I have no life bwahahaha. Yes, I purposely spelled a lot of things wrong in the ending cap of the last chapter! Actually, I didn't, but still. No one has to know that… And yes, math was intentionally only 15 minutes smacked haha, thnx for catching that Rachel  But I'm too lazy to fix, it, so blah. Maybe a 15 minutes math class would be a good thing, anyways…who knows…

Disclaimer: If I owned Naruto, hell would freeze over, and the world would be ruled by flying toasts while monkeys had humans as pets. The end. (I don't own it? No duh.)

Non-Sakura thoughts

(Author's notes)

A skip in time, usually a few minutes, to a couple of hours at most. I'll let you know if it's more.


Chapter Two: Eyecatcher

Last time:

I whipped around, eyes wide. No one had scared me like that in a long time. Usually I was the one who was doing the scaring! Tenten stood in the doorway, face flushed from probably running down the long hallway the led to our room.

"Found everything you need here? I should take you around to see everything." She grinned and beckoned to me.

Start Chapter two

"Actually, before we go one the tour, I guess I'd better show you around the room, huh?"

"Umm…It doesn't really matter to me."

"Okay! We'll start with the room then!" She pulled me over to a shelf to the right of the window. "This is the entertainment cupboard."

"Are you serious!" I mean come on! First the awesome backyard, then an entertainment shelf?

"Actually I'm not serious. There's only a TV with a DVD player. If you want something other than that, you're gonna have to buy it yourself."

"With what? I just got here, and the only things that I see are the TV and the clothes that are in the box in front of my bed! How are we supposed to afford to buy anything?"

"That's actually also up to you. There are various things around the school that you can do. Sort of like jobs, except most of them are only a one-time thing unless they're like helping out with a team or something, but even those jobs don't last very long. I have a job in the weaponry class, so you could come and see what it's like sometime."

"Really? Thanks!" I grinned. All of this, and a chance to earn money!

Tenten frowned. I could hear her mumble something under her breath, eyebrows creased as if she were thinking. "Oh yeah! The only other things that there are for me to show you are the bathe room, and…well there isn't really anything else in here." She walked over to one of the walls, which I noticed had a door. An old brass plate with someone in a bath was tacked to it. An eyesore that was blaringly obvious as to what lay beyond the door.

"This is the bathroom. There's a shower, bath, toilet, and everything else you'd find in a bathroom somewhere else.

"Okay…"

She smiled again. "I'll take you around the school, now I guess." She turned towards the door, "But you'd better not forget where this room is. It's really, really easy to get lost in this place. And I should know, because I've been here for three years and still get lost every once in a while."

"We'd better get to the cafeteria. If you're more than a few minutes late, they don't feed you and you have to wait for the morning to eat!" Tenten half jogged, half walked ahead of me.

"Are you freaking serious!" My stomach growled loudly as if furthering my point. Although I supposed that after all of the awesome things that the school had, there would have to be some sort of a drawback. After all, things weren't always awesome.

"Nope, but the ladies that serve the food get mighty mean when you're late. And besides, all the good food gets taken, so you're better off getting there early than that. Of course, you can always buy your own food. A lot of people do that. There's a microwave and mini oven and boiling water if you decide to do that.

To my surprise, the cafeteria was only a few minutes walk away from our room. It confused me, since the cafeteria was on a completely different wing, and floor for that matter, than our room. Maybe I was just over-analyzing how far away everything was. Maybe it was just that foyer that was really far away from everything else. I'd never know. But hunger cancelled all those thoughts, and I decided that I'd leave them alone for now.

"OI! TENTEN! WE SAVED A SEAT FOR YOU!" I felt like my eardrums wanted to burst. Looking for the source of the sound, I noticed a boy and spiky blonde hair and…whiskers! He and the other people seated around him waved towards us. I noticed both Ino and Hinata among them, but all of the others were people I hadn't even seen before.

"Come on, Sakura! My friends saved us seats." She yanked my hand and pulled me over. I nearly spilled the food piled on my tray several times before we came to a halt in front of Tenten's friends.

"Who's that?" An accusing finger from the blonde boy was stuck in my face. Apparently he was neither quiet, nor able to contain emotions within himself. I frowned slightly at him.

"This is Sakura! She's new here, and my room mate."

Ino grinned, "Yelled at any other walls recently?" I felt my face turn red. She made a silly face, "It's okay. Every one does that one in a while. And some of us do it more than others." Her aqua coloured eyes flicked from me to the blonde boy and back again, as if hinting something.

"Heyyyy! You two know each other?" Tenten placed accusing hands on her hips, interrupting us. "You didn't tell me that you'd met anyone else here, Sakura!"

"Actual—"

"Tenny, we only just met for a second. She couldn't find her room…and did a Naruto."

Tenten sniffed, offended. I could tell that the nickname 'Tenny' wasn't very appealing to her. She probably liked it just about as much as I did being called SakuSaku by my mom. But pet names were just something you learned to live with…or not. It depended on your personality.

