I got this out faster than I thought. I was quite bored and just started writing. ^-^

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or anyone from it, but I do own Tsukkio. She's mine. :)

Chapter 2: Everything begins.

I am awakened by yet another nightmare, and groan. I glance at the clock, 4:30, much too early for me to be awake. The sun isn't even out at this time. I sigh, this nightmare business is really getting old. I look around at my messy room, black sheets in a heap at the end of my bed, and my aquamarine and black comforter on the floor. There was garbage everywhere, and bottles of painkillers littered the floor. I sigh and get up, upset that I'm awake at this time of day, especially on a day where good nights sleep is needed.

'I should get a dream catcher.. ha' The thought is humorous to me. Bad dreams aren't caused by evil spirits, bad dreams are caused by the subconscious fear of something, or a bad memory. In my case it was a memory. Watching them get slaughtered before my eyes, but not being able to do anything. I flinch suddenly, and pull those thoughts out of my mind.

'Just forget and cool yourself off' I move to the kitchen, taking in the gruesome sight of dirty dishes in a pile, and old food on the counter. I've been really busy with training this past week, but I hadn't realized it was this bad. I ignore it and move to the bathroom, which isn't as bad as the other rooms, other than the spiderweb in the corner, but being on a team with Shino makes that seem like nothing. I walk over to the shower and turn it on, waiting for the water to heat up all the way. I pull off my sports bra and sweat pants, I stop to admire the marking of a wolf that goes down half my body. I am suddenly reminded of my brother. He had a fox tattoo going down from his neck to the top of his right hand, in bright white. Him and I were yin and yang, the fox representing light, and the wolf representing darkness. He was my hero.

"Sora.." His name is foreign to my lips, I try to forget, but I can't. I just do the best I can to push it back. I could have helped him, if i weren't such a naive child, being a fantastic kunoichi is all i can do for him now. I feel a tear roll down my check, and sigh. I need to stop doing this.

I step into the shower, and let the hot water calm my nerves. I wash and stand there for about ten minutes until hopping out and going into my room to rummage for clothes. I find all my fishnets, and slip them on as usual. I pull on a purple tank-top, and a black skirt similar to all my others, but it has purple trim, and a purple crescent moon in the right corner. I pull my very long silver hair back into a high bun and add 4 chopsticks. I tie my headband to my right arm, and adjust it over my fishnets. I look at my reflection in the mirror, and am content. I turn and bound out the door and onto the streets of Konoha.

The sun isn't up yet, so I ponder on where to go. Finally I decide to go to my clearing and start to run quickly and silently towards the destination. I don't cover my eyes, everything is quiet and it wouldn't be a challenge what-so-ever. I make it to the wooded area and slow to a walk, heading towards the clearing, until I sense someone. I stop, and sniff the air, their smell is unfamiliar to me, as is their chakra. I quickly crouch and move towards the shadows, letting them engulf my body, making me nearly invisible in the darkness. I crouch low, and move towards my clearing, using the shadows of the trees to keep cover. I move to a tree in the clearing, and look at the person sitting in the moonlight.

"Subaku No Gaara.." His name falls from my lips, without me thinking and I quickly put my hand over my mouth. I mentally smack myself.

"Show yourself.." His voice is calm, and he speaks lazily, but it still has an eerie tinge to it. I move forward leaving my shadows at the tree, and do a somersault over to near his position, just because I could.

"What are you doing here..?" He hasn't even looked my way, he just continues to stare forward. He looks devilishly handsome in the moon light, and I find myself staring.

"Er.. well... I woke up, and decided to come here. It's my favorite spot in the village... But then I sensed you... and got curious and wanted to see who you were.." I never stutter, but here I am almost unable to find my words. This is annoying, what's with this boy?

"Why are you awake..?" He finally looks my way, he looks calm, but there's still no expression on in his eyes. He's just blank.

