Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto.

XXX

"Outta the way, move it!" Naruto's voice was the first thing I heard upon rounding the corner. A crowd of my peers was gathered at the front of the school, all looking at a large board displaying the names of our teammates and the Hunter Captains assigned to teach them.

I had been tempted to not show up since I already (resentfully) knew who my teacher was going to be. But, I thought better of it because I wanted to see who my team would be. At least I was still excited to see that.

"YES!" Naruto's fist shot into the air in victory. He pushed out from the crowd, his eyes scanning the area until they landed on me. He raced over and I couldn't stop the hug from happening. "Sakura, we're teammates!"

That was a bit surprising. The odds for that to happen were very slim. My smile spread out over my face at that bit of luck that seemed to take place.

"That's great!' I cheered. "Who else are we with?"

Naruto's smile disappeared and he scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "I was so excited to see your name with mine that I didn't pay attention to the other two."

I rolled my eyes as per usual when with Naruto, and began elbowing my way through the crowd. I finally made my way to the front and scanned the names. I couldn't help but sneer at Tsunade's name before following down the line.

Naruto Uzumaki

Sakura Haruno

Ino Yamanaka

Sai

"Ino!" I yelled in pure joy just as someone wrapped me in a hug. Blonde hair swung into view and I knew it was my best friend who was holding me.

"Sakura!" she cried out and started jumping up and down. "I can't believe it!"

I wrapped my arms around her as well and joined in on her excited jumping. I couldn't believe it either. I had both my friends with me on my team. I don't think anyone else could have had such a great occurrence.

We were shoved out of the way from those eager to see their own names. When we were on the fringe of the crowd, Naruto jogged up to us.

"Hey there, partners."

Ino stopped smiling just a bit at the sight of him, though I had no doubt that they'd be able to become friends. Honestly, they had such similar personalities, it was ridiculous that they weren't already.

Although, now that I think about it, Ino might be remembering when we were attacked by Tsunade pretending to be Naruto...

"Who's Sai?" Naruto asked us. I turned my head to look for him, but couldn't spot him among the crowd of excited hunters.

"I've never actually talked to him before, and he's fairly new to our program. I think he transferred here from Suna or something," I answered.

Sai wasn't one for many words. I was actually having a hard time remembering what his voice even sounded like at the moment.

A hand clapped down on my shoulder and I begrudgingly looked to its owner. Tsunade stood beside me with the most devilish smirk I've ever seen her give me.

"Hello, students." She tossed one of her long pigtails over her shoulder so that it swung freely against her back. "I brought the last of you," she said and gestured to a tall, pale guy standing next to her. He had short black hair and eyes as dark as the night. Honestly, if I didn't know any better, I'd say he looked just like a vampire. No wonder passersby were giving him scrutinizing glances.

"Hello," he said innocently enough. "I am looking forward to getting to know you all better."

His smile didn't reach his eyes, though sincerity seemed to ring through his every word. I would give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Hi, I'm Sakura." I gave him a warm smile, though I could feel my eyebrow twitching in annoyance at the fact that Tsunade hadn't dropped her hand from my shoulder.

"Naruto Uzumaki." Naruto gave him a big grin and jabbed his thumb at his own chest. I wanted to laugh at the two males on our team. Like night and day, really.

"And my name is Ino Yamanaka," Ino chimed in last, her voice as lovely as a bell.

Silence fell over our little group until Tsunade spoke up. "I'm Tsunade, and I'll be your Captain for as long as your novice hunters."

She eyed each of us in turn. "Your first task is to meet at Training Ground Three at noon. See you then." She disappeared so quickly, quicker than I thought it was possible for a human to even move.

I grumbled under my breath and Ino flicked my nose.

"Hey now, missy. I know it'll be hard for you, but try to look on the bright side."

"What bright side?"

"You're not alone with her, you have us."

I looked up and Ino was smiling, although her glances at the other two were a little uncertain. She was right, I had teammates. We were in this together.

I nodded my head and a smile slid onto my lips. I leaned in closer to the three of them and threw my arms around to bring them all in closer for a group hug.

"Together!" I shouted and squeezed them tighter.

Sai looked absolutely and horrifyingly uncomfortable, but he didn't try to pull away. Naruto followed my lead and wrapped his arms as best he could around our little huddle, with Ino copying soon afterwards.

"Together," the two of them repeated eagerly while Sai remained silent.

Such a cheesy moment, but I loved it.