"Can we please eat now!" An exasperated voice called out from a little to the left of where Ino sat.

The blonde boy frowned at us, and then looked at the bowl of steaming ramen in front of him. Ino whacked him on the head. "Naruto! Can't you see we're talking! Go ahead and eat if you want to!"

He winked at me and gave Ino a mocking foxy grin before proceeding to stuff his face with noodles. Ino simply ignored him and turned back to me. "Why don't you sit beside me? Then we can all eat without more…annoyances." The latter word directed to the blonde, she moved over to provide room for me to sit.

I'm Uzumaki Naruto, by the way!" The blonde boy grinned at me through a mouthful of noodles, his words slurred together to sound something more like 'I moo zoomaki narewtoe, bydawae!" He gave another foxy grin and returned to his ramen once more.

"Well, since you already know my, I'll introduce the rest of us." She pointed to the person sitting next to Naruto. His long, dark hair and milky eyes were a shocking resemblance to Hinata's own. "This is Hyuuga Neji, Hinata's cousin." He simply nodded at me, plainly uninterested in conversation at the moment. The next person, a tall, somewhat lanky girl with bright orange hair grinned at me. "She's Nezumishi Jin." A lock of hair on her right shoulder parted to reveal two mischievous black eyes and a wiggling snout. Ino blanched at the sight of the rodent, but addressed it anyway. "And that is Kaida." The ferret disspeared back into the girl's hair as she turned back to her meal, lying itself over her neck like some kind of large, lumpy and living scarf.

I turned to Ino. We're allowed to have pets here?"

"Yup, but you have to get a special check from Amaya-sama (remember him from the last chapter?)

"Hmm, there's Nara Shikamaru and Inuzuka Kiba," She pointed across the table to two boys. The first looked bored, his hair in a pineapple-style ponytail. The latter had weird facial markings like Naruto, but his were two her triangles running downwards from both eyes. A small, white dog was perched on his hat like an absurd hat. "And Akamaru there is on Kiba's head."

She frowned. I could see her eyes flick from on side of the table to another, face to face, as if counting. "Normally we have a few others, but I'm not sure where they are right now." She shrugged and pulled a bento box from her bag.

"Sakura! Hurry up! We're gonna be late for class!" Tenten hammered her fists on the bathroom door.

"Just a minute!" I growled at her, turning back the mirror. Someone at lunch, presumably Naruto had taken to flicking bits of green onion in my hair. Whether it was to vex me, or just to be plain annoying, I'd never know, but it was painstaking to get all of the pieces out. I grabbed the last one visible to my eyes and ran out the door.

Tenten, who had raised her fist, ready to strike the door again narrowly missed smashing me on the nose. I screeched when I saw her hand and dove out of the way, landing at the feet of a frowning Ino.

"Well that was certainly graceful. Your big forehead tip you over or something?" She smirked at me, "And are you guys ever going to come to class? The bell's gonna ring in like two minutes!"

Tenten helped me to my feet and we ran out the door behind Ino. I accidentally slammed it shut behind me. The shiny, brass number-plate that bore the identity of our room number and its inhabitants fell crooked to one side from the force. I rolled me eyes and ran after Tenten and Ino, making a mental note to fix it later.

DINGDINGDING!

I fell into my chair, hair a messy…mess from running across a windy field on the way to the building my next class was in—The Weaponry and Self Defense classroom for that matter. I tried to catch my breath, closing my eyes. Either this school was some kind of…optical illusion from the outside, or I just wasn't looking at its size when I first pulled up to the entrance. The school grounds were so big, they could afford to make all of the wings except for the cafeteria's not even connected to the front of they school, and still have room for a sports field and many other things in-between them.

"Get up, lazy ass, this ain't nap time!" I snapped my eyes open to see a teacher staring at me. Her scruffy purple-black hair was tied in a messy ponytail.

I jumped to my feet with a mumbly, "Gomen, sensei."

"That's Anko-sensei to you, missy."

I could hear giggles behind my back. I felt my face flush from embarrassment. My first day in the room and I was already class clown. "Yes ma'am."

Thankfully the sensei turned away to yell at someone else…which turned out to be the whole class. Lucky for me I was standing right beside her when she started bellowing out orders to the other students, myself included.

"OKAY LADIES, PUT YOUR BAGS IN THE CORNER AND CHOOSE A STAFF FROM THE WALL TO MY RIGHT. TO ALL NEWCOMERS, THIS WILL BE YOUR ONLY STAFF FOR THE SESSION OF THIS CLASS, SO SHOULD YOU BREAK IT, YOU WILL BE REPLACING IT."

I swore that I could hear my eardrums protest in pain. Following other newcomers like myself over to where we were told, I threw my bag in a heap and grabbed a staff. It felt heavy…too heavy for someone like me. I put it aside and picked up another. This one was a lot lighter, and more suited to my height.

