Disclaimer: Writing despite being sick is dedication, however it is not a sign of ownership…

Chapter 54: Educational Experiences

It had been nearly two months since Sakura had convinced Gaara that he didn't need to follow her 24/7 and a month since the Kazekage had assigned Sakura her own private home tutor. The reason why she needed a home tutor was something Sakura didn't like to think about, but the fact of the matter was, all of the teachers other than Nakagawa-sensei were terrified of her (much later Sakura would find out that she had been wrong, even Nakagawa-sensei had been afraid, she simply hadn't acted on her fear). Sakura's teachers had ostracized her, all but ignoring her existence, and half of the students had followed in their footsteps. The other half of the student body looked at her with something akin to hero-worship in their eyes, but even they kept their distance, as if they feared her and loved her at the same time. Out of all of the children there, the only one who didn't fall into either category was Rei Higa. If not for how he greeted her the first time after her return to school—he outright hugged her—Sakura would have thought that the boy hadn't changed at all.

Rei continued to call Sakura 'Pinky' and, as before, he still had a habit of ignoring his fellow students when they told him to avoid her, claiming that he wasn't a fraidy-cat. He also was still in the habit of picking on Sakura, just as if she had never left, but immediately Sakura had realized that something was different. Although he still called her silly names, gave her little shoves, and stole her things in sudden games of keep-away, his actions no longer felt hurtful. If anything, they made Sakura feel relieved because it meant he hadn't changed how he felt about her. By the end of her first day back to school, Sakura had even realized that Rei's actions, which she had taken as bullying before, were actually just because he was awkward at expressing himself around her for some reason (she guessed it was because his parents had told him not to like her, but she wasn't sure). What Sakura was sure of, though, was that Rei just wanted to play with her, no matter what anyone else said. Sakura wasn't quite sure how she came to understand this, but when she looked back to their previous encounters, it seemed so obvious she wondered how she could have missed it.

Unfortunately, two semi-friendly presences at school were not enough to make it a welcoming place. It had been made even less so when it was decided that, since Sakura had missed so many classes, she should be given tests in all subjects to see what she might need to catch up on. The test had been overseen by Nakagawa-sensei, who had warned her that she would be watching and that if she thought Sakura was purposefully making mistakes, she would be in big trouble. It wouldn't be until later that Sakura would recognize it as an empty threat, and by then it was too late; she had dutifully done as she was told. The tests took three days and covered more subjects than Sakura remembered having faced in class, but she still did her best. The fact of the matter was that, by the end of those three days, Sakura felt stupid because so much of what had been on the tests—especially the latter tests—had been almost too difficult for her to do. When she had asked mid-test, Sakura had been told that these were all things that had been taught while she was gone and that, although she wasn't expected to know everything, she was expected to do everything to her utmost ability.

Nakagawa-sensei had lied.

More than ninety percent of what had been in those tests were not things their class had covered, or even would cover that year. Most of it was advanced materials…and because of Nakagawa-sensei's lie, Sakura had worked on them seriously and had made herself stand out even more than she already did. Unfortunately, the pink haired child realized this when it was too late to do anything about it…and she would have hated herself for it if Nakagawa-sensei hadn't given her such a proud smile at the end of those three days. Instead Sakura felt strange. She had always tried to fit in, but now people seemed determined to set her apart…as if that was where she belonged…and she wasn't so sure she wanted to be separated.

Sakura didn't realize how isolated Nakagawa-sensei was planning to make her, though, until she happened to come across a folded paper the older woman had dropped. Sakura had planned to give it back right away, but Nakagawa-sensei was headed into a meeting with Sakura's parents, and the little girl didn't want to draw any unnecessary attention to herself. And so Sakura had sat down where she had been told to wait, fighting the temptation to peek at what had been written on the paper. It wasn't long before Sakura's boredom proved stronger than her integrity. Looking at the paper, Sakura started reading, and after the first few lines, she felt convinced that the unnamed 'she' mentioned in the paper was referring to herself. The reason for this deduction was the fact that the note seemed to be cataloging 'her' scholastic skills as determined by 'the tests'…and as far as Sakura knew, she was the only one Nakagawa-sensei was testing like this, so she had to be this 'her'.

