The smell of food eventually wafted into my space, and I slowly came to my senses. What day was it? Where was I? Who was I?

Squinting with my eyebrows drawn together, I tried to focus my eyes on the wall I'd fallen asleep facing. Pencil sketches. Of what…? I couldn't even decipher my own sketches. I'm so tired…

The door to my closet creaked open. "Ah, Futaba-chan! You're awake! You must have been dead tired yesterday, because you were out like a log," Imiki chirped. She wore her jounin uniform, as always, but a grain of rice was stuck to one of her cheeks—she must have been eating. "Well, come on! Get ready quickly, you have a full day of classes today! If I remember correctly, today is going to be your first kunoichi class, how exciting." She bustled off.

I blinked slowly. Kunoichi?

Groaning, I slid off the cot and forced myself into one of the new shirts Imiki had gotten for me, the water lily branding my back like it had yesterday.

Yesterday…

Ugh, I'm too tired to think… Need food. Now.

I shuffled into the kitchen area, edging past Imiki to pick up my bowl of rice dutifully. My hands felt heavy as lead as I gripped the chopsticks and started eating. Vaguely, I registered Imiki droning on about something, but I was too groggy to pay attention to it.

As I began to eat, my strength started to return to me, and slowly my sleepy blinking turned into me blinking away the sleepiness. It was almost odd how much eating helped wake me up, but, well, I guess that's why we eat.

"I can't even remember any of yesterday," I mumbled almost incoherently. "I'm so exhausted today."

Imiki paused, giving me a brief unreadable look. "Eat quickly, Futaba. Don't want to be late today, ne?"

I gave my aunt a look of confusion, something about her behaviour throwing me off, but obediently upped the pace at which I shoved rice into my mouth.

"Ah-ah-ah, Futaba-chan," Imiki suddenly cut in. "Try to eat with a little more grace! You're attending kunoichi class today, after all!" She beamed at me with an underlying cheekiness, and I grumpily sighed before picking the grains of rice off my cheeks.

God help me get through today if kunoichi class was really about ladyness.


The class I stepped into varied greatly from what I was expecting to see.

That is, there were no desks. All of the girls sat primly on the floor, facing an instructor with such a thick air of grace that I nearly choked on it. I gulped down my apprehension forced myself to tiptoe into the room.

I was noticed immediately. The teacher perked up in a way that somehow still screamed I'm elegant and gave me a smile that could calm an angry tiger. "Ah, find a seat, little one! Class is about to begin."

With the eyes of a big cluster of little girls following me, I uncomfortably found a seat near the outskirts of the hubble and plopped down. God, my palms were sweaty. Who knew that of all the things this crazy world could throw at me, from giant frogs with smoking pipes to men that could literally transform into demons, this class full of girls would be the closest to ending me?

I didn't consider myself particularly unladylike, but in my old life I obeyed no command to sit with my legs closed. I left my hair down, I ran down the halls, and I rolled around in dust. I exercised no ladylike charms, but I didn't consider myself a tomboy, either.

Needless to say, this would be a new type of challenge entirely.

A sort of subdued hum of chatter filled the space around me, girls murmuring amongst themselves and boasting about how much they already knew about kunoichi arts. Being the odd one out, I twiddled my thumbs and settled for staring at a pleasantly shiny portion of the polished floor. I guessed this was what I got for not making any girl friends beforehand.

A flash of colour caught my attention out of the corner of my eye, a brief glimpse of flushed pink. I followed it and nearly slapped my forehead for not realizing right away who it was—it was none other than Haruno Sakura seated in front of me a little to my right. Her hair was bright, pink, and even prettier in real life—I was entranced by it. Man, why did I have such boring hair even in my second life? This wasn't fair…

Suddenly, the head of pretty pink hair turned around, and vibrant green eyes met mine, rounded in surprise. I blinked in startled confusion.

"Um…" Sakura started. Beside her, I could see a familiar blonde girl peering curiously at the spectacle. Oh, great. She must have noticed me staring at her like a five-year-old creep.

"I—I like your hair," I stammered in explanation instead, breaking out into an unnatural smile. "It's very cute."

"O—oh." Sakura smiled unsurely back, but her cheeks glowed at the compliment. A hand went up to the ends of her hair to twirl the strands. "Thanks."

Her positive reaction reassured me a bit, and with a little more confidence and a more natural smile, I continued, "I'm Asagiri Futaba." It seemed like the natural thing to do, introducing yourself. I hadn't made friends in a while, and I hadn't made friends under normal circumstances in even longer. But something about Sakura felt so familiar and normal that my normal-person-instincts were coming back to me naturally.

"I'm Haruno Sakura," Sakura replied cheerily.

