From the moment he walked into the classroom, Iruka could tell that something was amiss. The Inuzuka boy—and wasn't that a minor rarity, when well over two thirds of the children born to that clan were female—was sitting by himself, his arms folded defensively and a scowl on his face, while the Fourth's son, whom Iruka had assumed to be one of his friends the day before, was glaring at him from his seat halfway across the room. Most of the other students seemed confused about what was going on, except for the Nara boy, who was sound asleep.

Why me? he sighed to himself. I really don't need this, especially not with the demon gi—the Haruno girl, he reminded himself, remembering the end of his conversation with the Hokage the day before—in here too. As he looked around the room, though, he couldn't spot her, which surprised him. Given her attitude the previous day, he definitely would not have expected her to be the sort who would skip class.

When she still hadn't shown up by the time the first class was scheduled to begin, though, he was forced to conclude that the Hokage had apparently been wrong about her. Strangely, that didn't give him the sense of satisfaction at having been proven right that he might have expected, and he felt a small twinge of disappointment when he called her name on the roll and received no response. Shrugging, he turned his attention to his lesson plans; there wasn't anything he could do about it if she decided not to come to class, after all.

Several minutes later, as he was busy writing notes on the blackboard, he was surprised to hear the classroom door open. Turning around, he almost laughed when he saw her attempting to sneak in unnoticed—a wasted effort, he could have told her, as her hair made her far from inconspicuous. Curiously, she didn't have her bag or any books with her, but then she sat down at the desk he had assumed the Nara boy was using to store his supplies.

So she was here, but then she left, he thought to himself as he continued his lesson without acknowledging that he had seen her come in. She couldn't have been in the restroom, not for that long. Despite what the Hokage had said, he still had trouble thinking of her as a child rather than a demon, but that attitude was proving hard to maintain when he took a moment to really look at her. In sharp contrast to her cheerful attitude from the day before, she was practically exuding depression; while it was hard to tell from where he was standing, he thought the skin around her eyes looked red and puffy, as though she had been crying for quite some time.

Annoyed Inuzuka plus angry Kazama plus miserable Nine-Ta—Haruno equals…what? He was certain the two boys' odd behavior before class was related to the girl somehow, as when she hesitantly put her hand up to answer one of the questions he had expected to stump everyone, both of them turned around to look at her—open dislike on the face of the former and surprise mixed with happiness on the latter.

No, I definitely do not need this, he thought, wondering again what spirit he had offended to get both the Fourth Hokage's son and the Nine-Tails' vessel in his class, even if neither of them seemed to be the cause of this particular little problem. At least they were all behaving during class, though he wouldn't put money on that continuing into the lunchtime break.

- - -

Leave me alone…please, just let me sit here and eat, Sakura silently begged, as she saw one of her classmates stand up from the table where a number of them were sitting and start to walk over to her. She had chosen a tree to sit under—fittingly enough, a cherry tree, though it was early autumn and the tree bore neither blossoms nor leaves—that was even further away from everyone than the one where she had sat the day before, and all she wanted to do was eat her lunch without anyone bothering her.

"Sakura?" The voice was light, a girl's, but not one Sakura recognized. Glancing up from her lunch, she saw a girl with short, dark hair and the odd pearlescent eyes that were an unmistakable mark of the Hyuuga clan standing a few feet away from her. Immediately, she began to panic.

"Y—yes, Hyuuga-san?" she asked, hating the quiver in her voice, but unable to suppress it. Even a friendless outcast like her knew about the Hyuuga, who, since the sudden and never fully explained demise of nearly the entire Uchiha clan, were the Hidden Leaf's undisputed powerhouse—both in terms of ninja abilities and political sway. The idea of a Hyuuga paying attention to her absolutely terrified her; if she somehow managed to offend this girl, she could quite probably literally get away with killing Sakura, and the Hyuuga were notoriously quick to take offense.

"I…um…just wanted to see if you maybe wanted to…eat with us?" the pale-skinned girl asked, sounding more than a little nervous, which Sakura couldn't understand at all. It didn't really matter, though, she supposed; just like yesterday, this was all a setup. No doubt the Hyuuga's invitation was just an excuse to get Sakura into a situation where everyone would start making fun of her like the boy with red-striped cheeks had before class that morning, but if she didn't accept it, the other girl would have an excuse to get angry at her.

Deciding that remaining unharmed, albeit most likely humiliated, was preferable to whatever the Hyuuga would do to her if she refused, Sakura nodded. "All right," she said, keeping her eyes downcast as she stood and walked over to where the others were sitting. It isn't like I really have a choice, after all, she finished silently.