At first Sakura was distressed by the note because it started off by stating that 'her' handwriting was atrocious and that 'she' totally lacked any artistic ability, even for a child of five. Skipping down to the next paragraph, Sakura found that Nakagawa-sensei felt that 'she' did not know many science and math facts but that 'she' was able to do much more than was expected via deductive reasoning and dedicated hard work. Sakura wasn't quite sure how she felt about this, but she practically glowed when she read that 'she' had amazingly high reading and comprehension skills. There was also a note beside this statement about something called photographic memory, but Sakura didn't know what that was, so she skipped over it to the next paragraph.

Sakura had been expecting to see something about 'her' scores or further breakdown of 'her' abilities; what she had not been expecting was for there to be a section titled: Emotional Assessment. It was short, but stated quite clearly that 'she' had grown emotionally in the time 'she' was gone but that 'she' was still more emotional than many 'her' age. It also mentioned that there was potential 'she' could be bullied and that between that and the results of something called an IQ test, Nakagawa-sensei thought that 'she' might do better in a different environment. It ended by recommending that 'she' not return to the public school system. Reading this, Sakura had felt her heart break, thinking it meant she was too stupid to be worth teaching.

It wasn't until Nakagawa-sensei came back to look for the note and found Sakura crying that she found out that the woman meant quite the opposite. It didn't stop her from crying, though, it simply made her cry for a different reason. It had been then that Rei had come out from one of the other teacher's rooms, looking as if he had just been lectured—which, knowing him, he probably had. The moment the sandy haired boy caught sight of her, though, he stopped in his tracks and stared. Sakura had immediately swiped at her face, but it was impossible to hide that she'd been crying. Rei even said so. Nakagawa had looked between the two of them, and then after a few moments, ordered the boy to take Sakura out to play on the playground and warned him to play nice or else.

Rei did end up escorting Sakura outside, but he couldn't get her to play no matter what he did or said, and in the end he just sat beside her on the swings and asked her why she kept crying. Her answer made him indignant for some reason and he tried to encourage her to refuse to leave school. But Sakura could only shake her head and sniffle. She had repeated what Nakagawa-sensei had said to her about IQs of 143, personal attention, and fewer bullies, but Rei didn't seem to understand the woman's explanation any more than Sakura had. What he did understand, though, was exactly what she did: that the choice wasn't hers; the difference was, he felt that she should still try to get her point across whereas Sakura didn't want to get hurt any more than she already was. After that, the two of them sat in awkward silence until her parents came to get her. It was as she had taken her dad's hand that Rei had suddenly jumped off his swing and shouted at her.

"Fine! Leave without a fight! See if I care! Stupid Pinky!" he then turned around and ran away.

Although he had sounded angry, Sakura could read the boy's eyes even more readily than she could Kirsche's. As her mom had come up beside her mumbling something about rude boys, Sakura had shaken her head, and when her parents started leading her home, she glanced back over her shoulder to where Rei had disappeared and whispered a thank you. It was thanks to him that Sakura knew there was at least one person at school who didn't want her to leave…and somehow, that made the fact that she might not be returning to school bearable.

In the end, it turned out that the decision about her schooling was made not by her parents, but by the Kazekage. Nakagawa-sensei had apparently been writing that note for Katsu, and after having read it, he had decided she was right, and that the best thing for the village's peace and safety was to keep Sakura away from those who might hurt her and to simultaneously encourage her intellectual growth. A few days later, Sakura had found out that he had assigned Nakagawa's own twenty-something-year-old son, who had just completed his own higher education, to be Sakura's new home tutor. Sakura hadn't even known the prickly older woman had a son.

After a week of studying under Susuma Nakagawa, any regrets she might have had about not going back to school were forgotten. Susuma was just as strict of a teacher as his mother, but unlike the older woman, he was a gentle type of strict. He didn't care if she called him by his first name or if Sakura wanted to skip the steps in math that she felt were unnecessary (though he refused to let her skip steps in science, which later she would be thankful for), and if she got done early, he would let her go out to play. Unlike some of her teachers back at the school, Susuma also never made her feel stupid or hated and was always willing to answer questions, no matter how silly or unconnected they seemed to the lesson.

The only downside about the man, as far as Sakura was concerned, was that he went white and ended the lessons early whenever Gaara decided to visit. The fact that he was running from Gaara was clear, but the red head didn't seem to care, and after the first few times Sakura pouted at having had her lessons cut short, Gaara had even offered to wait to appear until after the man had left. For some reason, Gaara's wording had made her picture him just sitting beside her front door until her tutor walked out. Not liking that thought, Sakura Instead had suggested that they meet at the park when she finished; that way he wouldn't be bored while he waited. He had agreed without a second's pause. After that, they fell into a similar pattern to what they had done long before Sakura had ever left for New Suna, and Sakura felt quite content.


