Forbidden Steel: Tales of the Lady Knight: part 1
A.N.: Thank you for the reviews! Sorry it took so long for the other chapter and this one! Forgive me! Please forgive any grammar and /or spelling mistakes and any oocness! On with story! Oh and TrueLoveHurts- I did plan on making it a ninja thing, But I don't know enough about ninjas! Waaaaa, sorry. Ninja training would have been better…. Ah well… Oh some one asked for the pairings. I guess I'll let you know what they are…sigh… here… Pairings that will be: Saku/Sasuke, Saku/Neji, Saku/Gaara, Hinata/Naruto, Tenten/Lee, Temari/ Shikamaru, Ino/Choji. People's relationships change as people grow. Who will Sakura end up with in the end? As for other's relationships…I'm still thinking about those ones. Oh and I did think of doing this as a ninja thing instead of a knight thing…but…. I don't know that much about ninja's, I could have researched about them...but what can, I say…I'm lazy…
Disclaimer: …I don't… own…..NARUTO…or plot line…
Last Time-
"Saku wasn't at breakfast and neither were you and Kabuto. It wasn't hard to figure out why." Naruto said winking at her. He walked toward her. "Wow, he did a number on you. Heh, you must be hungry and in pain. Eat this and after you finished, I'll take you to the palace healer. I pilfered the food from the kitchens since you missed breakfast. Go a head and eat!"
The food offered to her was cold ham, cheese, and bread; she took them gratefully and began to eat. The pain in her head began to subside as she ate. She was going to have a bump.
"I don't need to go to the healer, I'm fine, and we need to get to classes." After she said that Sasuke joined them. "I don't think he'll mess with you for a while." She looked pasted them and didn't see Orochimaru or Kabuto anywhere. She realized she had forgotten Orochimaru for a moment. She raised an eyebrow at him. He just smirked. They began to walk toward the wing of the palace where their classes were located.
Sakura and the other two boys had gotten to their first class late. Their first class was mathematics. The teacher assigned them extra math problems for punishment of being late. Upon learning that Sakura knew all the basics in mathematics, he assigned more advanced problems. After she had been working on them for a short while a bell rung some where outside the tents where classes where held. The other pages got up and walked out of the tent to go to there next classes, as she scrambled to gather her stuff up and fly out the door after Naruto, Neji, and Sasuke. The next class was etiquette class, which was extremely boring to Sakura. After that class was history. She noticed a difference in the boys in this class. They were sitting up and attentive to the white haired older man. He looked different from the other teachers; he seemed more …well...easy going. His tunic was wrinkled and his hair was disheveled.
"So, we have a new face in this class, eh?"
"Yeah, Jiraiya, his name's Saku…just arrived yesterday." Naruto piped up, and then turn to Sakura. "You'll like this teacher, he's pretty cool, if you discount the fact that he's the court pervert, chases anything in a skirt."
"I do not….and I am not a pervert… I just like the female anatomy…." Jiraiya retorted. Laughter broke out among the boys.
"That's the biggest understatement that I've heard." Naruto yelled out.
"Naruto, sit down, and let's began class…. Now where did we leave off?"
"You and Sasuke were arguing about the code of chivalry."
"Oh, well the Duke told me to argue with Sasuke about the Code in my free time. So we actually have to study history this time. "
The rest of the class was lively; Jiraiya brought the history to life and made it more interesting. By time the bell rung, signaling the end of class, Sakura had decided she liked this teacher. The pain in her head had only receded for a short amount of time, so during the rest of her classes she had a hard time paying attention. By time the lunch bell rang, she was ready to go to sleep. She slumped in her seat on the bench beside Naruto. She winced as he reached up and touched the bump on her head. Naruto notice her wince of pain.
"Is your head hurting you?" He asked her, his voice filled with concern as the other boy's at the table turn to look at them.
"Hmm, yes, just a little…."
"Stop babying him, Naruto. I'm sure he can stand a little head pain." Sasuke murmured to Naruto, from the seat beside her. Sitting directly across from her was the prince; he stared at her, and then asked: "What happened to your head, Saku?"