When she saw who else was sitting at the table, though, she wondered if maybe she should have taken her chances and remained where she was. Ino, Shikamaru, Chouji, and—probably the absolute last person she wanted to see at the moment—Naruto were all looking in her direction, though in Shikamaru's case, she wasn't sure if he had actually noticed her or if his seat just happened to be facing that way.

"Thanks, Hinata-chan!" Naruto exclaimed as the two girls sat down, causing the Hyuuga to blush brightly. "I knew you could get Sakura-chan to come over with you."

So this was his idea. Apparently building up Sakura's hopes the previous day only to have his friend ruin them wasn't enough for the blond boy, but did he really think she would be naïve enough to fall for the same thing a second time? Much to her dismay, as she saw his wide smile and innocently happy expression, she found herself wondering if she might actually be, if not naïve, then stupid, because part of her wanted to give him that second chance.

Somewhat surprisingly, aside from their initial greetings, none of the others paid much attention to her. Instead, they seemed content with allowing her to sit and observe them as they talked to each other, only occasionally turning to ask her opinion on something. Against her will, she found herself relaxing her guard as she began paying more attention to the various conversations going on around her.

Naruto and the Hyuuga girl, Hinata, seemed to be fairly good friends—which made sense, given their social standing—as did Shikamaru and Chouji, while Ino flitted between the two pairs, poking fun at Shikamaru's laziness one moment and bopping Naruto on the head for teasing Hinata the next. To Sakura, the overall effect was somewhat bewildering, yet it made her heart ache to watch them and know she would never really fit in. Yesterday she had dared to hope that might change eventually, but that morning had shown her she had been mistaken.

"Why?" Sakura didn't even realize she had spoken aloud until she realized that everyone at the table had stopped talking and now they were looking at her. She felt her face flush under their combined stares.

"Why what?" Naruto asked, cocking his head to one side and looking puzzled. "I guess it's because most ninja don't develop their chakra reserves enough until after they graduate and become genin, but—"

"Not that!" Sakura interrupted him, deciding she might as well get it out in the open now that she had so foolishly opened her mouth. "Why are you all pretending to be nice to me? That boy this morning…I know that's how everyone really thinks about me, so why are you doing this? Just to be funny, so you can laugh at me when you tell me to go away after all?"

To her horror, she realized tears were forming in her eyes, and she blinked them back furiously. Keeping her head down so her bangs fell over her eyes, she waited for the inevitable jeering laughter—only to be startled by the feel of an arm slipping around her shoulders and giving her a half-hug.

The silence stretched out for what seemed like forever, and as she risked a glance up through her hair, she saw all of the others still staring at her, but now with sadness rather than curiosity in their eyes. Hinata—the dreaded Hyuuga—was the one with her arm around Sakura, and tough, perky Ino looked like she might start crying at any moment. Even Shikamaru and Chouji, whom she knew the least out of all of them, appeared a little concerned.

And Naruto—he didn't look sad; he looked furious. His eyes practically blazed with blue fire, and for a moment, Sakura wondered if this was how his father had looked just before sealing away the Nine-Tails. It was Ino who spoke first, though.

"I…know I wasn't very nice to you at our old school, Sakura," she said quietly. "My mom and dad always told me to stay away from you, so I did. And even though you looked so lonely sometimes, I knew they wouldn't tell me something like that for no reason.

"When I got home yesterday and told them about how you were in my new class, they were really worried at first. They went upstairs so I couldn't listen to them talking, and when they came back down, neither of them looked very happy. Then my dad told me to invite you over for dinner so they could meet you, which I don't understand since they never wanted me to talk to you before, but…"

As the other girl trailed off, Sakura puzzled over what this unexpected bit of news might mean. If Ino's parents knew about the demon sealed in Sakura, and it made sense to assume they did, since nearly all of the adults in the village seemed to, then why would they invite her into their home?

Unless…yes, that was the only explanation; now that she had entered the ninja academy and might have to work with their daughter regularly whether they liked it or not, they wanted to see for themselves just how dangerous she really was. This dinner would be more like an interrogation than a pleasant meal, she had a feeling, but strangely she found herself looking forward to it. As long as they were willing to give her a chance—which it seemed they were, as otherwise they wouldn't even have asked her over at all—she just might be able to show them that she wasn't the monster they thought she was.

And vegetables might sprout from my ears, too, some other, more cynical part of her interjected. Still, she nodded and, forcing a tiny smile, told Ino that she would love to come to her house for dinner sometime.

Upon hearing that, the blonde girl seemed to cheer up, looking more like what Sakura had already come to think of as her usual bouncy self. As the other excitable blond at the table opened his mouth to say something, though, he was yet again beaten to the punch, this time by Chouji.