The day of the particular incident that made Sakura question the events of the explosion started the same as any other day, with lesson. As occurred half of the time, Sakura finished early and Susuma let her go out to play while he stayed behind to talk to her mother about her progress. Normally Sakura would have headed straight to the park to meet Gaara, but that day the little girl remembered that her dad had said he would be having guests over at his workshop and that he wanted her to meet them if she got done with her lessons in time. And so Sakura decided that Gaara wouldn't mind waiting a few minutes for her to go meet Shin's guests. She doubted they would like her—few people in Suna did—but saying hello was the polite thing to do.

By the time she arrived, there was only one man in the workshop with her dad. Shin's guest was a surprisingly polite man who was dressed as all Suna ninja seemed to dress. The man greeted Sakura with a smile and a complement on her eyes. They talked for a short while, with Shin explaining that this was an old friend of his who had children her age. The man eventually asked her if she wanted to be a wood worker liker dad when she grew up, and Sakura had to shake her head and explain that, not only was she bad at art (and working wood sure seemed like art to her), but she wanted to be a ninja when she grew up. That startled a laugh out of the man and just plain startled Shin. The man asked her why she wanted to be a ninja so badly and Sakura answered boldly that she wanted to be able to protect her best friend like he protected her. This seemed to sober the man up—perhaps because he realized who her best friend was—but even so, he still smiled as he explained that there were many ways to protect people even if you weren't a ninja. It was at that moment that Sakura knew this man, like so many others, would be one of those who said she shouldn't be a ninja. Still, she couldn't dislike him…she just wouldn't be asking him to be her ninja teacher.

They talked for a bit longer, but eventually Shin told her to run along and meet her friends. Sakura did leave, but she had to stop just outside the door to tie her shoe, and because of that, she overheard the man speaking to her dad, "It's true what they say, she really doesn't take after you; at least, not in appearances. It's no surprise that so many people seem to doubt your claims to paternity—heck, even my wife has voiced her concerns…but now that I've met her, I have no doubt that she's yours. She has some of your mannerisms, did you notice that? I remember when you were little and you wanted to be a ninja like me. You were what…six…seven? You were always such a serious kid." The kind man chuckled and then added a bit more soberly, "Too bad it's not meant to be any more for her than it was for you. I'm afraid that, given how uptight Katsu is about keeping her from harm, let alone the fact that her mother was an outsider…well, Old Mrs. Fukuyama will never let her into the academy to learn the ninja arts, not without the Kazekage's direct orders to do so, and the chances of that are…"

Sakura had heard enough. Getting to her feet, she ran away from Shin's workshop. Strangely, as she ran, Sakura realized that she wasn't hurt by the man's words so much as angered. She would to be a ninja, no matter if this Fukuyama or the Meany-head tried to stop her! She would become a ninja on her own if she had to. As she ran to the park, Sakura's thoughts flew to Aniki. She still hadn't found him yet. Sakura had been looking for her big-brother figure throughout Suna ever since she'd been released from the hospital, and his absence was starting to hurt her heart. Sakura had to keep reminding herself that he might be out on a mission and that, since he was undoubtedly one of Suna's best ninja, he wouldn't die. She would find him one day, of that, Sakura was sure. Her hope was that when she did find him, he'd agree to be her ninja teacher. She always conveniently forgot that in order to have a ninja teacher, one first had to be a Genin, and that her promise with her big brother figure had even included the stipulation that she already be a Suna ninja before he'd teacher about the Chakra strings. Sakura liked to believe that finding Aniki would solve everything, however, and so anything that informed her otherwise was to be ignored.

Sakura reached the park where she was to meet Gaara, her heart feeling a little lighter, only to find that the red head wasn't there; Kankuro was, though, and so Sakura ran to meet him even though he was playing with a number of other boys his age or older. That was Sakura's first mistake. Kankuro wasn't happy to be interrupted by a girl in front of a bunch of boys he was trying to impress. Sakura's second mistake was to ask Kankuro where his brother was in front of said boys and that she was expecting him to have been here already. Some of the older boys went white, just as Susuma did, others got angry. One of the oldest boys pushed past Kankuro, who tried to stop him, and got up in Sakura's face. The older boy spat out that he thought foreigner trash like her was good for nothing but being monster bait. To add injury to insult, he then pushed her hard enough to make her fall.

