because new students lose their cool if they don't know the status of their Lorum. Same goes for any Certo. The moment they feel their Lorum is in danger, they lose it completely. But there are ways to be effective offensively without going full ballistic mode."

He turned and went to the board, grabbing chalk as he drew a terrible human body, "Don't laugh you fools, I'd like to see you try," He grumbled as he finished up, grabbing a different color piece of chalk to represent Ki, "Ki is just natural energy people are born with, but Certos have the ability to reach and use this energy. Now, you can still gather this energy and use it to move faster, punch stronger, jump longer! Mortem is used so your strong offense becomes a defense for Lorums, but in turn you lose your thoughts except for some people- like Sakura- which gives her the benefit of having a strong offense with thoughts of defense. Impressive." He noted again with a nod towards me.

Crossing his arms, he drawled, "Now, like I said, a Certo can still gather energy in a fight without going in Mortem, honestly it's the only thing that keeps the game Lodus effective without just a constant full out war of Certo on Certo. The levels of Mortem pretty much are based on how much you can retain your rational thoughts. I would like to think of it as three stages all together, but it could be argued as more if you do small steps instead of large jumps. Remember that, I'll ask you about it next class."

Huffing, Asuma looked back at me and smiled, "Now, back to your question. A Lorum has no powers at all, but with training they are deadly. I believe in your legion you have a Lorum named Ino?"

I perked at the name, and when he waited for an answer, I nodded eagerly. Chuckling, he addressed the rest of the class, "Ino Yamanaka, I'm sure you have heard of the name. That girl is a force, a deadly one, and yet she has no Ki flow to use- just a natural ability to obscure the enemy," Turning back to me, he informed, "Out of 50 games, that girl has effectively gathered at least one Lorum about 40 times- that's just a rough ratio. If she isn't nabbing the enemy teams Lorum to force Certos in Mortem and lose their objective of capturing the flag, she is somehow hacking into the enemy teams communication network."

I blinked, pretty surprised that the smiling blond was something so deadly. Hinata spoke up from besides me, "So we get communications in game? And do Lorums travel with no gear like Certos?"

"Yes there is communication- and no, Lorums get to travel with gear it is only Certos that travel with nothing but their Ki." Asuma answered while glancing at Hinata, "Now this is where talent comes in. I'm not sure if Ino takes a weapon, but I know your captain is very good with dual swords. You can tell she has either practiced with them while she was young or just has a knack for them, but her double swords are very deadly in fights. Of course they don't hurt the players, but she still takes them out."

"Some people use numb chucks," He drawled as he walked about, "Some have scythes. It's honestly up to the Lorum what they would like to travel with. Some use nothing but throwing weapons, others use arrows: All of it is a part of finding what a Lorum as a knack for."

Before he can go any further, the bell rang. Glancing at the clock, he informed, "Welp that's it guys. See you tomorrow, and remember what I said earlier about stages! I'm serious, I'm going to ask about it! Oh and Sakura" I walked over to see what he wanted, Hinata beside me as I came over.

He gave me a smile and went to his desk, pulling out these two knuckle knives from a drawer, "I just wanted to give you a tip, that's all." I stared in wonder as he titled the knives back and forth before putting them on. Then, with a quick flex of his arms, a burst of energy came out of them. His Ki was blue as it slithered and shot out through the blades. It even roared with wind as some papers started to pick up.

"See, Ki control allows you do things like this if you have the ability to project your Ki." He explained, releasing his Ki after a moment, "This can happen with any weapon, just the short ones are easier to maintain and control. Still, if it isn't too long of a sword, you could possibly do the same thing."

I looked up at him as he smiled, ruffling my hair, "I know you probably don't know if you can thrust out your Ki yet, but your ability sounds a lot like mine. I was just making sure I give you something to try when you are at practice. Of course you can't take weapons out with you in Lodus cuz you are a Certo, but it's still a nice ability to have. Life isn't always a game, so be ready for it."

"Thanks Asuma!" I said while feeling really excited about the possibility of being able to do something that cool.

"Nah problem, and Hinata," He turned, giving her a small smile, "I'm sure you don't know what you could do to help out yet, but if I may- Just by the looks of you in class and knowing your team, I would like to say that maybe you would like to try the bow."

She blinked, but Asuma only smiled, "It's delicate and requires patience. And you know, if strung and pulled right, has a force that would match any Certos Ki. Plus your team is in dire need of some long range attacks: ask Temari about it."

"Oh," she mumbled with a small blush, "Ok, thanks."

"I think if you guys run out of here now, you won't be late for your next class. If you end up being late though, just have them call me."

"Thanks again!" I said as we walked out. Looking over at Hinata, I grinned, "The bow and arrow sounds awesome for you. I think that could be your thing."

She gave me a small smile, "Well, yeah I think I could get into it with some practice. Mom always wanted me to try archery."

