A Never Ending Stream of Troubles

"Haro," Chiyoko said, "I'm heading off to the Academy now. We're going to be put into groups!"

"Hm, have fun." Haro distractedly continued scanning his papers.

"I think we'll be separated into groups of three. I wonder who my sensei will be."

"You'll find out soon, won't you?"

"I wonder who my teammates will be, too. I really hope Maki isn't in my group. You know how annoying she is."

"Won't you be late if you keep on chatting?"

"Oh... I suppose you're right. Okay, I'm going now! I'll introduce you to my teammates later!"

"Okay."

"..."

Was Chiyoko dreaming last night? She was sure that she heard him talking about a personal sensei. Perhaps the Hokage disagreed? Was this really a matter that needed to be discussed with the Hokage? The Hokage has many other things to attend to, Chiyoko was sure. Whether or not she got a personal sensei was no immediate concern of his. It's not like Chiyoko needs any special attention. Now, if it were someone special like Naruto –

Chiyoko stopped dead in her tracks. But she was special. She was like Naruto. She was a half-demon. Chiyoko had completely forgotten. The event with the Mizuki man and Naruto last night had distracted her. And now the news had hit her again. Everything she had read and everything Haro had told her came rushing to the front of her mind. What was she supposed to do now? How will she act, now that she knows that she is exposing people to a demon? Is Haro the only one that knows?

Shikamaru and Chouji were walking to the Academy. Today was the day they were going to be split into groups. As per usual, Chouji was snacking on his favourite chips and Shikamaru let out a yawn.

"It's ridiculous how early we have to get up for this." Shikamaru complained.

"Shikamaru, you say that for everything. Including times when you don't need to wake up at all, you complain about waking up 'too early'."

"Any time is too early. I'd prefer to go when I wanted to."

"Yeah, but when would you ever want to go?"

Shikamaru grunted. Chouji dug to the bottom of his chip bag but looked with sadness at the empty bag. He proceeded to take another chip bag out from his bag.

While Chouji rummaged for another bag, Shikamaru spotted a girl a few blocks down from them and a building or two away from the Academy. He recognized her as Chiyoko. She ruined their first day of hooky, cursing all of their later attempts because the senseis were keeping a close eye on them. For an unknown reason, she randomly stopped. Shikamaru stared at her, wondering what she was doing. He looked around, seeing if there was anything of extreme interest and when he found nothing, he looked back at the girl. She continued to stare at nothing with the most ridiculous expression. Not watching where he was going, he ran into a pole. Chouji took a few more steps before he realized that Shikamaru wasn't beside him. He turned around to see an annoyed Shikamaru rubbing his forehead.

"How did you do that?"

"Troublesome woman..." First, she takes away their hooky time, and then she distracts him and makes him run into a pole. This is why he doesn't like woman. They are nothing but trouble.

Chouji followed Shikamaru's gaze and saw Chiyoko, still standing still as a statue.

"What? What about Chiyoko?"

"I was watching her because she's standing there like an idiot and wasn't watching where I was going."

"Do you think she's okay?" Chouji looked back at the frozen girl, cocking his head to the side.

"Does it even matter? What she does is her own business."

"But what she's doing isn't normal. Maybe we should see if she's okay?"

"We don't have to."

Chouji sighed, "Sometimes your laziness can almost be called cruelty."

"I'm just being realistic and avoiding anything that could be troublesome."

Despite Shikamaru's stubbornness, Chouji continued walking. Shikamaru sighed. Not wanting to leave his friend, he followed Chouji. He would just wait until Chouji figured out how weird and crazy this girl was.

Chiyoko needs a plan. Now that she knows what she is, she must keep it a secret. Oh, the horrible things that the village would do if they found out. They could burn her. No, they would interrogate her, and then burn her, even though she didn't know much. They could take out her eyes and cut off her limbs, preserve her in a tank and dissect those pieces of her body. They could put her through multiple painful tests that would extract her demon abilities. They could humiliate her in front of all of konoha, kill Haro for knowing about her right in front of her eyes and then execute her (after pulling out her nails, shaving her head, plucking out her eyes, cutting off her toes and who knows what else!).

Wait. Chiyoko needs to calm down. She needs to be rational. She had never known this for twelve years, and she is still alive, her identity secret. Wouldn't it be just that much easier to keep her secret a secret now that she knows? Chiyoko started to feel better. She will deal with the actuality of being a demon later. Right now, she needed to keep her composure.

Chouji walked up to Chiyoko and waved his hand in front of her eyes. Chiyoko flinched and shook her head from side to side.

"Huh?"

"You were just standing there." Chouji answered (it wasn't really a question though).

"What?"

"We – um, I saw you standing here staring at nothing. I wanted to make sure you were okay... Are you okay?" Shikamaru had glanced sharply at Chouji when he said 'we'. Chiyoko didn't even notice the other boy until Chouji accidentally included him.

"Oh, um, yes. I'm fine. Sorry to worry you, I was just... fumbling with an insanely difficult riddle my father had told me this morning." Chiyoko bowed, "Sorry that you had to bother yourselves by coming all the way over here, I'll be going now." Chiyoko had only taken half a step when she was stopped.

"What's the riddle?" Shikamaru asked.

"Hm?"

"I asked, what's the riddle?"

Oh, good job Chiyoko. She was just congratulating herself on thinking of such a brilliant excuse. You just had to say something like that to the guy who is rumoured to have an IQ over 200. You suck.

"Ah, it – it's rather long, I wouldn't want to keep you waiting."

