Sato gave a yelp of surprise and fell back onto her hind end as the door flew open. Yoake was upon the girl before she could even manage to scramble away, seizing a handful of her hair and yanking hard.

"What are you doing here?" Yoake demanded with all the tender kindness of a pissed off mother tiger, "You're supposed to be training!"

"Yeah, we knew that was going to fail before it even started, Yoake." A voice called. Yoake looked up, and found Makuro and Shinri standing at attention far down the hall. Shinri had unsurprisingly been the one to say that choice comment, and Sato sent him daggers in between winces of pain.

"So you decided to drop in on a meeting between the Hokage and myself?" Yoake growled. Sato managed to write out of her sensai's grip, and backed against the wall looking perturbed.

The boys shuffled forwards, looking a little sheepish.

"The training grounds here are much better than the ones back home." Makuro pointed out fairly, "And none of us were going to get much done sitting in Yoru. Here at least we can stay on our toes and get a breathe of fresh air while we're at it."

Yoake calmed down slightly, and she cast a glance over her shoulder into the room that she had just exploded from. Sato peered past her Yorukage, and saw a wizened old man standing near a large wooden desk.

"Umm…" Yoake rolled her eyes, and gestured to the girl behind her, "Lord Hokage I would like to introduce you to the last of the Tasogare, Satora."

Sato dipped he head respectfully as the Hokage came out of his office to inspect her. He stood right in front of her, gaze solemn. Sato now felt slightly uncomfortable under this man's stare. She dropped her eyes to the ground, finding that she couldn't stand to look directly into the serene pools of blue…

"Well, now that the three of you are here, you'll have to stay the night somewhere." The lord Hokage said, mercifully lifting his gaze from the young Tasogare, and transferring it to the other two, "The arrangements have already been made in anticipation for your arrival tomorrow, so I suppose that staying at the inn a day early wouldn't be all that terrible. Blue Moon in, your escorts will take you there at the end of the day."

"Who will be escorting us, sir?" Makuro asked.

"Team Seven."

"WHAT?" Makuro, Yoake, and Shinri all exclaimed. Yoake shot the Hokage a look of death, "Sarutobi, what were you thinking?"

Sato remained motionless. She remembered team seven from the second part of the exam, Rash Naruto, friendly Sakura, and of course Sasuke.

However Sato found that her anger with Sasuke had quite evaporated. She no longer reserved the same hatred for him that she had before she had entered the forest of death, and Sato knew why.

It was because of Itachi.

"I'm ok with cell seven." Sato said quietly.

Everyone stared wonderingly at the young girl.

"I know why you all have a problem with it." Sato continued, feeling that she should explain, "But I don't want to kill Sasuke anymore. I nothing him, he hasn't done anything to me. Its Itachi that hurt me, and right now its Itachi that I want to bring down."

Yoake felt a chill run up and down her spine at the soft conviction in her young charges voice. Sato was normally this sincere in her oaths. The look in her steely eyes told everyone present what they needed to know-Itachi would some day regret scarring the last of the Tasogare.

Yoake turned to her fellow kage, "You knew this, didn't you?"

The Lord Hokage bobbed his head, "When you told me of what Itachi did to her, I knew that she wouldn't bother hating Sasuke for no reason when she could hate Itachi for every reason."

"Yeah, I'm right here." Sato said rather flatly, "You don't have to talk about me like I'm a stump."

Shinri and Makuro gave sharp intakes of breath—Sato wasn't showing the fire shadow the respect he deserved. Had Kuro been closer, he would have treaded lightly on her toes to get her to come down to earth from her high horse.

Yoake got to the girl first again, poking her hard on the shoulder.

"Hey, listen squirt. You'd better show some respect for the Lord Hokage. You're familiar with me since I'm your sensai but here in Konoha you might have to actually tip your hat to a few people."

"Diss." Shinri whispered in a hardly audible tone. Makuro was the only one who caught it.

For one second Makuro wasn't sure how Sato would react to this. She blinked, and then lowered her head, "Forgive me, Lord Hokage."

"Right then." Yoake looked relieved that nothing worse had come out of that, "Hokage, where are these kid's escorts going to be waiting?"

"Outside, I believe." The Lord Hokage said, pulling a pipe from the folds of his robes. He lit it with a wave of his hand and shoved it between his teeth, "Have a pleasant stay in Konohagakure, Night cell. You may use whatever training grounds and facilities that you may stumble across."

"Thank you for your hospitality, sir," Yoake said, cocking her head, indicating that the three teens should start heading down the hall, "I'll be in touch."

Yoake herded the three kids down the hall.

"I guess I hoped that in the light of what's to come you and Shinri would have put your damn differences aside and worked things out like I wanted you to," Yoake whispered harshly in Sato's ear as they went, "Didn't you hear anything I said about fire and water-nin? Don't you get how important this is?"

"Sure I do, but not when the snake here is teaching me." Sato raised her voice, glaring into the back of her fellow cell member's head. Shinri kept plodding on at a steady pace, making no obvious sign that he had heard his fellow cell members comment.

Makuro kept his thoughts to himself again as always. The four of them walked in silence down two floors and across a hallway until they found themselves in the ninja academy once more. There was no noise in the entire building, but the inside of Makuro's head was buzzing with different thoughts.

'Shinri and Sato will be the undoing of us all yet!' He thought with a trace of bitterness, 'when will they both realize that we're all in the same boat together? I thought that they were getting somewhere during the second part of the exam, but I think that I might have been imagining things…"

"You went to school here, didn't you Yoake?" Sato asked quietly as they passed one of the many lecture halls. Makuro was jolted out of his reprieve.

"Yeah…yeah I did." Their sensai wore a thoughtful look on her face as they continued on their way, "A few years ago…my parents of course didn't want me to have to face that gruesome genin test of my home village, so for some reason I managed to go here."

"Lucky you did, Yoake." Kuro said, "Else you certainly wouldn't be here today."

"Are we all done reminiscing?" Shinri stated sourly, "Or are we going to get out of here?"
"What's your hurry?" Sato asked. They rounded a corner, and saw the main entrance doors they had come in through, "It's not like we're going anywhere special or anything. You need to take a chill pill, mate!"

"Call it what you like," Shinri jammed his hands in his pockets again, "I just still don't trust this city at all."

"Konohagakure, Hidden leaf village." Yoake grinned, pushing open the doors, "I wonder what else is hidden in this place? Hey looks like team seven is already here and waiting for you…."