"Well, um, you see your highness I just, um, fell down…uh…backward and injured my head…. Nothing serious."
The prince gave her a skeptical look. "Are you sure that's how it happened?"
Sakura's temper flared. She was tempted to snap back a reply, when Naruto looked directly at the prince and said, "That's how he said it happened, then that's how it happened."
Sakura silently thanked Naruto as the bell rung the got up to go to their outside classes. He pulled her back when she went to follow the others to their next class. Sasuke who was standing next to Naruto asked her, "Why didn't you tell the Prince what really happened?"
"Well...I'm no tattle tell! Besides…"
"Besides?"
"Its not that I'm not grateful for your help with Orochimaru…It's…just I can fight my own battles, I don't want help." She turned and walked away from them to go to the practice courts for weapons training. Sasuke and Naruto looked at each other, Naruto shrugged and they followed after her catching up to her.
The next few classes on weaponry were easy for her. Her teachers notice this and moved her to practice with the second and third year pages. Zabuza had her trained from the age of five with weapons by Iruka as he did with Haku. He had had her learn to read and write, solve math problems. 'Father, were you training me for this?' she wondered to her self. As her thoughts wondered she felt a hard blow on her hand when she failed to block the attack of the prince, her practice partner.
"Ow."
"Stop daydream, page! Get back in defense stance!" Lord Shoutou, one of the weapons instructors shouted to her.
"Sorry about that Saku, I thought you would block it, you blocked every other attack."
"It's not your fault; I should have been paying attention."
Sakura nodded her head to him as she to the defense stance and held the wooden staff in the defense holds. The Prince attacked her again and again.
"Saku, I know you lied about falling down and hitting your head, I didn't want to continue the conversation in front of the others so I waited till now, and so what really happened?"
"I told you your highness, I fell backwards."
The prince growled. " Is that so? Then maybe you did fall down…with help from a certain page." He made it more of a statement then question.
"I fell down, highness."
The prince glared at her for a few moments then suddenly smirked. "You just won't budge from that excuse, will you?"
"No, highness."
"My friends call me Neji, so call me Neji…"
"We are friends?"
"I think we are…"
"So we are then...Neji."
The weeks after that, things went nearly smoothly for Sakura. She began to join Neji and his group which included Sasuke, Naruto, and Shikamaru, and Inari in their study group. Neji had invited her to come after he realized she was having trouble with the advanced math problems assigned to her.
The only annoyance was Orochimaru and Kabuto. They constantly picked on her during those weeks. Just little things like elbowing her, stepping on her feet and pinching her. They never dared to do anything in front of the other boys. One night in the sables after classes, everyone had left to clean up Sakura was the last one there, finishing clean the tact for her horse. She was about to leave when she was knocked backwards on to the ground.
"Watch where you're going, Leaflet."
Sakura felt her temper flare as she stared up at Orochimaru, whom, gratefully was alone. Kabuto was no where to be seen.
"Maybe ye should watch where ye be going." A male voice said form above them. Both of their heads shot up to look up at the male the voice belonged to. The man who had spoken was sitting on the rafters, his face was painted and his eyes were narrowed.
"Who are you?" Orochimaru growled.
"Kankuro, the Horse Master. Don't be picken on any youths in here; ye startle the horses….. And I don't like people startling the horses."
Orochimaru muttered something to her before leaving. Sakura stood up and brushed her self the dirt off of her clothes.
"Thanks for you're help, but I can handle my own fights."
"Oh aye, ye just be falling down and getting bruises because ye like them?"
Sakura blushed and stammered. "N-No."
"Ye know, ye should let him push ye around."
"I don't let him; he just does it, because he's bigger and stronger than I am …. I'll get him back when I get stronger."
"And how will ye be doing that?"
"I don't know yet…."
"Well hurry up and get stronger, I would love to see that snake get beat up."
"Hn."
"Ye best be hurrying up, or ye will miss dinner."
She nodded and left to go to the mess hall for dinner, her stomach growling the entire way up to the mess hall.
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"Hey Saku! I was wondering where you had gotten to." Naruto called to her when she entered the dinning hall. Saku quickly got her food and joined the boys at their table.