Noon came sooner than I thought it would, expecting the day to drag by instead. Ino stayed with me throughout the morning. Mostly we sharpened our weapons and got our arsenal ready just in case Tsunade planned to throw anything at us like before. This time, though, we would be ready.

I smiled to myself when I felt the familiar sheathe of my chokuto on my right hip, held in place by a long black cloth wrapped around me numerous times. By far it was my most reliable weapon I owned, and I was the most comfortable with it. It was no wooden stake, but beheading a vampire could get the job done just as easily.

Beside me as we approached the designated meeting spot, Ino patted her bag of throwing stars set on her left thigh. Her favorite weapon was a long knife, just about the length of her forearm. She had one strapped to the side of each of her calves, hidden beneath her tall black boots.

We filed in. Ino and I weren't the first to arrive. Sai was sitting on the ground, leaning up against a tree looking at the clouds overhead. He had a daydreaming expression on his face, and I felt bad about breaking his focus when we walked closer to him. Instantly, he became uncomfortable by our presence.

"Sorry to surprise you," I said in greeting. "What were you thinking about?" I couldn't contain my curiosity.

Ino slapped my arm. "Sakura, that's so rude!"

I gave Ino a glare and then Sai a sheepish grin. "I don't mean to be rude. I just can't stop myself from speaking my mind sometimes."

Sai stood up and gave a small, uncertain smile. His voice came out even as he said, "I'd much rather prefer people spoke their minds anyway as I have a hard time understanding people."

Ino gave him a confused look, cocking her head to the side. "Why do you have trouble with it?"

Sai looked at her thoughtfully and then back to the sky. "It's a long story. One I'm not sure you'd like."

It was so strange, the way he spoke. I could tell that it saddened him, and yet he still had a smile on his face. Everything about him was juxtaposing.

"What-" I started to say.

"Sakura!" Naruto bumbled upon our little gathering. As he reached us, he bent over at his waist, his hands resting on his knees as he gasped for breath. "Whew, made it. I don't wanna know what Tsunade would have done to me if I was late for our first meeting!"

I thumped my fist on the top of his head. "Knucklehead. Have you been spacing out all morning or what? You cut it really close."

"I just couldn't decide!" he whined and held up a small knife in one hand and then a few smoke bombs in his other hand. "I didn't know which one to bring."

"Well," Ino inserted, "you brought both of them."

Naruto looked at his hands dumbly, back and forth. He let out a nervous laugh, but before anything else could be spoken, Tsunade made a sudden appearance on a nearby tree branch. Her loose white jacket flowing in the slight breeze as she looked down at us.

"Time for your first lesson," she asserted, her arms crossed in front of her chest. "You're going to spar each other."

We all stared up at her with blank expressions.

"We sparred all the time at the Academy. Why would this be any different?" Naruto asked.

"In order to go on missions and being able to assign you all tasks, I need to be able to see your capabilities." She smiled down at us. "So, show me what you're made of."

We all glanced at one another. Not really sizing each other up, but just seeing that we were all just as uncertain about this task.

"Last one left standing," Tsunade said. "Gets to have a big role in our first mission." She held up a plain manilla folder, my eyes immediately locking onto it.

"What's the mission?" I asked, the folder still holding all my focus.

"You have to earn that knowledge first," she explained.

I tensed, my back going straight in an instant. Looking back at the other three, I could see that they were starting to feel as I felt, ready to pounce and yet still unsure.

"Well, go on then. Get started." Tsunade gave a gesture to the middle of the field. "Or I'm going to start it. And you don't want that."

Ino paled at her words, and looked downright scared of her. I rolled my eyes at the dramatics and turned my back on Tsunade, walking towards where she had gestured.

When I got far enough away, I turned around, my hand lazily hanging over the hilt of my favorite chokuto.

"Let's go," I ground out between my teeth. I had no problem throwing down with any of them in order to get more experience on the mission. Any advantage to training I could get, I was going to take.

The others took up positions similar to mine, and then Tsunade started to count down.

"Only one thing: no fatal wounds. Can't have you dying on me day one." She sounded absolutely ecstatic that she could boss us around like this. "Three, two, one. Go!"

A presence came over me and I dodged to the right, barely missing an attack made by Sai. His fist hitting the ground where I'd been.

I shot my boot out at him, connecting with his cheek, causing his head to whip to his left. He wasted no time in sticking a short sword into the ground and using it to swing back around at me, aiming a kick that would hit my gut. I brought around the sheath of my chokuto and blocked his kick with it.

