Sakura stood up after what seemed like hours and looked at Hinata. Her backpack and suitcase were under her seat. Hinata had cast a spell that made her suitcase mini-sized so that they fit comfortably under the seat since she hadn't had time to check out her room yet. Not that she even knew where it was. Her expression was a mixture of boredom, agony and a hint of sleepiness since the pinkette might've actually fallen asleep for a few minutes right before the ceremony ended and woke up to the noise of people leaving the auditorium. After seeing Hinata stand up and leave her seat, Sakura grabbed her things and quickly followed her down the marble stairs that lined the auditorium. The welcoming ceremony had turned out to be terribly boring.

It had started out with the headmistress welcoming the students for another semester and swiftly followed it with a speech, which Sakura had found very inspiring. The headmistress was rumoured to be centuries old, but she looked so young and beautiful that Sakura found it hard to believe. She had long blonde hair that was tied to two pig-tails behind her back and honey brown eyes that seemed warm but harsh at the same time. She looked so tall when she stood in front of all of the students that Sakura was in awe of her. She only wished that she could some day be like her. Sakura found her to be the definition of beautiful with her strong but inspiring speech and swift but graceful movements. After that the boredom begun. There were multiple teachers speaking about important things but Sakura had no interest in them.

'No magic outside school grounds?!' she hissed to Hinata when a professor explained that they couldn't use magic in the city. She heard Hinata giggle and grab something from her bag that turned out to be a wand. Sakura looked at it in awe, her eyes glittering when sliding her fingers on the wand's surface. It was silvery, very plain but Sakura found it to be maybe the most interesting thing in the whole world.

"We need the power of the sorcerer's stone to be able to use magic and it's range doesn't reach the city," Hinata whispered, explaining to Sakura what was going on since she clearly hadn't been listening to anything that the professor had been saying, which Hinata found rather amusing. Sakura was completely different from any other person she'd ever met and she intrigued her, there was just something about Sakura that made Hinata like her.

After the end of the opening ceremony, which felt more like a lecture than a ceremony to welcome the students, she and Hinata were caught by a watchful eye of a professor that called out to them.

"You, pink and blue, come over here," a strong voice called out. At first they weren't sure if they were actually the ones being yelled at, but stopped walking nontheless, stood still and slowly turned around. Just to be sure.

"You!" the teacher called out pointing to Sakura. "What's your name?"

"Sakura Haruno," she answered, feeling her mouth go dry. The professor's beady black eyes examined her carefully. She looked like she was angry, her brows furrowed and mouth like a straight black line drawn on her face.

"And you?" the professor they'd seen give a lecture about school policy and rules asked Hinata.

Hinata went completely white. She didn't move, she didn't blink. Sakura wasn't sure if her newfound friend was even breathing. Sakura watched the frozen Hinata and gave her a hard poke to her side to snap her out of whatever trance she was in. In result Hinata yelped and managed to stutter her name out to the teacher.

"H-hinata Hy-hyuga."

"Oh, we have a Hyuga this semester. How wonderful."

Sakura didn't understand what the professor was talking about, Hinata wasn't saying anything either.

"Aha, it seems like you've already found each other," the professor said, digging through her notebook probably filled with names of students and other vital information. Her response left Sakura and Hinata confused. What did she mean by already finding each other?

"It says here that you'll be rooming with Yamanaka Ino and no-last-name Tenten," the professor said reading out the names from her stack of papers, but soon glancing at them again. Sakura could swear she heard her mutter curses and the word registration, but brushed it off when the professor spoke to them again.

"Your room is at the top of the tower in the eastern wing, room 673," the professor told them and walked away muttering something but this time Sakura and Hinata couldn't hear what she'd said. They stared at each other and then the back of the professor who turned a corner up ahead so they couldn't see her anymore. She grabbed her things in one hand and grabbed hold of Hinata's wrist with the other before leading her where the other students were headed.

"Sakura, it's in the other direction!" Hinata yelped. This resulted in Sakura suddenly stopping in her tracks and Hinata walking straight into her, which caused her to stagger back and fall down. Sakura, more confused now than before, was left standing on her two feet. She turned to look at Hinata, who was now on the floor with her hair all over her face.