"Um, I don't really know you or anything," the brown-haired boy said, looking up from his lunch for a moment but somehow continuing to eat even while he talked, "but I remember when everybody made fun of me for being too big and slow, and wouldn't let me play with them. I didn't like it, so…I'm not going to be mean like that to you."

Sakura could only smile at him, unsure of what she could say in response to that. Perhaps she had been wrong after all, and they really did want to be her friends. As much as she wished that could be true, though, she was just as much afraid to open up to them.

"So, Sakura, as I was trying to say before those two interrupted me…" The sound of Naruto's voice interrupted her thoughts, and she looked over at him, noticing that he sounded unusually serious. "I'm not sure what Kiba's problem was this morning, but I talked with my mother last night, and—"

Whatever he had been intending to say was cut off by Iruka-sensei's loud call that class was beginning, and he scowled in annoyance. "I'll tell you later, okay?" he said, as everyone began to pack up their lunches and head over to the practice field.

Sakura could only nod, confused by his attitude, before groaning as she realized that friends or no friends, remedial shuriken training was not going to be pleasant.

- - -

Sakura stood in front of the Yamanaka home, trying to keep from fidgeting as she waited for someone to answer the door. It had been a week since Ino first asked if she could come to dinner sometime, and she had eventually decided that the other girl's parents had changed their minds, but that day before class the blonde had asked if she could come over that evening.

Not having any reason to refuse other than nervousness, Sakura had agreed, and as a result she found herself standing outside a small but exquisitely well-kept home in her best dress—the red one the Hokage had given her when she started at the academy, as it was the only one she owned without patches or sewn-up tears—shivering slightly as the cool wind whipped her carefully brushed hair into tangles. She had rung the bell twice already, and while she could see lights on inside through the windows, nobody had come to the door yet. Wondering if she had misheard Ino that morning, she was about ready to leave when the door finally opened.

"Sakura's here!" Ino yelled back into the house as she opened the door wider. "Come in," she added to Sakura in a more normal tone. "Sorry I didn't come right away, but I was in the bathroom and someone—" this last word shouted again in the general direction of a man who had just stepped into the foyer, presumably her father— "couldn't walk ten feet from the kitchen to answer the door."

"I was busy helping your mother finish dinner, Ino," the man replied mildly. As Sakura entered the house, she caught a better look at him. Tall, with blond hair the same shade as his daughter's that was pulled back into a ponytail, he moved with the loose ease that was a mark of a highly-trained ninja. Sakura immediately decided that she never wanted to make him angry with her, even if he was currently regarding Ino with a look halfway between annoyance and affection and didn't exactly appear threatening.

"Liar…Mom knows better than that," Ino countered, crossing her arms. As an aside to Sakura, she stage-whispered, "Daddy can't cook at all. Chouji said his dad and Shikamaru's thought he was preparing a poison the first time he tried to cook for them on a mission. We're doomed if my mom let him help with dinner tonight."

Ino's father frowned at her. "That's enough," he said. "Why don't you go help your mother while I talk with your friend for a few minutes?"

"But…all right. See you in a little bit, Sakura," she sighed before walking away, pouting a little.

When she was out of sight, Sakura gulped. This was the part of the evening she had been dreading; even if Ino seemed to think her parents just wanted to get to know Sakura, she knew better. Of course, for some reason—perhaps that mysterious law she had heard people mutter about when they either hadn't noticed her or apparently didn't think she could overhear them—they couldn't let her know that there was anything special about her. Adding yet another twist to the whole matter, she couldn't let Ino's father know that she knew about what he wasn't supposed to talk about.

Maybe I should've stayed home tonight, she thought for at least the tenth time since she had left her apartment. While she had grown to enjoy Ino's company over the past week, was a potential friendship really worth going through this? Deep inside, though, she knew she would do this much and more if it meant that someone might actually want her around them. Besides, at least Ino's father didn't seem actively unhappy with her at the moment, though it was hard to read his expression.

"So, my daughter said that you're in her class at the academy, right?" he asked. Motioning for her to follow, he led her out of the foyer and through a short hallway to the dining room, where a low table was already set with bowls and utensils. A number of floral arrangements sat around the otherwise sparsely decorated room, while a scroll hanging on the wall bore the device of the Yamanaka family.

Sakura nodded. "Um…yes, and she was in my old class too," she said, "but I didn't really know her then."

"How are you finding the academy? I imagine it must be quite different from what you're used to." The question was natural, but he seemed to place a peculiar emphasis on it that Sakura couldn't understand, even knowing at least some of his hidden motivations.

