Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
The red head's hand grabbed Naruto's neck as quick as lightning. Still holding onto Naruto the other boy stood up. Surprisingly, the kid was around the same height as Naruto himself. Weird, Naruto thought since Naruto had always been constantly teased for being short, and he expected such a dangerous looking kid to be…bigger.
Haku saw the catastrophe and jumped over to try to calm Gaara down.
"Gaara, listen to me. It was an accident; he did not mean to do it." Haku pleaded.
So, this is Gaara. Too bad we met like this, the day after Kabuto warned me to avoid him.
Naruto struggled to free himself. However, it was not working very well; he was kicking against a brick wall, and trying to pry open a vice.
A large crowd had formed to watch the new kid be beaten to a pulp. Chanting "Fight!" repeatedly, they were in no hurry to help Naruto.
A blonde girl with four pigtails ran through the mass of people next to Haku. "Gaara please let him go. You can't kill him!" Temari yelled over the noisy chant.
"Don't tell me what to do, Temari!" Gaara snapped at his sister.
"Listen to you older siblings, squirt!" Kankuro exclaimed as he jogged next to his younger brother.
Gaara chuckled. "Hn. That's an amusing thought: me actually thinking of you two as my siblings." Suddenly, the borderline maniacal smile was gone, replaced by a vicious scowl. "I care nothing for either of you, so leave me alone." As the family feuded, Naruto dangled from Gaara's enclosed fist, gurgling for air—something he was quickly running out of.
Temari recoiled at the harshness of the boy's scathing response. Naruto noted—even though he should be distracted and was dazed—that she did not look at all surprised by what Gaara actually said, however.
Temari quickly recovered, though, and whispered something into Gaara's ear. "If you keep this up you'll prove dad right. You don't want that, do you?" That was the last thing he heard before he slipped into unconsciousness.
Gaara did not respond but dropped the slumped boy on the ground, and stalked away.
When Naruto awoke, the first thing he noticed was that he was lying in a comfortable bed.
"Oh, hello there, dear; I see that you are finally awake."
Naruto groaned and put his arm over his eyes to block out all the white that covered his vision. "Who are you? Where am I?"
"I am Shizune the school nurse, and you are in the school infirmary."
"How long was I out?" Naruto asked, still groggy.
"Not that long. You were not truly out for very long, less than five minutes, but you were in a state of semi-consciousness for a while, until you fell asleep. All in all, you were incapacitated for a couple of hours."
"Hours! That means I missed class. First day and I could not even go to half the day." Naruto closed his eyes, hoping that the day would somehow erase itself from existence.
"You may miss more, sweetie."
Naruto popped on eye and looked at the nurse in confusion. "What do you mean?"
"Depends on how the talk with the assistant principal goes." Shizune said, unconcerned as she continued to do paperwork.
"Wait. Why am I talking with the Headmistress?"
"She said Assistant Principal, boy. Listen, next time." Ibiki said as he swept into the nurses office. "Come with me and I'll tell you why I need to talk to you."
Grabbing a disoriented Naruto, and hoisting him to his feet, Ibiki marched down the hall, while Naruto tailed behind him worriedly.
Ibiki held his office door open for Naruto to pass through. As Naruto sat in one of the hard short chairs, Ibiki slammed the door behind him.
"You may be wondering why I called you in here." Ibiki started as he sat down and looked over steepled fingers. "You will be punished for breaking the rules. Here, at Leaf Academy, we take the rules very, very seriously."
Seeing Naruto trying to respond, Ibiki spoke right over him. "Fighting in the cafeteria is unacceptable!" Ibiki roared, as he slammed his hands down, onto his desk and glared into Naruto's face—now inches away.
"But, sir, I wasn't fighting. I tripped and spilled some food on that Gaara, kid. He overreacted and choked me! I didn't throw a punch or nothing!" Naruto pleaded, speaking in earnest.
Ibiki growled in disgust and leaned back in his cushy chair. "First of all, that grammar is horrible; fix it. Second, Gaara's father is a respectable man of the community; thus, his son will not be punished. It would be a shame to keep a boy with such amazing potential down for something as trivial as a little fight."
"The same trivial fighting, you're yelling at me about right now?" Naruto asked, sarcasm dripping from his words.
"Precisely, young man." Ibiki responded smirking at the boy. "Someone has to be punished, and if not Gaara than who? That leaves only you."