Hinata only ever called mother 'mom' when we were away from home. With a sudden thought as we walked down the hall, I suggested, "We should probably call home and let them know how we are doing. Even though it's only been a day, I'm sure they would like to hear from us."

"Yeah, I was just thinking the same thing," Hinata mumbled as we turned down a hall.

We were heading towards our next class, which was just a regular literature one. In order to get to it though, we had to take two flights of stairs down and go into hall D. This place was honestly a huge castle and students bustled all over the place. It was a bit crowded, and I had to dodge a few people with some apologies. But just as I narrowly missed someone, I ended up slamming against someone else.

"Hey, what the hell?" Shouted the girl I bumped into, her head phones that were on her ears fell to the ground in the process. The skull cap she was wearing managed to stay on her head, but it shifted a little.

Picking them up for her, I quickly apologized, "I'm sorry. I was trying to move past someone and I ended up hitting you instead."

She snatched her headphones with a glare, fixing her cap as she snapped, "Well next time pay a little more attention assho-" She stopped midsentence as her eyes widened, "Whoa there, who the hell are you?"

"Uh…" I shifted, my eyebrows scrunching at her sudden mood change. I glanced at Hinata who stood beside me with a frown before answering, "Sakura Haruno. I just came in yesterday."

"Yeah you are definitely new!" The girl gushed excitedly with a bounce, "Have you been recruited yet? Your power is incredible! I can hear it raging over all the others."

I blinked, "Hear…?"

"Oh," she shook her head with a smile, "Sorry. I'm Tayuya. I know it sounds weird, but I can sense Ki flow by sound," She held her headphones up with a meek smile; "It's why I carry these around. I have yet to successfully control my sensing so right now it's pretty hard not to scream at you over everyone else's Ki in my ears."

"We heard there was someone with that rare type of sense," Hinata informed with a smile, "That's pretty interesting."

"Totally not as great as you think," Tayuya replied with a huff, "Honestly it gives me a headache."

"It's hard to turn mine off too," I offered with a sympathetic smile, "I can sense Ki by sight, so you can imagine the strain it puts on my eyes."

"Sweet!" The red head gushed as she perked with the information, "How does mine look?"

"Um…" I started, giving her Ki a look over. Slowly, I tried to explain what I was seeing, "Your Ki is actually orange, well a mixture of red and yellow. It's hard to describe, but…" I stared with a squint of my eyes, "Well, it isn't something I can exactly see. It's like… the air around you vibrates as specks of yellow and red ki float around you… It… looks like music to be honest."

"Whoa," she stumbled with a sudden grin, "That's pretty amazing! Your sight of Ki is like a basic description of what my power is. I completely use vibrations in the air to thrust my ki out." She turned and dug into her bag until she pulled out a pretty worn out flute, "I usually use this to help, cuz' it's easier- But I can snap and even yell to project it. I pretty much use sound to fight with."

"That's an amazing ability," Hinata complemented, causing Tayuya to grin.

"Well, I have been recruited already," I informed with a smile, "and I don't exactly know what I can do yet. But yeah, your Ki power is pretty cool."

She bounced at the second complement, "Thanks! That sucks about you already being taken. The sound of your Ki is raging! It's like an electric guitar!"

I laughed at the description, but in the middle of our speaking, the warning bell rang.

"Aw fuck," She mumbled with a wary glance, "Guess we better get moving. Maybe I will see you at dinner?"

"Yeah!" I nodded, "See you around."

"Bye!"

Hinata waved after her as she left.

"A sound Ki user?" I mumbled to Hinata with a grin as we started to walk, "That is pretty epic."

"You will find what you are good at soon enough," Hinata murmured back with a smile, "I'm sure you are pretty special too."

X

"It's good you guys got here early," Naruto drawled as we sat in the locker room, waiting for Temari to show, "Our captain hate when we are late, even if she is."

I laughed as Ino pressed, "So yeah, make sure you guys are on time. She honestly turns into a raging bitch if we are ever late."

"Noted," Hinata assured with a smile, "Hyuga's are never late, so we should be fine."

"You know, I was wondering about that," Ino started with a turn to Hinata, "You are Hyuga from the famous house up north?" She nodded silently. "Wow, that's pretty amazing. How did you end up coming all the way here? There is a school only an hour away from you guys."

"My father wanted us in the best Certo school," I explained with a sheepish smile, "So we ended up here. It's surprising you know our family name though. I figured we would be ghost here."

Ino blinked and turned to me with a confused look, "You are a Hyuga?"

I nodded curiously, "Yeah… well adopted, but still apart of it."

"Oh," She gasped in return, finally understanding. With an apologetic smile, she explained, "I'm sorry. It's just that I know Hyuga are known for their fair dark blue hair, so when I saw yours I kind of… got thrown off."