For a moment, landing on a half-healed bruise threw Sakura's mind into disarray as she squealed in pain, but as soon as the girl realized that the boy was talking about Gaara, she instantly forgot her pain and instead became angry. Sakura almost felt ready to get up and hit the older boy—who was still bad mouthing the pink haired child and threatening her with violence even though most of the other boys had joined Kankuro in trying to pull him away from her—when someone else did it for her.

When Rei had entered the scene, Sakura didn't know, but he smacked the older boy's face with all his might, then ducked expectantly at the same moment the angry boy tried to hit him back. Leaping out of range, Rei put himself between the other boys and Sakura, and, with hands on his hips, stated loudly, "Stupid Bunta! What would Auntie say if she knew what you were doing?!" This actually seemed to make the older boy stop and think, because he quit fighting the others' hold on him and his face even went slightly pale after a time. Although Rei was standing in front of her, Sakura could hear the grin in his voice as he added, "Thought so. Didn't what happened to Sora teach you anything?" It took Sakura a moment to realize why the name sounded so familiar. It was the name of the girl who had broken her hand all those months ago, the one who had apologized afterwards. By the time Sakura understood this, Rei was already speaking again, "…you're even stupider than her, though. At least your sister knew whe—"

The older boy was angry again, and this time the other boys were too caught up in the argument to think to tighten their grip. Bunta broke away and shoved into Rei, knocking him off his feet and dragging Kankuro (the only one who was still gripping his arm) down with them. Unfortunately for Sakura, she was still on the ground behind the sandy haired Rei, and the boys fell on top of her. This time she did more than squeal in pain; Sakura outright screamed as an elbow or a knee—she wasn't sure which—slammed into her stomach. The little girl was puking into empty space before she realized why there was suddenly no one near her. Distantly Sakura could hear shouts in the background, one of which sounded like Yashamaru telling Gaara to 'put them down', but Sakura couldn't be sure, because her ears were ringing and she was seeing stars.

It was as her breath came back to her that Sakura fully understood her situation. Gaara's sand had caught the three boys up and was hovering all around her as Gaara ran to her side. His face wasn't set with worry, however, as Sakura would have expected from her best friend in the world, given the situation, nor did he look disgusted that she had just vomited due to the gut-blow. Instead, his face was awash with rage. Strangely, although he had run to her side, he wasn't looking at her at all. Instead Gaara was glaring at the boys suspended in his sand. If it had been anyone else, that amount of pure anger would have terrified Sakura; instead, as soon as Sakura could draw in enough breath to speak, she was speaking out on Kankuro and Rei's behalf. Later Sakura would feel terrible about not caring for Bunta's safety, but just then the older boy's cruel words about herself and Gaara were too fresh in her mind. This was her third mistake. Her words of calming and dispersal of blame, claiming it was all an accident, left an ember of doubt in Gaara's mind. Still, he did release all three boys when she asked him to, though he wouldn't apologize for scaring them nor did he allow her to stick around and let them apologize to her.

Sakura's fourth mistake, however, was worse, and it wouldn't come until much later. At the time, though, what Sakura got out of the event was two things: First, that Kankuro might very well hate her. After all, his parting words to her as Gaara had tugged her back to where Yashamaru, his ninja guards and Temari were waiting was: "I don't know why dad didn't just lock you up where you wouldn't cause trouble like this!" That statement had made Sakura feel as if she'd been slapped, and Kankuro hadn't stuck around long enough for Yashamaru to make him apologize. He had run back after his departing group of friends. The second thing Sakura realized due to that day's events was that there was definitely something different about Gaara, almost something wrong, and that she needed to find out what it was, or at least what to do about it.

Thinking about it that evening as she lay in bed, Sakura realized that she actually had a way of finding out what might have caused Gaara to change. Unfortunately, it meant that she would have to use her Kekkei Genkai to look into the past…something she had been avoiding since her return. No matter what Kirsche had said, Sakura constantly felt responsible for Keiko's death. If she hadn't tried to See her future, maybe Keiko wouldn't have faced such a terrible death…and if she hadn't tried to See Aniki in that graveyard, maybe she would have gone straight back to the inn, maybe she could have saved Megumi's life…and even if she hadn't…at least Aniki wouldn't have ended up so badly hurt…she had Seen that much after all…after the fact…when it was way too late.

Other such worrying thoughts weighed upon Sakura's mind as she came up with excuse after excuse for why she should not try to See anything. In the end, Sakura was afraid of her own abilities, and that fear was both tiring and unproductive. She felt she knew what she should do—it really wouldn't take long to just take a peek into the past—but she really didn't want to. Over and over her mind repeated this discussion as her eyelid drooped.