Beside her, Ino finally joined in on the conversation, shifting to face me a little more. "And I'm Yamanaka Ino!"

"Ah, I recognize you from that flower shop downtown," I pointed out, trying to seem casual. "You must know a lot about flowers…"

Ino beamed with confidence, her pale blonde hair shining under the classroom lights. "You bet! But it's not that hard to learn. I'm sure you'll both be fine."

Sakura's face scrunched up in anxiety, making me realize she must have been caught up in worry before I had so tactfully made my existence known. "I don't know, Ino...my parents aren't shinobi like yours are…"

"You'll be fine, Sakura! How many times do I have to tell you?" Ino frowned with a little pout on her face, the expression more familiar to me as one she would wear quite often in her teen years.

The serene lady kunoichi at the front of the room, sitting elegantly below the board, finally raised her voice again. "Alright, class, it looks like everyone has arrived, so we'll be starting now."

She launched into a self-introduction that reminded me a bit of Hyouroku's speech from the other day but told in more dulcet tones as opposed to Hyouroku's near-growl. It felt as though I was being forced into a feeling of laxness, like my cares were melting away. "My name is Kiyoko, but you may call me Kiyoko-sensei. I am an experienced kunoichi and in this class, you girls will be learning just what we as women can do that males cannot in this field. You will be learning the art of being a kunoichi, from ikebana to different herbal poisons and even more. You will also be learning how something seemingly docile and gentle can become a deadly weapon."

Her unexpectedly dark words sent a chill down my spine, shaking me from my assured stupor. Just what secrets was this lady hiding? Did I even want to know? For that matter, it really should have occurred to me sooner, but the fact that there were things kunoichi were expected to do that male shinobi were simply not capable of—the implications of that statement disturbed me more than they should have. We were a bunch of six-year-olds, for crying out loud.

Imiki's solemn face that day when she told me there were rules of this world I would just have to accept came to mind. Sorry, Imiki, but this was one thing I didn't think I could accept.

Kiyoko went on to explain the general schedule of the rest of the month's classes, and to my relief, the first subject we would cover would be basic etiquette, followed by ikebana, which took up a sizeable chunk of this year's outline. From what I could gather from Kiyoko's melodic speaking, these subjects would be repeated and reinforced in following years, so what we'd learn this year would pretty much be everything we'd continue to practice for the rest of our academy lives.

"Now, children, partner up with someone else. You will be demonstrating how to properly introduce yourself to another." With that gently-delivered order, our class was officially in session.

"I didn't know there was a proper way to introduce yourself to someone," I grumbled under my breath as I stood looking for a girl that wasn't paired up with anyone. Sakura and Ino had, expectedly, paired off right away and stood to the side murmuring to each other. Once again, I was the dreaded odd one out.

Or was I? I spied a short-haired girl standing by her lonesome on the other side of the classroom. Steeling myself, I weaved between pairs of girls and walked right up to the girl, preparing my question beforehand—just to be absolutely sure I didn't mess it up. After the Sakura fiasco I really needed to be more proactive in coming up with ways to introduce myself to others.

I tapped the short-haired girl on the shoulder. "Hey…" I trailed off as she turned around, meeting a set of white, pupil-less eyes that were so very distinct. Stupid Futaba. Lightning may not strike twice, but stupidity sure does.

"Y-yes?" Hyuuga Hinata stuttered in response. She was a fair amount shorter than me, and her face was pulled into a worried, fearful look.

Well, couldn't back out now. "I'm Asagiri Futaba. Wanna be partners today?" I tried to look as friendly and non-threatening as possible.

Hinata seemed unsure at first, but smiled back bashfully. "O-okay. I'm H-Hyuuga Hinata. Nice to meet you." Her voice almost seemed to get quieter the more she spoke. Oh, poor child.

Satisfied with the outcome of my instigated socializing, I stood with Hinata waiting for the rest of the class to simmer down. "I don't really know anyone here," I admitted to her. "But everyone else already seems to have friends here, don't they?"

"Y-yeah," Hinata stammered back. Almost inaudibly, she murmured, "I don't really have m-many friends, either." She looked unbearably sad. The part of my heart that had clenched that one time with Naruto clenched again here—I realized that it was loneliness I had been seeing, and it was loneliness that appeared to be my biggest weakness. She continued, "M-most kids find my eyes c-creepy, so i-it's hard to talk to others…"

"I think your eyes are pretty," I said honestly. "They sure are a lot more interesting than my brown eyes." Kind of a stupid reason to pick on a someone, in my opinion—having pale eyes didn't seem like anything at all when there was literally a normal civilian-born girl with pink hair a few feet away and a known clan of people with chakra bugs under their skin.

Hinata blinked at the compliment, pale face flushing.