"It's fine," I assured with a smile towards Hinata, "We usually get it all the time. No one thinks I'm her sister, just some close best friend or something. Either description is right."

"You know, Temari is from a pretty rich family as well," Naruto piped in from the bench he was laying back on, "Some famous house out in the eastern desert."

Just as he finished, Temari had strolled in. Her school uniform was already off and she was wearing her Lorum battle gear. Pressing her fists at her hips, she grinned and stated, "Alright maggots, ready to have our first official training as a team?"

Naruto hopped up with a fist pump, "Hell yeah boss, let's do it."

We were all dressed in our battle suits. Hinata may have been forced to wear a skirt all day, but her battle gear made me jealous. It was a nice sleek black material with straps at the back and at the hips to hold your weapon and any other thing you carried. She looked pretty bad ass with her boots and the tightly strapped knife at her right thigh.

Me, on the other hand, pretty much had the same thing without the straps or weapons. Instead, I just got the communication piece in my ear that was connected to my team. As we walked into the field, we turned all of them on.

"Testing," Temari announced in my ear, "Hearing me clear?"

"Yeah," I mumbled ahead, not sure where exactly I was supposed to be talking, "You can hear me fine too?"

"Crystal," Temari replied, "What about you guys? Good?"

"Yup." Naruto answered, already moving to one side of the felid. We were practicing on this huge gym that was a building but had dirt, grass, and trees inside of it. Temari said it was the sake of doing private training so other teams couldn't figure out what strategy we were going for.

"Roger." Ino answered right after Naruto, moving with him through the field."

"All clear hear, Temari." Gaara answered. I turned and saw him moving with Temari, which was further from me to the left.

"And I'm all ready to go," Hinata answered with the final check.

"Great," Temari said in confidence, "Now, today isn't really about strategy, but about Sakura and Hinata finding their skill. By the end of tonight's training, we will know their ins and outs. Ino, I'm going to need you to focus on Sakura, watch how she moves."

"Got it." Ino answered.

I shifted uncomfortably, glancing towards the way Ino had gone. She was now in a tree, sitting with a smile on her face. She wiggled her fingers at me; I'm guessing knowing that I can see her with my heightened senses, then the communication in my ear buzzed in with her teasing, "Don't worry, I'm sure you won't screw up too much."

I chuckled with another glance over to her. Temari started talking again, "I will be watching Hinata. I know you want to try the bow Hinata, honestly it's a great idea and I totally agree. Right now though, we need to test how you would act if you were under pressure."

"It's ok," Hinata replied, "I understand."

"Great," Temari sighed out, "On my count Naruto. Do exactly as we discussed."

"Roger." He stated in a cold flat voice.

I stiffened at the tone. With a frown, I glanced around worriedly and automatically started to bend into a defensive stance, "What exactly do you guys plan on doing?"

"Now Naruto!" Temari yelled, and after that communications turned static before cutting off.

"What the hell!" Suddenly growing pissed, I whirled to Hinata and yelled, "Run!"

"Be careful!" She yelled to me before turning and sprinting as fast as she could, not asking any questions on why I had commanded her to run. I was grateful she automatically trusted me, and with Ki churning inside of me, my energy started to spike.

From the distance, I saw Naruto coming at top speed, his red bubbling Ki forming some sort of shape around him as he sprinted. With a grit of my teeth, I warned with a yell, "Don't fucking touch her Naruto, or I will kill you."

"All part of orders, Sakrua!" He called back, his voice also rough and harsh.

"Not good enough!" I shouted, suddenly bursting with speed towards him. The Ki gathered at my legs without thought, giving me blinding speed. I ended up right in front of him in two seconds flat. He didn't seem surprised at the time it took me to reach him, but he did seem surprised when he threw a hard slash at my chest and nothing happened.

"-built up at the- she has ultimate defense." The communication in my ear went in and out. It was Ino's voice and she sounded in awe.

"Good try!" I growled, gripping his wrist and thrusting him up, moving to slam him against the ground.

"GAARA!" Temari shouted.

"ON IT! ARRRRAGHHHH!" A gathering of Ki spiked from behind me, shooting into the air. Seconds later, I was being knocked back with Naruto out of my hands.

It didn't matter. Twisting in the air, I gained my ground with my shoes digging into the earth. Sliding to a stop, it took only a second to recover and burst towards the two. In the midst of my running, my Ki spiked again, now slowly pooling out of my body- surrounding me in this fire shaped green energy around me.

"Attack her! See if you can make her take damage!" Temari commanded in my ear. Maybe they didn't know communications on my end came back up.

Naruto fox beast form Ki sprinted towards me while Gaara sat back and thrust two sharp spears of Ki at me. The spears reached me before Naruto, forcing me to duck and jump over them, but it put me off footing. Just as I hit the ground, Naruto attacked with another hard slash, this time his bubbling Ki extending its reach and hitting me right in the ribs.