"Why me? You obviously don't care about the fight or you would punish the one who actually did it."
Ibiki chortled, and gave him a look that seemed to think it was obvious. "You're trash." He explained. "No one would care at all if you disappeared off the face of the earth forever. I'm punishing you, not for that little fighting innocent, but for doing nothing with yourself." Ibiki's stare was unsettling. It was not disgusted or spiteful, like earlier; it was almost…disappointed.
"I beg to differ, sir." Naruto replied struggling to contain his anger.
Ibiki ignored him. "Tell me boy, what are your aspirations? What do you want to be or accomplish in life."
Naruto thought about it a moment, before he shrugged. "I don't know. I've never really thought or cared about it."
Shaking his head, Ibiki sighed. "Certainly you have something you want to do. Is there anything you want to prove? Do you have any dreams?"
Naruto spent a few more minutes contemplating. "Well…I'm tired of people disrespecting me." Naruto began before he began to feel more confident. "I'm going to be Hokage; that way everyone will have to look up to me!"
Ibiki's booming laughter reverberated through the office.
Snarling, Naruto yelled, "Don't laugh! I will be Hokage someday; you'll see. And when I do you're going to regret this."
"How will you be Hokage, when you are a slacker? You don't car enough about anything to succeed; you have no drive." Still sniggering a bit, Ibiki tried to control himself.
"I am not a slacker. I work hard for my dreams."
"Dreams you did not even know you had until five minutes ago? I know your type, boy. You are not going anywhere in life."
Naruto growled. "I haven't been in this school for more than a day and already you're judging me."
"Then your transcript must have been lying then. It told me all about your past school experiences. You have been expelled from your last two schools, and the one before that you did not receive enough credits to pass the grade."
Ibiki pulled out a manila folder and began to read. "You have quite a few charges on this record. Skipping class, truancy, vandalism, destruction of school property, arson, a few fights, harassment, and the list goes on."
"That list isn't as truthful as it pretends. Most of those were harmless pranks I pulled. The arson, a little firecracker—through a series of unfortunate coincidences—set part of the building on fire. Odd stuff seems to happen to me all the time. Another example is right now. I did not really fight, but that's what is going on my permanent record."
Ibiki snorted. "Excuse me, but I somehow find these documents infinitely more reliable. I can't begin to imagine why, though." Ibiki sarcastically responded. "Normally, you would be given at least a three day suspension, but since this is your second day on campus, you will serve detention."
Naruto sighed, wondering if this was a sign of how the rest of the school year would be.
"Tomorrow night, meet your detention teacher at the park fountain. If you do not know where that is, ask someone who cares. Dismissed."
Kiba and Zaku sauntered to their employer of the moment. "Some of this stuff you want us to do is pretty involved. We're gonna need more money; your money." Zaku said as he held out his hand expectantly.
Growling the other student slapped some hundred-dollar bills into the other's hand. "This should cover it."
"Also, we may need some other people for this. You've got to pay them the same amount as us, and bring 'em up to speed on what we're doin'." Kiba replied, also holding his hand out expectantly. More money was slapped down, along with more grumbling.
"Fine," the other snapped. "You do know that if this doesn't work you owe me every single cent back."
"No worries, bro. Nothing is going to go wrong."
"Just leave. I think your dog stench may be infective."
"Did you hear?"
"Yeah, some idiot tried to pick a fight with Gaara?"
"I saw it. Gaara laid the kid out. They had to take him to the nurse."
"Anyone know who it was?"
"It was some new kid. His name was Namiko or something like that."
"Naruto, dude. Naruto Uzumaki."
As Sasuke walked through the halls, all he heard was the same conversation over and over again. They were different people, of all grades and popularity, saying the same thing.
Sasuke doubted any of it was true, though. No one would be dumb enough to go up against Gaara. Even if he was new, one of the first things Kabuto told newcomers was who to avoid if you wanted to survive at this school.
"Uchiha!" Someone yelled down the hallway. Sasuke stopped and turned to see Deidara jogging toward him.
"Deidara." Sasuke greeted in return. "Still have your arm in that cast, I see." Sasuke said snidely.
"Yeah, it is. I'm so glad that you're so concerned, yeah." Deidara responded sarcastically. "Your brother wants to know why you were not at the meeting, yeah."
Sasuke turned around and began to walk away. "I didn't feel like it."
As he was walking away from Deidara, Sasuke ran into Temari. "You mean you didn't feel like watching your brother as Quarterback. Everyone knows that you're jealous."