The pinkette tried really hard not to laugh. "Ehe, oops?" she said before giving her hand to Hinata to help her back to her feet.

"Maybe I follow you now?" Sakura sheepishly suggested and Hinata started leading the way to the right direction.

Not only was their school magical but it was also HUGE. After what seemed like a forever of walking around, getting lost and asking for help, Hinata and Sakura finally found their way to the top floor, which meant that they had to be close. Sakura had taken the lead again since she felt like Hinata was walking way too slow.

"Come on Hinata! We must be close," Sakura yelled over her shoulder and kept going forward. Hinata sighed and increased her pace to keep up with her.

"Sakura, wait for me!" she yelled as Sakura disappeared behind a corner. Sakura was practically running, it wasn't her fault that her moderate pace of walking was too slow for Sakura.

"You don't even know where to go!" Hinata yelled. She actually had to start running to keep up with her and after turning behind one corner yet again she felt herself run into something. Or in this case, into someone.

"Hinata, why would you do that?! Again!" Sakura yelped from under her. Hinata had ran into her when she'd stopped to take a breath. Hinata wailed an 'oww' and started moving her limbs from the pile of body parts.

"Hey don't blame me, you were the one who was running!" Hinata exclaimed throwing her hands into the air. Sakura just looked at her.

"I was running?" she asked, clearly confused, which got Hinata even more confused.

"You didn't realize? You were basically sprinting from a corridor to another."

"Oh," the pinkette answered, she seemed slightly calmer. Hinata grumbled as they got up and observed where they were. Just another exactly the same looking corridor.

"Why are you so eager to find our room?"

Sakura thought about her answer for a while. She lifted her hand up to the vicinity of her collarbones and pulled out a necklace from inside her shirt. On the silvery chain of the necklace, there was a pendant. A blue crystal, which Sakura held in her fingers and showed to Hinata. Hinata's eyes were fixed on the glowing jewel. Why did she feel like she'd seen this necklace before? The pendant was shaped like a teardrop with the crystal attached to it with delicate silvery swirls almost hugging the blue crystal.

"This was my grandma's." Sakura showed the necklace to Hinata. It had a slight glow to it and it radiated energy that Sakura felt familiar and comforting. "She gave it to me when I was little. She used to tell me about witches and magic, and how magic made people happy and helped people." Sakura's voice wasn't chirpy or energetic. Her eyes were staring at her necklace. Her voice was low and silent and Hinata wasn't sure if she'd hit a soft spot for Sakura.

The pinkette suddenly raised her glance from the necklace to Hinata and plopped it back down under her shirt. "I want to become a witch to help people, it's my dream. I want to be able to make a difference. I want to become a powerful witch and make the world a better place," Sakura told Hinata. She sounded confident, but her voice was low. Hinata stood beside her quietly, not sure if she should move.

"That's a great dream, I hope you achieve it," Hinata whispered after a while of plain quietness. Sakura gave Hinata a small smile.

"Thanks. But to do that I - well, we - have to get to our room first! Classes start tomorrow," the pinkette confidently exclaimed, only realizing afterwards that Hinata already knew this. Hinata placed her hand hands on her hips and let out a small sigh, a soft smile curving her lips.

"I think I saw a staircase somewhere over there," Hinata said, non-chalantly pointing to somewhere behind her. Sakura's eyes widened and smile grew bigger. Her emerald irises sparkling she grabbed Hinata's wrist and dashed to where Hinata had pointed.

They finally found their way to the wide corridor their room was supposed to be in. They'd made their way all the way to the top of the tower, but there the rooms were much more far apart than in the lower floors of the academia. The corridor was wider than most, but it was also shorter. There were only two rooms in the whole tower which Sakura found to be odd. Were they being sent up to the attic or something? Was this because she wasn't exactly 'magical' as she'd put it. Sakura stared at the numbers on the dark wooden twin doors in front of them. There was another set of doors on the other side of the short corridor, but that was it.