"We're headed in the same direction."

Twice. Of course they're going the same way. They have only been in the same classes since they were kids. Chiyoko sweat-dropped.

"Okay, um well," Damn it! Chiyoko thought, think of something! Anything!

"I'm pronounced as one letter, and written with three. Two letters there are, and two only in me. I'm double, I'm single, and I'm black, blue, and gray. I'm read from both ends, and the same either way. What am I?"

"That's not very long," Shikamaru remarked, "And it's simple. You're an eye." He pointed to his eyeball.

"Really? Oh, that makes sense. Thank you Shikamaru-kun! Haha." Chiyoko nervously scratched the back of her head. She already knew the answer to that riddle, but she had to say something. And there wasn't even a riddle in the first place. Chouji gave her a strange look. Shikamaru sighed.

"Let's go Chouji."

"Ah, right."

Chiyoko waited a few seconds before following them into the building. She felt dumber than a nail hit on the head. She couldn't believe how fast he had thought of the answer though. Maybe he had already heard of it? Nah, he would've said that he had already heard of that one. But still... Chiyoko looked at the back of Shikamaru's head. He really did have a working brain in that lazy body of his.

Shikamaru didn't like the start of his day. He runs into a poll and then wastes his time on a riddle told to him by the same girl who gave him a goose-egg. This was not the best way to start off this day. Or any day for that matter.

Chouji and Shikamaru walked into the classroom. They were soon followed by Chiyoko, walking in with a slightly depressed aura. She slithered into her seat and sunk as low as she could go. Conversation flitted around the room.

"Hey! You guys are late." Kiba said.

"Yeah, well. We ran into a... problem." Shikamaru said.

"In your dreams, boar!" Sakura hissed.

"Like you've got a chance of being on his team!" Ino screamed back.

[Guess who they're talking about?] Oh, how funny it was that they are sitting right behind him.

"Haha! The great Naruto, the next Hokage, is here!" I think that this is self-explanatory.

Naruto barged in with a victory pose, pointing at some non-existent thing in the air. In the next second, he noticed Sasuke, sitting calm and cool in his seat, as always. His expression scrunched up he stomped over, jumping onto the desk and glaring over Sasuke. This gave Chiyoko an unpleasantly close view of Naruto's ass. With the great entrance and sudden electricity between Naruto and Sasuke, the class was quiet and watching what would happen next. Chiyoko didn't notice this (partly because Naruto's butt was blocking her view of the class) and proceeded to get Naruto's behind away from her.

"Get your ass out of my face, baka."

Chiyoko pushed Naruto over to, what she thought was, the other end of the row. Instead, Naruto moved a little and then stopped. Gasps were heard throughout the room and one of the girls screamed. Chiyoko leaned back to see what had happened and witnessed Naruto and Sasuke's first kiss. She fell of her chair.

There was an outburst of angry girls, laughing and complete shock. While the girls were beating Naruto to a pulp, Chiyoko sat on the ground, her face exposed to another sweat-drop and lines of frustration and embarrassment. It was quite obvious that it was all her fault, and when she looked up, Sasuke was glaring at her. Unknowingly, she tapped into his feelings. A surge of anger, hatred and embarrassment assailed her. She winced and instinctively jumped up.

"I'M SORRY!" Chiyoko yelled.

Sasuke's face remained the same but he was surprised. Without waiting for a response from Sasuke, Chiyoko jumped into the fray of girls and managed to get the girls to pause their sabotage for a moment.

"Stop! STOP! Don't hit him." The girls stared at her with anger.

"It's my fault. I'm sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen. It was an accident. Can you all just chill?"

Chiyoko turned around and picked up Naruto, plopping him down in his seat.

"Yo, Naruto. Wake up! Be a man, you're not hurt that badly."

Naruto cracked one of his eyes open.

"Good. You're fine. Thank me later."

Chiyoko walked back to her seat. Sasuke was still standing when she got there. Everyone had gone back to chatting. She slowed to a stop right in front of the Uchiha, staring at him right in the eyes. His angry expression remained as they continued their staring contest. She sighed, whispered 'I'm sorry' and continued to her seat. Underneath all the anger and hatred, he was afraid. That Uchiha had some good intuition. She would need to be more careful around him in the future.

Their sensei came in soon after and started his introduction. Everyone had their own hopes for the group assignments.

Naruto, "Not with Sasuke. I can't work with him. He's my rival!"

Sasuke, "I would rather work alone..."

Sakura, "Oh, I really hope I'm with Sasuke!"

Ino, "Heh, Sakura, she's so hopeful. There's a one in a million chance that she'll be with him. And even if she is, I'll be the one to win his heart no matter what."

Hinata, "I really hope Naruto does well. It would be nice to be on the same team."

Shino, "..."

Kiba, "Time to show the world what Akamaru and I are made of. YEAH!"

Shikamaru, "This is such a drag..." [What did you expect? I really want to go swimming in chocolate with purple beanbags filled with shoelaces and have giant salamis as lawn chairs? :P]

Chouji, "It would suck if Shikamaru and I aren't on the same team."

Chiyoko, "I hate my life, I hate my life, I hate my life. Is it just me, or is everything going downhill? I wouldn't be surprised if my teammates are..."

The rest of Chiyoko's thought continues... in the next chapter (of course!)!

A/N: In case ya'll have forgotten, Neji, Lee and Tenten are not included in the grouping because they're a year ahead. I nearly wrote them into this chapter -.-" I know, noob mistake :P

^.^ Thank you for reading!