Sakura was so caught up in her thoughts, not to mention she was already half-asleep, that she hadn't realized a visitor had just snuck in through her window until she heard Gaara ask, "Where'd you get that necklace?" Her chain of thoughts were instantly broken.

If Sakura hadn't been so tired, she might have jumped in surprise. Instead she simply queried sleepily from where she lay, "What necklace?"

"The one you're fingering."

It took Sakura's mind a moment to understand what he was talking about. She hadn't even realized she had nearly fallen asleep with Megumi's present still wrapped around her neck. Unwilling to even think about getting up again, Sakura didn't bother untying the necklace whose pendent she apparently had been touching all along. Fighting to keep her eyes open, Sakura answered her friend honestly. "Megumi gave it to me. She was my dad's mom…but she's dead…I didn't know, though…until…the graveyard…her specter…" It was then that Sakura's fight with her eyelids failed, and she drifted into sleep without finishing her explanation. Gaara shrugged, used to Sakura's sleeping habits and merely crawled onto the bed beside her. He didn't sleep, but when he was near her like this, he almost felt as if he could.


Unbeknownst to Sakura or Gaara, Shin was standing just outside her door, a perplexed look on his face. On previous nights when he had come up to tuck Sakura into bed, he had heard her mumble what sounded like names, two of which he knew: Karura and Keiko. Both of them were dead, and Shin had been pretty sure that no one had told her about Keiko—he couldn't be sure about Karura, since Sakura was friends with her children, but he doubted they would have called her by name, either—and so he had been wondering where she had heard of them. Now he had a bit of an idea. Although he had never been told where Sakura and Kirsche had disappeared to for nearly two weeks—aside from the fact that even Sakura assured him that she hadn't left Suna, despite what it might have seemed like—he now had a guess.

Sakura knew the dead. And if she hadn't just been talking in her sleep, she didn't just know them: she had spoken to them and perhaps even received something from them. Although it was hard to believe, Shin had never been one to get overexcited or worried about odd happenings…especially those that couldn't be avoided. Besides, there were certainly stranger Kekkei Genkai than being able to interact with the dead.

What worried Shin more than Sakura speaking to the dead was the fact that the little boy had snuck into her room again. By now Shin was aware that the ninja he had given permission to secretly watch over Sakura would not interfere with the red head's comings and goings—although they never said so, Shin had a feeling they were afraid to confront the boy. Therefore, Shin knew that the task would fall to him…he was really going to have to find a way to convince the boy that entering a sleeping girl's room was not the best idea…before it became a habit. After all, what might be considered cute and acceptable at age five would not remain that way forever…and even if Shin wasn't her biological father, Sakura was still his daughter.


Three weeks passed without incident and Sakura nearly forgot that she had ever thought she might need to use her Kekkei Genkai. Nearly was the key word, though, because even though nothing happened, there were multiple occurrences that reminded Sakura that there was something wrong with her best friend. The worst 'non-event' that happened in those three weeks happened because of Kankuro's growing disenchantment with Sakura. Ever since the event with Bunta, Sakura had been trying to make it up to Kankuro, to be friends again, but everything she did only seemed to anger him more, and Sakura couldn't' figure out what she was doing wrong. Gaara had noticed her distress one day and outright asked if there was anything he could do to help. Since Kankuro had been avoiding her, Sakura merely asked that he help her search for his brother.

They found him, but as had been the case recently, he wasn't alone. Kankuro was discussing puppetry with Bunta and Rei's older brother (the two of them had never been introduced, but Sakura had seen him pick up Rei and his twin sister after school often enough to recognize him). Sakura's instant reaction to Kankuro's companions was to turn right around before they saw her. She wanted to make up with Kankuro, not get into another fight with Bunta or be ridiculed by Rei's older brother, who seemed to hate her. Unfortunately Gaara was standing right behind her, and she didn't want to seem like a coward, either. Just earlier that day she had been explaining to her best friend that she wanted to be a ninja and protect him just like how he protected her. Gaara had smiled that smile she had been seeing less and less lately…and so, since Sakura didn't want to disappoint her best friend in the world, she squared her shoulders and strode forward.