"Uhm, Hinata. What's our room number?" Sakura carefully asked her blue-haired friend because she hadn't really been paying much attention to the teacher when she'd told them. Her question got Hinata really quiet, her eyes widening.

"I don't remember."

Sakura slapped her forehead with the palm of her hand. How could've they forgotten the only important thing they were supposed to remember. It must've started with a six, since both of the rooms' numbers started with a six, but that was pretty much all they knew at this point. Both of the girls started walking slowly along the corridor to the other door. They couldn't just stand there, could they?

Hinata realized something. "Hey Sakura, what about our roommates? Maybe we could find out our room that way! I think they were Ino and-"

"TENTEN!"

An angry and LOUD voice filled the corridor that basically scared the shit out of the blue and pink haired innocent bystanders, who just happened to be there. Suddenly the other room's twin doors swung open and a girl flew out of the room, hitting the wall right on the opposite side of the corridor and sliding to the floor. An angry looking blonde girl walked in front of the collapsed girl.

"I think those are them," Sakura said pointing to the two, which caught their attention, causing both the girls to look at them. Sakura let out a dry cough to break the awkward silence that had fallen to the corridor. She figured that the other room had to be empty or if there were people in there, they were way too scared to peek to the corridor.

"Hinata?" the brown-haired one carefully asked, getting up from the floor and fixing her hair to two neat buns on the top of her head. Her words caused the other girl to really look at them, before her face turning from angry and annoyed to smiling and happy.

"Hinata!" the blonde girl suddenly exclaimed and charged into a sprint towards the two girls.

"God, it's been such a long time!" she said as she almost threw herself on Hinata, crushing her into a hug, which only got Sakura even more confused. Who were these people and how did Hinata know them?

"Uhh.." Sakura let out when the blonde girl and Hinata parted from their hug, which caused the blonde girl to turn her head to the pinkette.

"Who's your new friend?" the brunette girl, who the blonde girl had called - or more accurately yelled - Tenten, asked as she walked over to them. Hinata turned her eyes to Sakura and smiled.

"This is Sakura, I met her today before the ceremony," she introduced Sakura to her friends who were now closely examining her from head to toe.

"Wait, you know them?" Sakura exclaimed and pointed to the two that were now looking at the pink-hared girl with confusion.

"Yes, we've been friends since we were children. Our families are acquainted," the blonde girl spoke before Hinata could even open her mouth and lowered Sakura's finger that was pointed towards them. Sakura finally got a good look at her. She had long blonde hair tied up to a high ponytail, almost flawless complexion and bright blue eyes.

"I'm Ino Yamanaka, just call me Ino. Any friend of Hinata's is my friend also, even if they don't dress well." Ino flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and straightened out Sakura's light grey t-shirt's sleeve.

"I'm Sakur- Wait, WHAT DO YOU MEAN I DON'T DRESS WELL?" Sakura yelled angrily but Ino wasn't shaken by it. She just sighed and grabbed Sakura's hand, pulling her towards the room's open doors.

"Here we go again," Tenten muttered and sighed. She brought her hands behind her neck, stretching out her shoulders and back. "At least she's as loud as Ino, now they can scream at each other instead of taking everything out on me."

"Wait wh- Where are you taking me?!" Sakura screamed as Ino dragged her through the twin doors into their room.

Well, it wasn't actually just a room, more like a suite. They were standing in what seemed to be some sort of a living room. It had large windows reaching from the floor to the ceiling that showed a beautiful view over the school grounds and into the forest that surrounded it. The walls were lined with tall bookshelves filled with hundreds- maybe thousands of books. Sakura knew in that moment that she was totally going to read every single one of them. Good thing she liked books. There were three dark-purple coloured couches located by the window, neatly set in a rectangle, but instead of a fourth sofa the rectangle was finished with a fireplace. Where there weren't bookshelves there were paintings of people Sakura didn't recognize. One of the paintings was a portrait of a young woman, holding a silvery wand - different from the wand that Hinata had shown earlier. Her hair was pink like Sakura's but her hair was shiny and silky, reaching her lower back when Sakura's only grazed her shoulders. She was completely in awe of this person but forced herself to look somewhere else so she wouldn't just be standing there staring at a painting.