Well, it would have hit me in the ribs if my ki energy didn't stop it from doing anything. With a bursting shout, I turned and swung my arm back, my Ki gathering to my hand as I aimed to punch him.

"Back out, now! That's going to hurt!" Ino yelled frantically.

"Fuck!" Naruto cursed as my fist swung for him, giving him no time to dodge.

Right before I could make contact, he was taken by Gaara's Ki, which flung him out of the way. My fist instead hit a tree that was next to us. It wheezed in pain before seconds passed and it exploded completely. Bark flew and darted in every direction as the tree cracked and slowly fell backwards.

"What the fuck…" Naruto huffed into the commination, possibly watching the huge beast of a tree fall towards the ground, "That could have been me."

"This is too deadly of a game to play with her, Temari," Gaara warned calmly, "She is too new to know the difference of taking a Lorum in game and real life trying to hurt her other half. We should stop while we are ahead."

"Imagine if you had honestly touched Hinata," Ino mumbled, the communication going staticy now, "Full Mortem mode with her would be like fighting a monster."

"Sakura," Temari cut in, "Can you hear us? It's over, you can calm down now."

My Ki slowly started to fall back into my body, my anger slowly simmering. With an exhausted little breath, I stumbled to a nearby tree and breathed, "Sorry guys, I just got really pissed."

"It was the point of the exercise," Temari assured.

"Sakura, are you ok?" Hinata asked worriedly.

I smiled weakly, "Yeah, just a bit tired."

"It looks like that defense of hers takes a lot out of her," Gaara commented as I stumbled back to the middle, where it looked like everyone was meeting, "but it's really useful. If we can get her to control it, to only use it in time of need, or just have spurts of energy block attacks where it's happening for that spit second- she will be a force no one could touch and her Ki would last longer."

Eventually, I reached the team. Hinata was the first to come up to me, her hands coming to my shoulder as she looked at me intensely. I gave another weak smile and assured I was ok, but that didn't ease her at all. Instead, she ended up taking my hand and pulling me back slowly to the group. Even when we got there, she didn't let go and her shoulder was pressed against my arm.

Beside me, Ino watched. Her eyes fell down to our linked hands, but she looked away when her vision flicked back up only to be caught my mine. I watched her interestingly as Temari spoke, "So it looks like you are honestly god tier defense."

I turned to Temari and chuckled as she gushed, "Your Ki literally pooled and formed a barrier outside of your body! You couldn't be touched, and that was when we could get a decent hit on you! I'm sure you didn't notice, but your movements were fast! It probably looked regular to you, but honestly you were darting everywhere! The two hits we managed to land were nothing!"

"One demon slash to the chest and one demon ki spike to your ribs," Naruto mumbled with a shake of his head and the cross of his arms, "Both are pretty hard hits if any damage was taken. If it was anyone else, they would have been on their ass hurt beyond all fuck. But you pretty much flicked me off and counter attacked me so hard that I was almost seriously injured if Gaara hadn't saved me. Twice."

"Because you were moving so much, it was hard to land my things too," Gaara spoke with a sigh, "I was throwing spikes, but at the same time I was throwing everything else at you. My Ki couldn't even touch you."

"All I saw were your spikes," I mumbled, frowning when I tried to think if I saw anything else.

"You were dodging them subconsciously," Ino informed with a cross of her arms, "Your focus was Naruto when Gaara threw his spikes- so when you dodged that, you also dodged three other attack WHILE looking at Naruto to attack. Like Temari said, you are god tier defense."

There was a squeeze of my fingers, "I told you that you'd be special," Hinata mumbled with a small smile when I looked at her.

"Uh," Naruto started, a small blush on his cheek as he admitted, "Communications are still up…we all just heard what you said."

I blinked, and with widened eyes I turned and watched Hinata go beet red. Roaring with laughter after her, I followed as she stormed off to the weapons part of the field.

Practice was easy going after that. Hinata needed practice with the bow, but other than that the team pretty much talked the rest of the time- all through communications. Ino sat in trees the whole time, jumping from one to the other with ease as she watched Nartuo gather Ki and fight against fake dummies that popped out of the ground. Temari looked to be working on some book with a map of the field as Gaara target practiced his Ki spikes on trees.

To entertain myself, I gathered Ki in my legs and went into speed frenzy. At some points I would jump and kick against a tree, allowing me to fly into the air but my landings were always rough. I noted that would probably be something I need to work more on. Other than that, an hour and a half passed pretty quickly and we were off to shower before dinner.

The first day of school was over.


Next chapter is going to be an Ino and Sakura chapter. Yay, finally. Get ready for it.

Review, tell me what you think. :D

Shycadet loves, out.