Mentally shrugging, she answered, "I like it, but it's hard. Especially the chakra exercises…Iruka-sensei says I haven't really developed any chakra reserves yet, so I can't do some of the things everybody else can. I'm getting better with shuriken throwing, though, and my tutor said I should be able to start with kunai soon too."

He seemed surprised to hear this, for some reason, but she couldn't tell if it was a good kind of surprise or a bad kind. "How interesting," was all that he said in response.

He looked like he was about to ask something else, but at that moment, Ino and her mother appeared in the doorway bearing dishes of food. From that point on, the conversation, though somewhat stilted at times, covered topics unrelated to ninja or the academy. Ino's mother seemed a bit dismayed to hear that Sakura had lived by herself ever since the Hokage removed her from the orphanage, but she wasn't sure if she had been imagining the reaction or not.

After the meal was over and Ino and her mother began clearing the table, her father apparently decided it was time to resume his questioning. "You aren't really what I expected you to be," he commented, interlacing his fingers and resting his hands on the table as he leaned back slightly.

Sakura did her best to keep a confused expression on her face, as if she was unsure what he was talking about. Inwardly, however, she was anticipating whatever he might say next with a mixture of hope and dread. As long as he didn't plan to try to forbid Ino from talking to her again, she supposed it didn't really matter what else he did, but she still hoped she might have managed to change his own view of her at least slightly.

"Living alone at such a young age must be hard," he continued, and Sakura was now very much aware of his scrutiny. "You seem to have dealt with it well, though. That's good, since resourcefulness is one of the most important qualities a ninja can possess."

"I…um, thank you?" Sakura said, not having to fake her confusion this time.

Ino's father actually started laughing at that. "Don't worry," he said. "That was a real compliment, and I'm not going to try to tell my daughter not to talk with you any more—that is what you were worried about, isn't it?"

Sakura nodded, not trusting her voice at that moment, and he continued, "I imagine she told you how her mother and I instructed her to stay away from you at your old school. I don't expect you to understand, but we did have our reasons at the time. Now, though, I find myself wondering…"

As he trailed off, his attention drifted away from Sakura, leaving her more than a bit uncomfortable in the sudden silence. After a few moments, though, he seemed to refocus on her and said, "Ino should be finished with the dishes by now, so why don't you two go do something together for a little while. It's getting dark, though, so you should probably leave soon."

"Yes sir," Sakura said, bowing slightly before leaving the room in the same direction Ino and her mother had gone. She was more confused now than she had been before coming over for dinner. While she could tell that Ino's father was quite uncomfortable around her, he didn't seem to hate her the way most adults did. Ino's mother's attitude was harder to figure out; the older woman had been sympathetic at times, when she appeared to forget whom she was talking to, but she had also been very nervous most of the time.

Do I really scare people that much? she wondered. I don't want people to hate me, but I don't want them to be afraid of me either. And then there had been Ino's father's last comment to consider; had he actually said—or almost said, at least—that he might have misjudged her? It was enough to keep her deep in thought for the rest of the evening.

- - -

"Next pair, Hyuuga Hinata and Haruno Sakura."

The teacher's voice dripped with disdain when he said Sakura's name, and she found herself barely restraining the urge to make a rude gesture in his direction. Mizuki-sensei had been the class taijutsu instructor for the last several months, ever since Iruka-sensei hurt his leg over the semester break, and she had yet to hear him say anything even remotely positive to her. In addition, he seemed to take a sadistic sort of joy in matching Sakura against the strongest students in the class for sparring matches.

At least I'm not partnered with Kiba or Sasuke this time, she thought, suppressing a shudder. The Uchiha was both stronger and far more skilled than she was, and didn't bother to hold back against her. He was like that with everyone, so at least he wasn't singling her out, but that didn't make the bruises she accumulated during their sessions hurt any less.

Kiba, on the other hand, had apparently never forgiven Sakura for costing him his friendship with Naruto, even though she hadn't ever done anything to him. Not only did he not hold back against her, he often went out of his way to end their matches in as painful and humiliating a manner for her as possible, something which Mizuki-sensei did nothing to prevent. Her friends had offered numerous times to take care of the boy with the red-striped face for her, but, not wanting them to get into trouble, she always declined—though she suspected that at least Naruto had gone ahead and done something anyways after one particularly bad session that had left her with a broken wrist.