He took my stalling as opportunity to jump back and reassess me. I could see it in his eyes that this wasn't an expectation he had; he thought I was going to be some easy take-down to check off from his list first. I guess he hadn't heard anything people said about me at the Academy.

A loud sound came from my right, and I glanced over for a second to see Naruto and Ino clashing knife against knife. Ino let out a low kick at Naruto's legs, but he jumped over her sweep, which made her off balance. He lashed out with his boot then and landed a kick square to her jaw.

Her head snapped in my direction and the state of shock running over her features was a bit amusing. She was going to learn how capable Naruto was in a fight now that he graduated.

Pain prickled at my left thigh. Looking down I saw a short dagger embedded into it.

"Fuck." I knew better than to take my eyes off the enemy. How could I be so careless? I ripped the dagger from my leg and threw it straight at his face. He tilted his shoulder back and leaned over a bit to avoid the weapon.

He rushed at me head on then, throwing punches and kicks at me. I ducked and dodged and threw my own attacks at him. The two of us were a whirlwind of aggression, neither one giving an inch over to the other. It became more and more frustrating that I wasn't able to find an opening.

In my impatience, I unsheathed my chokuto and swung it at him. He blocked with a knife but his feet dragged in the dirt a few inches from the strength of my impact.

I let out an impatient growl without meaning to, and he raised his eyebrows at me in question.

And then I was knocked down from a kick to my right. My side hissed in pain, and I saw a flash of blonde fill my vision before I rolled to the right and jumped to my feet.

I knew that it would be Naruto's blonde hair and not Ino's the moment he attacked me. Ino would have worked with me against Sai. Naruto had just as much to prove against me as he had when fighting with Ino. No doubt he wanted to prove himself better than his mentor, just as I wanted to do with Tsunade.

Naruto grinned at me for a brief second before Sai punched him on his right cheek. The idiot didn't see it coming because his eyes were solely on me. The hit caused Naruto to spin around and then when he came all the way around, Sai punched him in his stomach.

And Naruto was down. I had no idea what other injuries he'd sustained from his fight with Ino, but I just couldn't believe that it took two punches from Sai to render Naruto unconscious.

Sai paid little attention to Naruto as he moved to the side of his fallen form and came at me again.

We went at it for a long time, sweat pouring down my face as I continuously threw and dodged punches. Fighting with fists was my specialty, and I was upset that Sai was just as adept at it as I was.

Who was this guy? If he was this good then why haven't I heard more about him at school?

From fighting for so long, my mind began to fog up. I let my body respond to his movements automatically, not particularly thinking before I made an attack.

Without seeing it, his hand passed my guard and grabbed the back of my head, pushing it down to meet his incoming knee.

The crunch of my nose rang through my ears and blood spurted from it instantly. My eyes were opened wide in shock, so I saw Sai's punch collide with my stomach before falling backwards and landing on my back.

He was straddling me in an instant, much like the way Tsunade had done a few days ago. After my initial shock, I glared up at him. His unwavering eyes met mine and didn't look away.

"Enough!" Tsunade's voice rang clear throughout the field. It didn't make me stop struggling.

"Enough, Sakura," she commanded, her voice closer this time. Her face eventually came into my view and I switched my glare from Sai to her instead.

"You were bested," was all she said to me. She gave Sai a nod and he got off of me, standing just a few feet away looking very timid.

What the hell was that about?

"What's with you?" I yelled at him, standing up in a rage. My head pounded against the quick motion, and more blood dribbled down over my lips and down my chin. I brought my hand up and snapped my nose back into place. The loud crack brought on more pain, but I fought against the black splotches it created in my vision to hold my gaze with his.

He bowed his head. "I'm sorry for causing you such pain."

What a bunch of-

"Sakura," Ino's voice chided. She walked over to us looking a bit worn, slowly recovering from her fight against Naruto. "We were all fighting. No need to take it out on him."

I knew she was right, but it still pissed me off that I lost. And there he was, standing there like it meant nothing to him, just a walk in the park.

"Nice work, Sai," Tsunade congratulated. "You'll be getting the extra assignment on your first group mission."

"What is it, what is it?" Naruto asked as he appeared out of nowhere. A grin adorning his features, the loss of the group spar completely gone from his mind it seemed.

Tsunade opened the manilla folder up and distributed the stapled sheets to each of us. When I got my hands on my stack, I scoured its contents.

Overview:

A small village called Fumaren has been experiencing unexplained absences of residents. So far, there are ten people missing, and the local authorities are no closer to understanding what is happening.