Things went worse than Sakura expected…and the problems that came up were not the ones she had been expecting. Sakura had expected Bunta and Rei's brother to be rude or cruel, and she had been planning to ignore them as best as she could so that she could reconcile with Kankuro—she had even quickly come up with a contingency plan just in case they said something that made Gaara's sand start moving. But her expectations were not met because the little girl had forgotten one major thing: Gaara was still standing right behind her. Rather than get nasty, both boys took one look past Sakura, saw her companion, and then bailed on Kankuro. This did nothing to help Sakura's goal of reconciliation, because when Kankuro turned to look at her and Gaara, his face was livid.

That was the beginning of a shouting match between all three children that quickly turned into a hitting match between the two brothers. The fight didn't get out of hand for two reasons. The first was that when Sakura tried to break up the sudden outbreak of fisticuffs, she was accidentally backhanded…by Gaara…who froze the instant he realized what he'd done. The second reason was because there was suddenly a veiled ninja pulling Kankuro back from Gaara, making it so that the boy's kick hit only air. Indignant, Kakuro had turned his ire on the ninja, but the veiled man just held him out at arm's length until Kankuro ran out of energy, then set him down with a stern warning for both boys, stating that he wouldn't tell their father this time, but if it happened again…

The ninja had left without finishing his warning, but Sakura took up his place, lecturing both boys about brothers fighting brothers and how it was silly and shouldn't happen—at least, not real fighting, not like what just happened—and that they were lucky the ninja was nice, because she knew they'd have been grounded otherwise. Neither boy looked like they quite agreed with her, but after mentioning how they'd almost hurt her as well as themselves, she eventually procured their promises not to do something like this again. Although it took a lot of wheedling, Sakura even managed to convince Kankuro to join her and Gaara in a game of tag that later expanded to include Temari.

It hadn't been until she was walking back home with her aunt, replaying the game of tag in her head, that Sakura realized there had been a strange pattern to the game. Although they had all been playing tag…she was the only one who'd ever caught Gaara. Maybe he had simply been too good at running to be caught…that was what she'd prefer to think, and given the fact that she knew he had let her catch him at least twice when she had started getting frustrated, it was actually possible…unfortunately, once she started thinking about it, her bright young mind could come up with one other equally possible explanation…but Sakura hated to think that there was a rift forming between siblings and instead chose to believe the first option as fact. Therefore, instead of worrying more about the changes in Gaara, Sakura instead allowed herself to feel proud with her best friend, both for his good running skills and for his willingness to make up with his brother.


That evening when her parents asked her how her day had been, she had beamed and given them a glowing rendition of her view of the day's events. She did not, however, bring up Gaara and Kankuro's fight. She did not want her friends to get into trouble. That night Sakura fell asleep feeling more at peace than she had in days, thanks to Kankuro's having finally played with her again. If Gaara came to visit her in her sleep, he left no evidence of it. Sakura thought nothing of it, but her dad seemed oddly relieved when he came in to wake her up the next morning for her lessons before he went to his workshop. When Sakura had asked her mom why he had looked that way at breakfast, though, the silver haired woman merely gave a small smile and shook her head before changing the subject. If the new subject hadn't involved Temari and a sleepover, Sakura might have kept up her questioning. Instead, Shin's odd behavior went straight out of her mind as Sakura started planning what she and Temari should do at their sleepover.

That day the much anticipated sleepover dominated Sakura's thoughts, distracting her from her lessons. Because of this, rather than being released early, Sakura's lessons ran late and Susuma even gave her a brief lecture on attentiveness before he released her into the world. Susuma might as well have saved his breath, because Sakura only heard enough to know that what he was saying wasn't a part of the lesson before her mind had fluttered away. Sakura was halfway to the park when something broke her out of her daydreams rather abruptly. In the blink of an eye, Sakura's hair was in her face and her ribbon was in Rei's hand.

Sakura's automatic reaction was to shout at the boy to give her back the red ribbon. Rei's automatic reaction was to take off running, ribbon held high and a large smile on his face as he shouted for her to make him. Sakura was about to do just that when she suddenly had an idea. She knew from past experience that Rei would keep up this game of keep-away for hours if she let him. In the past, nothing short of either her having to leave or someone forcing Rei to give whatever he'd taken back had ever brought the game to an end before Rei decided to do so himself…but now that she thought about it, there had been a few times when she had stopped him in his tracks…and they had all revolved around one thing she hadn't meant to do at the time. She had never done so during a game of keep-away before, but she figured it was worth a shot. Skidding to a halt before she had truly begun to run, Sakura covered her face…and pretended to cry.