'She must be a professor or an old student..' Sakura thought to herself.

Sakura turned back to Ino, except that the blonde was now nowhere to be seen. The pinkette didn't even realize that Ino had let go of her wrist after they'd entered, she was in awe of everything and was taking in more information than she could probably handle. Ino was now in another room and Hinata and Tenten walked in, closing the room doors behind them. Sakura turned to face them instead.

"This," Sakura pointed all over with her hands swishing in the air. "This is our room?!"

Sakura was clearly confused. Was she in the wrong room? She expected her room to have maybe a table, a closet and a bed – not a library and a fireplace. Hinata and Tenten turned to each other, exchanging looks and nodded to each other without speaking a word to one another.

With that, Tenten started to explain, walking behind Sakura. "The rooms in the towers are for special students, students who come from noble families. Luna Nova academy appreciates blue-blooded people, even though in the modern world it doesn't have much to do with anything. We're just given bigger rooms, no biggie," Tenten explained and came to a stop after walking a full circle around Sakura. "Shouldn't you know this?"

Sakura turned to face Tenten. Hinata tried wave her to shush but it was too late.

"But, I don't come from a noble family." Sakura frowned, Hinata bringing her hand on her forehead. Sakura's volume went down, she was almost whispering. "Should I go and inform the teachers that I've been assigned to the wrong room?"

Sakura was slightly saddened by the fact that she'd probably be separated from the only people she was acquainted with now. Sure, she'd only known Hinata for a couple of hours and the other two girls for maybe 5 minutes, who Sakura had been convinced were crazy for half of that time, but that was already something. Considering the response of the girls out on the courtyard where the portal had thrown her, she wasn't exactly certain she'd fit in with not coming from a family of witches and wizards and all that. It'd been a relief that Hinata was so accepting and cool with it.

Ino rushed in with a bunch of clothes in both of her hands and over her shoulders but dropped all of them on to the floor after seeing that the conversation was turning a little low-spirited.

"What's going on?" Ino asked, confused after seeing Sakura saddened and only staring at the tips of her shoes. Hinata sighed, they'd have to sort this out now, even though it was kind of embarrassing for Sakura.

"Sakura comes from a non-magical family and isn't noble," Hinata said bluntly and looked at Sakura apologetically, who was currently staring at her black booties, hands behind her back. There was no reason to hide it now that it'd been brought up.

Ino's piercing blue eyes shifted from Hinata to Sakura.

"But that's impossible."

All three turned to face Ino who clearly knew something they didn't.

"If she didn't have magic in her blood, she wouldn't have been able to enter the school's premises, so she does come from a magical bloodline. Maybe she just doesn't know it yet. Also the rooms and roommates are assigned with a special spell that's been used for hundreds of years, there's no way there's a mistake here," Ino told them and crossed the distance between them, placing her hand on Sakura's shoulder who lifted her eyes from the ground to Ino. She was clearly confused and sad about all of this, not knowing whether or not the only people she'd acquainted so far were even going to be her roommates.

"You belong here. With us," Ino spoke softly to Sakura. She smiled and gently stroked her shoulder in a comforting way.

"So she has a relative that comes from a magical bloodline AND is a noble," Tenten finally said breaking the silence that had fallen, just making sure she'd understood correctly. "No biggie, except that we basically have no idea who she really is."

Tenten looked at Sakura. "Do you know who you are?"

Sakura's mind was a blank after all the information she'd just received in the past minute about her school, herself and her heritage. She was noble? What did that even mean?

She shook her head to answer Tenten's question. "I thought I did but apparently not."

"Sounds like we've got a mystery in our hands," Ino said and dropped her hand from Sakura's shoulder.

Hinata turned to the bookshelves and started looking for something. She had three pairs of eyes stuck to her back examining her and her actions, but she just kept going. Soon a contented smile decorated her light-pink lips as she found what she had been looking for.

