"Noo! Uh!" Hinata shot up in her bed.

"Something wrong, Hinata?" Aelita said drowsily.

"Oh, no, I'm fine," Hinata replied quickly. "I... guess it was just a dream."

"Oh, okay. Well, good night, then."

"Right."

Kiba bolted upright in his bed, looking around. "Just a nightmare, I guess," he said, wiping some sweat off of his forehead before laying back down.

"Mmm?!" Shikamaru's eyes quickly opened as he took a glance around. "What a nightmare," he mumbled, soon settling back into his bed.

"Hey, guys." Shikamaru set his tray down next to Odd.

"Hey, Shikamaru. I had the worst nightmare last night. Barely feels like I slept at all." The other two ninja stared at him.

"What?"

"I had a nightmare, too."

"And so did I..."

"That's weird. Did yours have some shadowy guy and the village up in flames?"

"Uh! Wow, ours must have been exactly alike..."

"That's just creepy. And on the same night, too. I wonder if it has anything to do with why we're here."

"Huh? What do you mean?" Jeremy interjected confusedly. "Didn't your parents enroll you or something?"

"No," Shikamaru replied. "My parents don't know I'm here. It was weird, I can barely remember a thing. I was back home, looking over some books Dad was making me read, and I dozed off. Something woke me up, I turned around, and next thing I know, I was at the edge of the forest and this Delmas guy was saying he'd been looking for me and pulled me into this place."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"Huh. I wonder what happened?"

"As for me, well, I just woke up in the forest... And the same thing with the principal..." Hinata twiddled her fingers.

"Well, what happened to me," Kiba started, "was Shino and I were out looking for Hinata--she'd been gone for two days by then--and then this creepy gray-haired guy popped up out of nowhere. Shino asked what he wanted, and the guy attacked him. So we were fighting, and he stuck his hand out and grabbed me. And let me tell you, that's not easy. But anyway, he grabbed me, I felt Akamaru jump up on my arm, and I blacked out. Came back in the forest, wandered closer to the campus, and, well, here I am."

"Whoa, weird," Odd commented, mouth full of the last of his breakfast.

"Yeah. I just thought you guys were normal students, but then there was that thing Hinata used, and the Shadow Possession Shikamaru used, and now this." Ulrich looked at Odd. "Or so I hear..." Odd nodded.

"But how could you possibly do those things, though? It seems like a logical impossibility," Jeremy started.

"They're just plain old jutsu."

"Huh? Jutsu? What are you talking about?" Ulrich asked, pausing before he but some hash in his mouth.

"What, are you serious?" Kiba responded.

"Yeah, I've never heard of anything called jutsu."

"Come to think of it, they never said anything about the chakra system at all in science," Kiba pondered.

"What are you talking about?" Aelita asked, wondering if this was all some bad joke.

"This place is weird. What, does anyone have jutsu around here?" Shikamaru asked rhetorically, leaning against the table.

"No, I really don't know what a 'jutsu' is," Jeremy replied honestly.

"Well, it's kind of like a spell. You concentrate your chakra through hand signs, different ones for different jutsu, and then, well, you get the jutsu..."

"Okay, but," Ulrich paused to take a sip of milk, "what's chakra, then?"

"It's the elemental life energy that we all have."

"So you guys can do energy manipulation?" Jeremy asked slowly, trying to analyze the new information.

"I guess?"

"Still sounds a little far-fetched to me, but..."

"Well, I'm officially bored." Kiba walked out of the lunchroom as Odd walked up.

"Hey, Kiba! What's up?" Odd called, running up to his new friend.

"Not much. I'm just kind of standing here, nothing to do."

"Wanna go hang out in the factory?"

"Sure, why not? Not like I have anything else to do. Let me get Akamaru real quick."

"Need to let him out to go?"

"No, he can do that himself. I just like being with him, that's all."

"Oh, okay. I'll meet you at the factory, then!"

"Kay, see ya!"

Kiba got his beloved companion before joining Odd just inside the factory. "So that's Akamaru, huh?" Odd said, petting the small white dog.

"Yup. So..." Kiba turned to look outside the building, "is this place really a factory or is that just a nickname for it?"

"It's a real factory, or, uh, it was at some point."

"Can we check it out?"

"No, one time Jeremy and I-Hey! Wait!" Kiba had already headed to the stairs.