A sudden thought popped into my head. Ladies! The sensei had called us ladies. The meant…I looked around. There wasn't a boy in sight. Oh well, at least if I figured out some way to further embarrass myself none of the guys would find out about it and tease me…although I'm not sure if one of them teasing would be worse than what Ino could probably to if her mind was set to it.

"Grab a marker or pen-knife from the counter and put your name and room number on your staff. Change into your proper clothes for this please. The change rooms are on my left." Anko-sensei had apparently loosened the yelling when everyone had quieted down from before. A few red-faced girls still clothed in skirts and blouses ran into the rooms that Anko had gestured to. I was glad than I'd listened when Tenten said that changing before class was the best option. "And when you're done that, then spread out outside and start warm-up drills."

I grabbed a pair of scissors from my pencil case instead of bothering to look for a knife. I gingerly carved my name and 3475 beside it, afraid the blade would slip and jab me in the hand or something. When I was done, I followed the rest of the class through a door which I presumed led to the outside. Sure enough it did, and to a lush and rather pretty meadow at that. The grass was that thick, springy kind that made you want to jump into it and roll around. It was a healthy colour, unlike a lot of the sun-burnt lawns of the nearby residents. I finally felt like I was doing something right. But then I looked around. All of the other girls were doing drills with their staffs, probably memorized from other classes that they'd taken last year.

Looking to the nearest person I knew – Tenten – I tried to copy her movements… It was impossible. Clearly an expert, the speed of her staff was hard to track with even my eyes. It whirled around her, one drill going to another without stopping. I stared at her dumbfounded.

"You know, if you stand like that with your mouth open any longer, maybe it'll stretch to match your forehead."

"Shut up Ino-pig. At least I'm trying to warm up."

"Well, that's a lot of attitude! I was going to ask if you wanted help!" Ino's accusing crystal eyes looked at me, one platinum eyebrow raised. "If you're going to be like that, maybe I shouldn't help you!"

I turned to stare at Ino. "No! I didn't mean it! I'm just… Overwhelmed. Everything here is so…different."

"Sure y'are." She stuck her tongue out, "But I'll help you anyway. Just follow what I do, and I promise I don't go as fast as Tenny over there."

I smiled thankfully at her. Ino may be a bit…okay, maybe a lot pig-headed some f the time, but she really was a nice person. Perhaps she just had trouble expressing it without being too bossy or stuck-up.

She brought the staff in front of her. "Divide it as closely as you can into three parts with your hands. She put her hands on the staff, left palm facing up, and right facing down and grabbed the wood at its imaginary thirds. I followed. Always remember to keep your hands like this. Left up, right down, and in the thirds, otherwise none of the techniques will work. The showed her staff to me. The wood had a weathered and beaten appearance, unlike the pale colour and smoothness mine had. Two stars carved into the wood marked the spots where Ino's hands had been.

"You can help yourself remember where to put your hands with something like these if you want to. It's easy, and after a while it just becomes a habit to put your hand in the same position day after day." She brought the staff up to her shoulders, leaving her hand in the same position, merely twisting them slightly so that the position wouldn't be uncomfortable. "This is the stance you need to use a strike from above." She swung you hands again and the staff came whipping down in front of her making a soft 'whud' when it hit the ground.

I brought my hands up like I'd seen Ino do. I was about to bring the staff swinging down when Ino stopped me. "No, your hands are in the wrong spots. You're moving them too close to each other. You need to keep them in the same spots. She took the staff from me and dug a knife into the soft, new wood. Where the knife had come from I'd no idea, but at least she was helping me. "You're exactly like I was when I first stared this." Two stars like the ones on her staff were now on mine.

"The stars aren't just so you know where to put your hands when you start out; they're also there so you can feel where to put them if you can't use your eyes." She gave the staff back to me. "There's an activity the Anko-sensei makes all the new people do, and it involves something very much alike to a piñata whacking contest. Believe me, you'll need them. Now try again."

I brought the staff back up to the same position. Once again I began to swing it down. But something caught my eye. I Looked over to Anko. She was walking along through the rows of warming up girls with someone. Ino's eyes followed mine over to the sensei and her companion.

She gave a mocking grin and burst out in a fit of giggles. "You're staring Sakura. And you should see your face!"


A bit of a cliffhanger, but the next update is soon down the road, so it won't be that bad of a wait, ne?

Thank you for all the wonderful reviews and inspiration to update sooner :p hugs everyone

Sorry if there are any grammar errors, etc, as I didn't really have any time or patience to edit this chapter properly.

Hope you enjoyed! This chapter was fun to write, for some odd, odd reason. Meh. And haha, the stuff with Ino and her staff lessons was actually based on the first time we were using bows (that's what they called them there) in my Karate class. It was odd…and I kept moving my hands wrong and hitting myself with it. nostalgia'd

Citree