"Why would I need to tell you..?" His eyes sharpen at my comment, and then turns his head away from me. I sigh, if I was to even try to get to know this boy, I might as well be nice.

"I had a nightmare." I state simply. I move to sit cross legged, and fall backwards onto the soft grass. I breathe in the scent of the clearing, with now also includes the scent of Gaara, who seems to be ignoring me. He smells oddly of sand, blood, and jasmine, which I know can be a desert flower. I inhale again, he smells nice to me.

"You're still here" His voice breaks my sniff session, and I glance towards him, his back still to me.

"Nope, this is just a illusion, I'm not really here, you just think I'm here." Sarcasm drips from my tone, this is something I naturally do when someone states something obvious.I close my eyes, and relax again.

Suddenly, I feel a force push me about five feet to the side, it's gritty. Sand.. I sit up, and my eyes narrow.

"What was that for?" I know I shouldn't get confrontation with anyone I don't know, but he just shoved me with sand!

"Hn." He finally turned all the way around and looked me straight in the eyes. His expression is still lazy.

"You said you were and illusion, I was testing that." Is this guy serious?

"I was being sarcastic, wasn't it obvious?" My voice is raised, but I don't care.

"No one has ever been sarcastic with me, and you're being rude.." Venom begins to drip through his tone, and I tense. Not out of fear for him, but out of fear that I may have upset him.

"Sorry.." I'm trying my best not to be short fused, I want to find out his story.

"Are you not afraid?" He's looking away again.

"Afraid? Of what?" I'm really confused. Why does he confuse me so damn much?

"Me"

"Why would I be afraid of you?" My statement is innocent, but he tenses up, and his fists grab grass. He turns directly at me, face distorted with different emotions. Confusion, anger.. Sadness?

"Ga-" I start to say his name, but sand engulfs him, and he disappears. I look up, seeing that the sun has just barely begun to come up, I sit down and sigh.

'What an odd morning"


Gaara's POV:

'She's not afraid of me..? Hn, I doubt it, she tensed up at my tone. But, what if she isn't afraid..? She's very intriguing, and powerful.. I may not want to taste her blood after all...'


Tsukkio's POV:

I open my eyes, and look to the sky, the sun is up. It seems to be around 11:30. I yawn, happy about my nap. I look around the clearing and slowly the events of early this morning come back to me. I had spoken with him, he was blunt, and cold, but his face before he left portrays otherwise.

'Great this peaks my curiosity even more!' I groan and stand up. I need to meet my team at the academy, the Chuunin Exams start today, and I can't be late. I touch my fingers to my toes and crack my back.

"Alright.. Here I come."

I speed off, faster than I have in quite awhile. I jump into the trees, and when I reach the town, I jump onto a building.

"Look at that odd girl, so reckless, I can't wait for the day she hurts someone and gets kicked out!"

The voice is from a snotty sounding woman, and I sigh. First of all, I'm not reckless, I'm more graceful than she'd ever hope to be, second of all, if I ever do hurt someone; It'll be her. I shrug my unnecessary anger off, and bound forward. I see the academy and get excited, something I don't usually do. I pick up my speed even more, so I'm barely visible and then jump high of the roof and do three flips before landing on the ground with one foot. I felt cocky, but that's just because of my excitement.

"First you're late and then you make a flashy appearance! You're something else, baka!" Kiba sure knows how to greet a woman, alright.

"You're just jealous because you can't make up for tardiness with a sexy aerial flip." I give him a pitied look, and he pouts looking angry.

"G-G-Guys... We need to go register." I hear the soft voice of Hinata-chan, and turn around. I smile at her and then look to Shino nodding, and just walk to the door. We move up to the third floor, hearing people whisper about a gen-jutsu that tricked a lot of people.