Peeking between her fingers, Sakura saw exactly what she had hoped for: Rei had stopped running to look at her. If Sakura hadn't been so dead set on getting her ribbon back and going off to find Temari, she might have quit her act right then, because the look on Rei's face was one of pain and panic rather than the bewilderment she had expected. Sakura hated to play such a prank on someone she liked to think was one of her few friends, but desperate times called for desperate measures…and besides, Rei was already jogging back to her, so she wouldn't have to keep up her façade for long…and maybe this would teach him not to play keep-away without asking her first. Sakura only wished that he wasn't coming down from a hill with the sun nearly behind him, because not only was it leaving light-spots in her eyes, but it was also making it hard to see his face, now that he was half in shadow—then again, maybe that was a good thing. If she couldn't see the worry on Rei's face, maybe she wouldn't feel so bad about tricking him.

In the end, it turned out to be a very good thing that the sun was peeking out from behind the hill and that Sakura was peeking out from between her fingers, because suddenly Sakura was seeing not only Rei jogging towards her down the hill, but also Rei, nearly to her, being hit by a wall of sand. Thankfully this was not the first time Sakura had ever had such an experience, and so she didn't freeze up for long with her surprise. Dropping all pretenses of crying, Sakura's head jerked up as sand started to fly. Sakura began to yell for Gaara to stop, but she didn't know where he was and already the sand was halfway to Rei, so she cut herself off and did the only other thing she could think to do. She had to make a shield, her desperate mind knew that, but it also knew that she didn't have enough time to make all the hand signs. Still seeing double, Sakura threw her hands out anyways in the hopes that, time or not, she could manage to stop the sand.

Sakura didn't remember that there were such things as shortcuts for Hoshi Jutsu mainly because they had never worked for her…therefore Sakura was much surprised when the image of Rei being hit by sand vanished and was replaced with what looked like a flattened half circle of sand…and then Sakura saw in real life what she had just Seen in her vision just a split second latter as the sand hit an invisible wall the height of Rei and then began to curve around the edges. At the same moment, Sakura Saw Gaara running towards her from behind, his eyes widening, and far behind him, Yashamaru being pushed in his wheelchair by one of his ninja followers as they chased after Gaara…and when Sakura briefly wondered why Yashamaru only had one guard, her vision flicked between two guards staying with Temari and Kankuro and four others spread out and ninja-dashing their way towards her. None of them were yet close enough to see Gaara's sand, though she knew they knew he was doing something with it from the looks on their faces.

If Sakura was lucky, she'd be able to end things before they got here, because already her split visions were showing her bloody fights breaking out because of misunderstandings between those ninja and Gaara. Focusing on the here-and-now, Sakura turned around, adrenalin thundering through her veins, and shouted at Gaara as he drew near. "Gaara, what do you think you're doing!?" Her words came out angrier than she had meant to, but Sakura did nothing to change it. She was angry as well as afraid, and she never wanted to feel like this again, especially not because of her best friend.

The red haired boy stumbled to a halt, his eyes widening even further at her tone, and then he said something about her being hurt.

Sakura shook her head in disbelief, first, and then desperation when she realized why he had thought she was hurt. "No, Gaara!" Sakura exclaimed, one eye turned to what was going on behind her with Rei (who was shaking but otherwise seemed unharmed—the sand had stopped moving) while her other eye stared down Gaara. Sakura didn't realize what she was doing or how her Eyes might look to Gaara until the boy actually took a step back, his eyes glued to her face. Even though it was only for a moment, Sakura knew fear when she saw it…and it hurt like a knife to the heart. The instant sorrow in Gaara's eyes let her know that he knew it too, and that he felt bad about it, but it didn't stop the hurt. Still, visions of guards and bloodshed haunted her memory, and so Sakura bit her trembling lip and said as sternly as she could. "I wasn't crying, Gaara, I was faking it!"

Gaara looked confused, but before he could say anything, a voice called out from behind her, "What!?" Rei sounded rather indignant, "You were faking?! Why? I was wor—" the boy cut himself off, his face in her split vision going red. Sakura didn't see any reason for Rei to be blushing, but then again, she didn't understand why he did a lot of things. The fact that she could still see him behind her, though, reminded Sakura to turn off her Eyes—it was so easy to fall into the pattern she had picked up in New Suna, but having her Eyes activated meant she was more likely to catch visions of the future…which was one thing she didn't want to encourage just then, especially if seeing what her Eyes did while she was looking at visions made Gaara look at her like…like—