"There!" she exclaimed as she pointed to a specific section in one of their bookshelves. Hinata had to jump to get a grip from the book that she had been looking for and caught it in her hands as it fell down. She ran her hand on the velvety surface of the old book and traced the golden swirls that decorated the cover.

"We have books of all the noble magical families, we can do some research and find out who's Sakura's mystery relative. Also the school's library should have some more information," Hinata said triumphantly and gave the book to Sakura to hold.

Sakura slid her fingers on the rough edges of the book. She was intrigued by finding out who was the relative that came from a magical bloodline. She didn't care about the noble part, she wasn't interested in power or special treatment. She came here to learn, but learning about herself was just an added bonus. Sakura pressed the book firmly against her chest, hugging it.

"This is really forward and feel free to say no," Sakura sheepishly said, casting them a nervous look. "But would you guys be willing to help me?"

She wasn't sure if she even should ask them that. Was it even fair? They'd only just met her, she was practically a nobody to them. But even if she'd only just met these girls, she already felt so connected to them.

Her question was met with a tight group hug which she interpreted as a yes. Sakura felt like she'd finally found a place where she belonged.

"And now, a makeover!" Ino yelled out of the blue, pulling Sakura to sit on one of the sofas. She started looking through the pile of clothes she'd dropped before, throwing clothes everywhere and muttering something none of the girls were able to understand. Tenten and Hinata laughed and sat down on the sofas with Sakura, keeping her company as Ino fussed around. They both chose to sit down on the same sofa, the one left of Sakura.

Ino rushed back into a room to the left of the living room, which Sakura guessed was her bedroom, and quickly returned with a hairbrush positioning herself behind Sakura. She pulled the pinkette's shoulders back slightly and started brushing through her pink locks. Sure, it was kind of odd, but Sakura enjoyed having her hair brushed so she didn't mind Ino doing whatever.

"Is this your natural hair colour? Because if it isn't, your hairstylist did an excellent job colouring it," Ino suddenly blurted out, which she resulted in two panicked looks from Hinata and Tenten, who were concerned that the blonde's bluntness would offend their new roommate. Surprisingly, Sakura didn't find it offensive at all. A laugh escaped her lips, she got the question quite often.

"Yeah, it's my own. It's a family thing but it skips a few generations," Sakura explained, repeating the same answer she'd given dozens of times before. "Or so I've been told since nobody in my family has it."

"So, our introductions were a little short but I'm Tenten. I don't use my last name because I don't want people to care more about my family than me." She smirked and lifted her feet onto the mahogany coffee table that was neatly placed between the sofas.

"I'm Sakura Haruno, just call me Sakura. Nice to meet you," the pinkette introduced herself in return, still holding onto the book Hinata had previously given her. Ino had stopped brushing her hair and was now digging through the pile of her clothes she'd dropped onto the floor before with random clothing items being thrown around the room.

"There are no school uniforms so we have to make you extra chic for tomorrow's lessons!" Ino said and dropped a bunch of clothes into Sakura's lap. Sakura placed the book on the coffee table and eyed on the clothes Ino had just given her.

"But these are your clothes?" Sakura held the clothes in their hands, questioning Ino's decision of giving them to her. They were all very expensive looking, there was no way she was just giving them to her.

"Meh, I have a bunch of clothes just like those in multiple different colours. I don't mind, but let's just say that you're borrowing them if it makes you feel better," Ino said, pushing the clothes to her. She clearly knew a lot about fashion, since her outfit looked like it was straight from a runway. Sakura then placed her hands on the pile of clothes, she didn't bring enough clothes anyway since she thought that they were going to have school uniforms.

"TRUST me Sakura, she has enough clothes to fill up a mansion. I think she has a house full of closets just for clothes. And don't even get me started on the shoes!" Tenten exclaimed and Ino just stuck her tongue out to the brunette.

"Fine, I'll just room with pinky then. You can share a room with Hinata," Ino told Tenten and jumped over the sofa and sat beside Sakura. "Don't worry, I already put a spell on our closet. Now it has all the room in the world for clothes," Ino squealed and Sakura let out a little laugh. This was going to be a start of a beautiful friendship.

❧ Goddess of Glam