"Shut up, Temari. No one asked you, so go away."
"She's right, yeah. Itachi is big man on campus and you're not even in the top ten."
Sasuke ignored the two as he resumed walking toward his class.
"Whatever, yeah. Your brother isn't going to like your answer." Deidara turned and sauntered back toward Itachi.
"Sasuke," Temari yelled after him. "Wait." She jogged next to him. "I need you to watch Gaara for me tonight."
Sasuke snorted. "I think your little brother is old enough to not need a baby sitter."
Temari glanced wryly at him, frustrated he did not understand. "You heard about the little scuffle he got into during lunch?" She asked.
Sasuke stopped and looked at her in surprise. "That actually happened? I thought it was another one of those fake rumors."
"Yup, it actually happened. And, now, I think Gaara is a little…unstable. I need you to make sure nothing gets out of hand while I'm gone."
"Where are you going to be?"
"I have a date?"
"With who?"
"Why so curious? Jealous?"
Sasuke snorted again. "No way."
Temari ignored the comment. "I am going with Neji Hyuga."
"How did that ever work out?"
"Our parents are apparently old friends, and thought it would be 'cute' if we went on a date together. It's only a one time thing."
Sasuke smirked at her. "That's what you said about us, but we dated for three months."
Temari chose to pay no heed to his insolence. "So, will you do it or not?"
After pondering for a few minutes, Sasuke finally agreed.
"Thanks, Sasuke. I promise I'll make it up to you."
"Whatever. I've got to go to class now."
As Sasuke continued to walk, he still heard the whisperings and murmurs seeping from the nooks and crannies of the school. This time he did not think about the fool, but instead what it would like to fight someone like Gaara. After all, Gaara was considered just beneath Sasuke's older brother, Itachi. So if Sasuke could topple Gaara, he might stand a chance of finally showing up his brother. Smirking, Sasuke finally decided to take action; it was time to step out of the eldest Uchiha's shadow.
"Good morning, Sasuke." Kakashi greeted as he arrived a few minutes later than he should have.
Sasuke bowed to his sensei. "Greetings, Kakashi-sensei. What will you we be doing today."
"You will work on your martial arts exercises this fine morning, while I read my novel. It's at the best part and I can't afford to waste a second." Kakashi said as he lowered himself onto the ground, keeping his only visible eye on his book.
Sasuke was not fool enough to think that he was not being watched. Kakashi could do nearly impossible things like that, and Sasuke never bothered to question how. If he did, he would probably receive some long-winded lie that did not remotely answer the question. In fact, most of Kakashi's answers left all the original questions unanswered, and only posed more questions.
He also knew that Kakashi was not just being lazy today. Everything the mysterious man did had a reason. He is probably testing to make sure that I can do these basics by myself, so I can practice in my free time, Sasuke thought.
Silently, the raven-haired boy began his exercises.
Naruto hauled himself to his room, exhausted after his 'incident.' As he passed through the hallways to his dorm, he heard all the whispers. He could not make out exactly at what they said, but at the way they all looked and pointed at him, he could figure it out.
Great, he thought. I've barely set foot in this school and things are already blowing up in my face. At least I have my friends, Kabuto and Haku.
Speaking of the devil, he noticed Kabuto walking slowly toward him. "I thought I warned you, Naruto." He said as he stepped in line with the winded boy.
"You did, but it was an accident. I tripped over some weird wire and spilled my food. Unfortunately--"
"Naruto," Kabuto intervened. "I already know what happened. I know everything that happens in this school. However, accident or not, you're stepping deeper into hot water--boiling actually. Water that even I cannot bail you out of. I know you don't want a lecture, so I'm only going to tell you one more thing. Watch it."
As he watched Kabuto stroll away, Naruto shook his head. Stumbling into his room Naruto dropped onto his bed, and immediately fell asleep.
I am sorry, Naruto fans. Gaara crushed Naruto, because, one, I like Gaara, and, two, if Naruto ruled the school in the third chapter this story would be much worse than it is now—in my opinion.
Since, in high school, couples never date for long I can experiment with some of the less common pairings. Neji and Temari is a perfect example. As is the ex- Temari and Sasuke. Don't worry, if your favorite character has not been introduced yet, they will be soon. Review and tell me if they are not appearing fast enough, though. If there is a character that has been introduced, but you want to see more of, tell me and they'll return.