Stopping herself before she fell back into her turmoil of thoughts on that subject, Sakura instead focused on how surprised she was at having heard Rei speak out at all, given the circumstances. Few other people had the guts to speak up around Gaara, even without his sand having just attacked them…but then again, Rei had never known when too keep his mouth shut, and for once, Sakura was thankful for it. It gave Sakura an excuse to turn away from her best friend and the memory of how he had looked at her just moments ago so that she could shoot back a retort to the sandy haired boy, "I didn't want to play keep-away today!" Apparently as she had been thinking, Gaara's sands had fallen back to the ground, because she could see that Rei was now looking at her without anything blocking his view. "I wanted my ribbon back so that I could go find Temari and talk to her about having a sleepover, but you didn't even ask, so I thought I'd try tricking you into getting my ribbon back!"

Although Sakura was annoyed with Rei and hurt at Gaara's reactions, as she admitted to her own foul play, she could feel her face heating up with embarrassment. They had all done bad things today, she realized, and they had all done so without trying to do bad things—or at least, without thinking they were bad as they did them—so they all needed to apologize…and Sakura knew it would have to begin with her. Face still red, Sakura squared her shoulders and turned to face Rei, "I'm sorry for tricking you." Then, turning sideways she looked at both boys before she added, "And I'm sorry for worrying you both…"

After a few moments of silence, Sakura started to give both boys looks that said she expected their apologies now too, thank you very much. Gaara was the first one to do so with a weak, muttered 'sorry', and Sakura figured that the reason he had been so fast to comply was probably because he had been on the end of that look before and knew that Sakura would bug him until he did as she said. Rei, however, took another minute's stare down before he finally broke eye-contact and muttered his own apologies, his face turning red again. It wouldn't be until later that Sakura realized neither boy mentioned what they were sorry for, but by then Sakura figured that it didn't matter, because after that, with the appearance of Yashamaru and his ninjas, both boys looked as if they wanted to forget the day had ever happened, and had been more than willing to be distracted by her declaration that they should all go find Temari and Kankuro and start a game of Ninja.

Sakura didn't give Yashamaru time to question the boys about what had happened as she led them off at a run. Both Temari and Kankuro gave Rei strange looks when Sakura said he'd be playing with them, but they didn't argue, and all five of them were running about happily by the time Yashamaru wheeled himself back to the park, followed by his ninja guards. When he didn't immediately call off the game and order the boys to explain what had happened, Sakura finally let herself relax and enjoy herself.

It was in the middle of that game, right after Rei and Kankuro (Suna ninja) had stopped Temari (an Iwa ninja) from kidnapping Sakura (the Daimio—Gaara's—daughter) that Sakura had mentioned something between gleeful laughs about it being almost like how Rei and Kankuro had protected her from Bunta. Right as she had said it, she had felt the pull of her Kekkei Genkai, of a vision, and even saw the beginnings of a scene at night, but panicking, she had shut down her Eyes as soon as soon she realized what was happening—she hadn't wanted to be caught in a vision in the middle of a game…and she especially didn't want to see that look of fear on Gaara's face again…or on the face of anyone else, for that matter. When she snapped her eyes back open, she was thankful to note that no one was showing any signs of having seen her Eyes do weird things. Without a thought for the dismissed vision, Sakura returned all of her attention back to the game, which was winding its way to its natural end as the sun started to set.

That was her fifth mistake…

…and it was a mistake she would learn never to make again…


How's that for foreshadowing? I plan for big things to happen next chapter, so be looking forward to it. Also, I apologize for the week late update, but I've been sick (and still am). I'll try to update in two weeks, but no promises.

As always, reviews and constructive criticisms are welcome to make their presence known while flamers are welcome to nothing and nowhere. That said, let's move on to the pretty list!

Thanks to: BriEva (For your question about Sakura's mom, the answer is something you'll have to wait for. As for your guess about Gaara, you are certainly on the right path. Sakura is determined to become a ninja and I've already given foreshadowed hints as to how she might succeed at her endeavor. AS for Gaara flipping out of Sakura's anger, I can't quite say it won't happen, because I don't know for sure yet, but if it does happen, it probably won't be over the reason you were thinking it would be. Gaara wants Sakura to be happy, but he also wants her to be safe... As for your civilian question, you'll just have to wait and see. So far, only Gaara has seen her use her Eyes), dreaming. is .what.i.do (thanks, and sorry about having to put spaces into your name, but fanfic kept deleting it for some reason if I left it as it was meant to be), & moodymel (Happy late birthday, and I hope you continue to like the story development) for reviewing!