Mission:

Travel to the border of Fire and River Countries to Fumaren. Find out why residents are going missing. If they are still alive, retrieve them and bring them back to their village.

The rest of the small packet was a dossier of the people who have gone missing, people who we need to get into contact with when we get to the village, and then more of the like.

I looked up after I was done leafing through the stack. I would read it more in-depth later tonight, no doubt that I wouldn't be able to sleep as much as I should.

"I've never heard of Fumaren," Naruto offered over the group's silence.

"It's not particularly big, I've only been there once before, but it was only in passing," Tsunade explained, very businesslike. In that moment, I forgot she was my sister and hung onto her every word. I wanted more information on this place.

"What's the population size?" I asked.

"I'd say it's around ten thousand or so," she mulled aloud. "Pretty tiny compared to our lovely Konoha."

I took the number and ran it through my head. Konoha had a population of around 100,000. Going to a place this small was going to be very interesting. I'd never stepped foot out of the village before, so the excitement of the journey began to bubble through my veins.

I glanced over at Ino and saw that she was smiling nervously. Our previous conversation on her worry of dying crossed my mind. I was bitter about thinking this, but Tsunade wouldn't let any of us die. Though I was suspicious enough to think she would let me suffer a bit before she saved me.

Not that I would need any saving anyway. I scoffed at the thought of needing rescuing.

Regardless...I would have to talk to Ino some more when we were alone. I wanted her to feel reassured that everything would be okay.

"All right, come here and let me heal your injuries." Just one more thing for Tsunade to boast about, she was the best healer among hunters. I wanted to improve greatly in that area, and I knew that one day I would have to swallow my pride and ask her to teach me. But, that day wouldn't be today.

She healed everyone's cuts, and when she worked on my leg and nose, an odd look filled her expression. "Rest up you lot," she said after I was back to normal. "We leave at dawn tomorrow." Tsunade then turned her back on us and sauntered away, one hand up as she waved goodbye.

I waited until she was out of earshot and whipped around to Sai.

"How are you so good? Why haven't I heard of your skills before?" I accused, close to grabbing him by the front of his shirt.

Sai gave me a reproachful look, obviously wanting to back away from me. Ino ran in front of him and waved her arms.

"I think you're mad for the wrong reason, Sakura," she chided. "I mean, don't get me wrong, I completely understand." She looked to Naruto then with utter disbelief in her eyes. "I know how you feel. How the hell did Naruto Uzumaki beat me? Where did that come from?"

Naruto sombered at her remark. "All my life everyone's told me I wasn't good enough, that I wouldn't amount to anything. Not anymore. You can't say that about me, I'm going to be untouchable one day!"

I rolled my eyes and slapped Naruto in the arm. "Yes, Naruto has been hiding his skills so that he could shock everyone later. I know why he hid his fighting ability," I reasoned. Looking at Sai, I said, "But, I don't know why you hid yours."

His head tilted down in defeat. "I really want you all to like me." His voice was soft, edged with just a tinge of fear. "I'm sorry that I caused the opposite reaction." He unstrapped a small pack from the back of his belt and knelt to the ground. He ruffled through some supplies for a bit before he took out a piece of cloth. He handed it to me wordlessly, and I hesitated before taking it.

I had forgotten all about my bloodied nose. Seems silly that I would forget such a thing. I brought the cloth up to wipe the blood off my upper lip and down my chin. Some of it had already begun to crust and wouldn't come off without water. I probably looked utterly ridiculous and in need of a hot bath.

My hands fell to rest on my hips, my right one gripping the slightly bloodied cloth tightly between my fingers, and my toes bounced in my boot up and down on the dirt.

I studied Sai. What could he be hiding? It was obvious that he didn't want us to know something about him, and I wanted to know what it was.

"What's your last name?" I asked, the memory of our names listed up on the board flashed behind my closed eyes. All of our names were up there, complete for the world to see. Except his.

His eyes closed for the briefest of seconds. When he opened them, he was looking anywhere but at my face. "Uchiha."

Ino gasped at the instant recognition, and I couldn't stop my eyes from widening in shock.

"Uchiha? As in the Uchiha Clan?" Ino's voice trembled. I knew what she was thinking about. The one novice hunter who was killed many years ago, the one person who gave her a sense of fear when it came to Captains protecting their team.

Sasuke Uchiha.

XXX

A/N: Sorry if it's weird for you to picture Sai being an Uchiha! Or Tsunade being Sakura's sister XD Let's just go with it, shall we? Sai at least semi-looks like an Uchiha. :)