As she stepped into the circle marked out in the dirt of the practice ground, Sakura looked over at Hinata, but was surprised when the other girl refused to meet her eyes. She had formed a remarkably strong friendship with the Hyuuga heir over the past school year, and while the two of them had little in common with each other on the surface, their personalities were remarkably similar. If anything, Hinata was shyer than Sakura in many ways, which made no sense to the pink-haired girl; even aside from being the heir to the most powerful family in the village, she was the second-strongest taijutsu student in the class, behind only Sasuke—though admittedly she had a natural advantage there—and she was no slouch in the classroom either. When Sakura had tried to ask Naruto about it, he had only muttered something about Hinata's father, an uncharacteristically dark look on his face.

"Ready? Begin!" Mizuki-sensei dropped his hand, and the uncertain look on Hinata's face was replaced by a look of grim determination that Sakura knew was mirrored on her own. She couldn't win, she knew; even without the Byakugan, Hinata's skills were far superior to hers. Still, at least this time she might learn something from the match, as Hinata took care to fight at her opponent's level for the most part.

Have to keep the range open. Hinata wasn't allowed to use the full jyuuken during sparring sessions, as recovering from closed tenketsu took too long to be practical given the amount of time set aside for taijutsu lessons, but Sakura knew that in a real situation even her opponent's softest hit would be potentially disabling.

Fortunately, Sakura was marginally faster, and as she jumped back and away from Hinata, she twisted into a sweep kick that almost succeeded in tripping up her opponent. Hinata seemed to flow around it, though, lashing out with a palm strike to Sakura's left shoulder that would have rendered the entire arm useless if it had connected.

Barely ducking the attack in time, Sakura again jumped back, putting her dangerously close to the edge of the circle. A second sweep kick, this one feinted, led into a combination straight punch and wheel kick that should have landed. With almost contemptuous ease, though, Hinata deflected the first and slipped around the second. Her retaliation, a knife-hand strike just below Sakura's floating ribs, landed with bruising force.

What's going on? part of Sakura wondered, even as she desperately dodged around Hinata's follow-up attacks, trying to regain the relative safety of the center of the circle. Her friend wasn't holding back at all today, and unless Sakura was vastly mistaken, she was even using chakra to enhance her speed and strength.

"I'm sorry, Sakura," she thought she heard Hinata whisper as the dark-haired girl closed the distance between them in a sudden burst of speed, just before she snapped a kick into the center of Sakura's chest strong enough to leave her sprawled on the ground and gasping for breath.

"Winner, Hyuuga Hinata."

Sakura dimly heard Mizuki-sensei's voice announce the end of the match, but the part of her mind unoccupied with trying to get air into her lungs was already feverishly working on the question of what could possibly have made Hinata act the way she just had. It didn't make any sense, though, and finally she decided she would have to ask Naruto if he knew anything. The blond boy was Hinata's closest friend, and if anything was bothering her, he would know.

Climbing slowly to her feet, she managed to walk out of the sparring circle, though she couldn't keep from wincing as each step jarred her new set of bruises. Throbbing in time with her heartbeat, a voice in her mind whispered Weak…weak… with every wave of pain, driving out her concern for her friend. It was true; Hinata might not have been holding back, but she still shouldn't have won so easily.

Barely any chakra, near the bottom of the class in taijutsu…the only thing I'm even somewhat good at is kunai and shuriken throwing, and that's the most basic skill there is for a ninja. She continued to berate herself as she sat and watched the rest of the matches with unseeing eyes, not even noticing when Ino sat down next to her and slipped a comforting arm around her shoulders.

Her first year at the academy was almost over. By the time her second year started, she was determined to find something she could excel at, something she could use to show she deserved to be a ninja just as much as any of the others in her class. She had promised the Hokage she would become a great ninja, and that was what she would do.

- - -

Author's Notes: Many thanks to all of you who reviewed! I definitely enjoy reading them. I have been trying to respond to the longer reviews, but due to the fact that I haven't used this site in nearly four years (long enough that I forgot my old account information...) and am still trying to get used to the whole private messaging system, I'm not entirely sure that the responses are going through. So, my apologies in the unlikely event that you've sent me something and I haven't responded; it's because I haven't seen it, unfortunately. To publically answer one question from a review, no, Hoshigake Kisame (aka Shark-Man) is in no way related to Sakura. That was an unintentionally confusing choice of names that will be retconned out of the introduction once I refer to Sakura's father again in the story.

I do realize that some characters may seem a bit different from canon, but they're all fairly minor changes, and hopefully I've managed to supply reasons for those differences within the story. If you think something needs more explanation or background, please review and let me know. The biggest change is in Hinata, but I think that's fairly well justified by her having been friends with Naruto for quite a while, so while she still desperately wants to please her father, she also has a bit more confidence in her own abilities than in canon.

Next chapter: Whatever happened to Sakura's mother? Also, creative ways of using minimal chakra to obtain big results...sort of. How long can Sakura keep her secret?