Our conversation ceased when the teacher called our attention to the front to watch a demonstration of the manners we would be learning. I watched the demonstration with a raised brow, still not really on board with the whole utilizing lady charm thing, but tried not to make my distaste too obvious as the teacher introduced herself to the volunteering student. Village first, name second, rank third.

"Okay, let's try then." I turned to face Hinata. "I'm Konohagakure's Asagiri Futaba, and I'm...an academy student. Yeah." For the heck of it, I threw in a mock-curtsey. Did they even know what curtsies were here?

It made Hinata giggle silently, though, so I grinned back in response. I gestured for her to continue with our little skit. "I-I'm Hyuuga Hinata of Konohagakure, and I'm…a j-jounin."

I blinked silently at Hinata for a second, then I let out an involuntary snort. Hinata had just made a joke, and she was currently smiling along with my laughter. "Oh my, I should refer to you as Hinata-sama then, shouldn't I?"

Hinata froze, tensing for a minute before her smile faded slightly. Oh, man. Somehow I had upset her with my words, but my memories concerning her situation were foggy at the moment, so I couldn't figure out why. Still, I scrambled for a way to salvage the situation. "W-well, in that case, I'm Konohagakure's Asagiri Futaba, and I'm the Hokage."

Somewhere in this school, Shuu and Naruto likely just shuddered.

I could see the tension dissipate from Hinata's expression and I breathed a sigh of relief as she smiled again, then silently laughed.

"Well, you two girls seem be having fun, but please focus on the lesson," Kiyoko's voice said, the lady coming out of nowhere. All the humour in our expressions vanished instantly, and the melodic lilt to Kiyoko's voice was starting to get old with me now.

I resisted the urge to scowl as Hinata and I were forced to go back to practicing proper self-introduction.


Thankfully, class finally let out, and I breathed an unladylike sigh of relief. I didn't know how much more of the stiffy atmosphere I could take.

As we all piled out into the hallway, I turned to Hinata, who walked next to me, a spontaneous plan forming in my mind. "Hinata, you wanna come eat with my friend and I after class?"

Hinata flustered, her face downcast as she answered. "S-sorry, but I can't…"

"Oh...that's fine," I answered, trying not to sound disappointed that my plan of making more friends had been foiled so quickly. I guessed it would be just me and Shuu today.

The quiet girl fiddled with her fingers for a few more moments before speaking up again, her voice scarcely audible over the passing children heading home around us. I had to lean closer to hear her. "But...t-thank you anyway, Futaba-san…"

The din had started to fade as the hallways became more empty. I gave the girl a smile in return, my words coming to me naturally this time. "It's no problem, Hinata...-chan." Can't forget my honorifics all the time.

Hinata bowed at me in farewell, making her way for the exit and leaving me in the hallway waiting for Shuu. I watched her as she went, going over the events of today in my head. As it was, my hopes of remaining canon-free were totally dashed. But I wasn't sure I really minded—Hinata was a nice girl. Everyone was a lot more tolerable than I could remember little kids from my old life being.

A familiar duck-butt caught my eye as the kids began filing out. Something came over me and I called out. "Hey, Sasuke!"

He stopped, somehow hearing my voice over the bustling kids. Turning around in his tracks, he found me standing at the edge of the hallway leaning against the wall. His brows inched together, as per usual during every one of our encounters, and he trotted closer.

"Wanna come eat zoni with Shuu and I?" Sasuke's expression was unreadable, but he eventually settled for shaking his head.

"I need to practice," he stated simply before walking away.

I stared after him. Well, it was worth a try. I wasn't really expecting him to say yes, but I figured it was a way to get Shuu and Sasuke to spend more time with each other "Practice what, mister prodigy?" I muttered to myself.

"Oi, Futaba!"

I turned around, spotting Shuu coming down the hall. He waved excitedly, as if I wasn't the only one in the hallway at that point, and I rolled my eyes and waved back.

"How was kunoichi class?" Shuu asked casually. I could hear the dual meaning in his tone—he was just waiting for me to admit how awkward I was with the ladylike shit. Well, not today, Shuu.

"It was alright, actually," I declared smugly.

"Whaaat? I thought you'd faint or something," Shuu grumbled in disappointment. "So what now? You gonna become some kinda prissy lady?"

"Prissy ladies can be scary," I murmured, thinking back to Kiyoko's eerily serenity. "And no way. I'll still kick your ass any day."

"We'll see about that," Shuu was quick to reply. "Come on, race you to Shiro's."

"You're on!"


WHEW MADE IT IN TIMe sorry guys had a bunch of quizzes i didnt know were due today ε-(´∀; ) thanks for ur patience

futaba's just trying to make the best of her situation .. can you blame her

(and what's up with imiki?)