Fear and Panic!

Chapter 3

Sakura walked into the school, already shrugging off her backpack as soon as she could, as she knew her locker was near the entrance of the school anyways. She caught the glances of a few teachers along the way to her locker, and she swore she saw a new student dash past her. She reached the locker area and breathed a sigh of disappointment to see that nobody was there. She was early. She spun the combination to her locker and stashed her backpack and jacket in. She looked behind her as if she thought one of her friends would magically appear, and then turned back and tiredly closed her locker.

'Where's Hinata! She's usually here early! I mean I understand Ino being kinda late but...Hinata! I'll just go walk around then!', she thought, not letting the absence of her friends rain on the first day of her second semester.

She walked down the hall and then heard Sasuke and his friends' voices coming down from the other locker area. She quickly stepped away from the direction of that locker area and headed down another way. She caught sight of one of her good friends seated on one of the benches in the hall, looking just a bit upset.

She stepped in front of him cheerily and bellowed, "Kiba!". He looked up, startled, and smiled, "Oh, Sakura". She grinned back and noticed Akamaru crawling out from his jacket. "Arf arf!", Akamaru barked, and Sakura remembered last semester when Sakura had taken the Japanese course with Kiba in her class. When Sakura realized he was there, she got completely excited and pleaded for Kiba to teach her how to speak dog.

"Kiba, Kiba! Listen to this, listen to this...arf arf!", she exclaimed when she and Kiba had been early to Japanese and the class hadn't commenced yet. Kiba would laugh like he always did and would imitate her "barking" with a silly voice, and then he'd do it correctly, to which she'd pout and reply "That's exactly what I did!".

But then sometimes she'd try really hard and she'd get it almost right, and Kiba would say she'd done a good job and Akamaru would agree. Sometimes she'd feel proud of herself when she overheard Akamaru's barks and understood them.

So this time, when she heard Akamaru's barks, she processed them in her mind, and realized. 'Oh! He's asking what time it is! He must not want Kiba to be late for first period, what a good dog', she thought to herself as she pulled out her cellphone and checked the time. "It's 8:37", she said to both Akamaru and Kiba.

Then Kiba made a face and laughed; Sakura stared at him and wondered just what was so funny. He calmed himself and looked up at her, "He said 'Kiba failed Japanese'". Sakura stared at him, first surprised at her embarrassing mistake, then bewildered, then upset.

"Oh, Kiba!", she exclaimed and immediately understood why he'd seemed so unhappy when she saw him. She gave him a pat on the back and mumbled a "there, there". He smiled up at her and ask, "What do you have for first period this semester?". She blinked, "Oh! I didn't get my schedule from the library yet, I'll see you later, Kiba!". She scurried off barking "bye bye!".

Before she knew it, she was already halfway to the library, but she caught sight of Asuma, who had taught her last semester and had been such an amazing teacher to her. It definitely couldn't hurt to say hello, especially since he wasn't going to teach her this semester. "Asuma-sensei!", she called to him, who swerved around, startled. She flailed her arms in the air, "Hi!".

He chuckled and turned to face her, "Oh Sakura, have you looked at your report card yet?", "Oh, not yet...urgh, Asuma, I did kind of bad on the final exam right?", she mumbled the last part. He looked pensive for a moment and then said, "No, you did alright". She perked up, "Oh, really?", "Yeah, you got a B+ ". She seemed to be a little disappointed at this, "Ahh, well, I guess that's alright".

Asuma decided he'd go have a look around the school and get to know some of the new students, so Sakura bid him farewell and went off on her merry way. She was skipping past Kurenai's classroom when she spotted Neji, another one of her friends, seated inside.

"Nejiii!", she called as she hopped in. Neji turned and sighed exasperatedly, "Oh, Sakura". She pushed past the mass of desks and got to him, swiping his schedule from his desk in the blink of an eye. "Oh, you have the same class as me for first period!", she declared cheerfully. "Um, Sakura, don't you have your own schedule...?", he asked tiredly, effortlessly trying to grab it back.

She looked at him, "Neji! I forgot to get it! Agh, I'll go get it now", she turned to face the door, but then turned back. "Neji, come with me!", she said excitedly and watched him reluctantly get off his seat. As they headed for the door, Sakura heard a cynical "aww" from behind her, and immediately her mind identified it as that voice.

Sasuke's.

She shivered and hurried out the door, with an unaware Neji trudging behind her. 'Sasuke's in my first class! Oh my god, no way!', she thought, mentally pulling her hair out in frustration and worry.

The vote was alright last chapter. Everyone voted for KakaSaku, and a teensy bit of Sasuke and even a bit of Rin! I'm sorry Kakashi wasn't in this chapter, but he will be quite involved in the next one, so stay tuned, yeah?