"See Tsukkio? We already missed action!" Kiba acts like an energetic mutt sometimes. Even Akamaru is more sane than him is at times. We move to a room full of genin, and register and begin to wait. All of these people are in groups of three, except for my group. My arrival in Konoha kind of messed up the system, but whatever, being odd is cool sometimes. My three companions wander off towards a man giving bios on other shinobi, I sigh, not wanting to take part and move to a corner and slide against a wall. Once I got comfortable, I began to observe people. Some weaklings, some creeps, and many odd looking shinobi were in the room. I noticed Gaara and stared at him, and then he made eye contact with me. I blinked, and smiled naturally. he looked shocked and looked away. I saw Kankuro and Temari gaze at me and I smiled at them too, if they were companions with Gaara I could get to know them too. My curiosity for this boy is going insane. Kankuro looked away, but Temari smiled back. I looked down and sighed.

'This is boring' I spoke too soon, as we were then pushed into a room with desks and a paper at every desk. There were name-tags on each desk indicating where each genin was to go. I found my seat and was shocked as Gaara took a seat next to me. I quickly looked down, and took a breath. I looked up at the people in front, and glanced at how many people, specifically chuunin were seated around the desks, with notepads out.

"Oh god, we're going to take a written test..." I put my head down on the desk and smacked it a few times until it started to hurt. I moved my head up, and saw that Gaara was watching me.

"Er.. sorry?" He nodded and turned forward again. I'm such a baka! Soon, a man stepped forward, he had many scars, and spoke. he gave us instruction on what we were to do, about the test, and that were weren't to cheat. We were soon handed the test and I was dumbfounded at the questions. No genin could answer these, until I saw four four people writing answers hastily in front of me, and sensed four more behind me. They were placed evenly around the room.

'They WANT us to cheat!' I smirked, and made hand signs under the desk. I sent my shadow towards one of them, without converting it into matter, and it moved into their eyes sockets and blended into their eyes. He didn't even notice. I made another hand sign, and then closed my eyes. I saw from his vision and the answers were revealed to me. I began to write them down, with ease and was finished in mere minutes.

I noticed Gaara also had his eyes closed, well, an eye, and came to the conclusion that he was doing something similar. I shrugged and put my head down.

"Everyone put their pencils down!" My eyes shot open, and I shot up. Damn, this is the second time I've randomly fallen asleep today. I yawned, and then scratched my head. I caught Gaara staring oddly at me, and smirked.

The man in front explained the last question, and I kind of blocked him out. I wasn't going to leave, and I didn't care who did. I know my team won't back down either. I hear Uzamaki's shrill tone break into the room, and I sigh, and cover my ears with my arms with my head down on the desk.

I stayed like that for a bit, until I heard that we all passed, and I sighed. So this test was for nothing. What a waste. I was about to put my head down again until I heard someone bust through a window and start screaming about the second part of the exam. She startled the fuck out of me, and my ear drums nearly exploded. Curse this sensitive hearing. I grabbed my ears and cringed instinctively, and whined slightly, earning some add stares, and making the woman in front stop.

"Sorry.. don't worry about me. I'm just.. partly deaf now." I stated, I hated when people looked at me. I wiped my hand across my face and shook slightly, like a dog who's trying to get over something. I realized I did this, and sighed. I can't help my canine tendencies.

"Check out the freak, she acts like an animal.." I heard someone whisper this and looked down. Yup, that's me, that freak.

They started laughing until I heard them gasp and stop. Sand was creeping up their legs, and they were freaking out. Gaara was staring forward, but I saw that he had a hand sign made. The sand stoped when they yelled sorry, causing them to get stares as well.

"Thank you?" I said to Gaara.

"Hn" was the reply I got back. I smirked, he was being nice? I couldn't tell. I couldn't ponder it much longer, because we were being herded outside in front of a huge fence, and handed waivers. This was a paper indicating that Konoha wasn't responsible for any deaths that may occur in here. I moved towards my team and looked towards the large fenced area protecting a forest.

'Well.. This is going to be fun, isn't it?' I smile, and sign the contract.