AN: This is only the third chapter and there are so many hits! I'm glad you guys like this!

Chapter 3:

Lesson 3: Life is the hell you make it.

That night, I woke up at about three in the morning and just started crying. A wild mix of emotion spiraled through my head at dizzying speeds; relief, doubt, fear, anxiety, hope but most of all homesickness. I think that the fact that I was completely alone in this world finally hit me. And it hit me hard. I don't know how long I cried, but I sobbed and whimpered until I was exhausted and by then the sun was shining happily through my window.

I probably just laid there, wallowing in my misery, for thirty minutes more before convincing myself that I needed to get up and move on. I literally rolled out of my bed and let myself fall to the floor, then cursed at myself for stupidly hitting my head on the bedpost on the way down.

"Maa, you're supposed to get up out of bed not fall to the floor, Ameko." Kakashi called. "It's not good for you, y'know."

And then there was Him. The weirdo that I was stuck with until graduation.

"Really? I didn't know." I mumbled sarcastically. I walked groggily to the bathroom to take a shower and brush my teeth before trudging into the kitchen for breakfast. I looked up at the clock. It was half past eight.

"Ah, you're up. Good. I wanted to introduce you to my team." Kakashi said cheerily. Wait, he has a team already?

"What team?" I humored him.

"I am a ninken owner. So it would be odd if I was and didn't have a team." He did some complicated hand signs really quickly, probably so that I couldn't copy them or see what the sequence was, and pressed his palm to the table. There was a sudden zing in the air and eight adult dogs of varying sizes suddenly poofed onto the table. I leaned back in my chair heavily as the eight ninja hounds loomed over me.

They reeked of dog shampoo. I instantly clapped my hands over my mask-less face to try and lessen the smell. It didn't help much and I think it offended them slightly.

"Well then..."

"If that's the way you'll react..."

"You didn't have to..."

I shook my head to explain. "It's not you. It's my overly sensitive nose. Your clean shampoo-y smell is just too strong for me and my nose is freaking out."

"Pakkun," Kakashi addressed the smallest dog.

"Yeah, boss?" the pug answered.

"It's time to teach the new pup how to play." He eye smiled. Suddenly I didn't want to be so close to the pack.

They seemed to sneer canine smiles at me in unison. I didn't like that. Not at all.

"H-hey! I'm sure we can do this some other way! No need to be like this!" I said nervously.

Their wolfish smiles just got wider. I hightailed it out of there, swinging around to my room, hastily putting a mask on and then escaping through my window. Unfortunately, I didn't think that far ahead because one, I didn't know how to get down from the fifth floor of an apartment building, and two, the pack had followed me out here.

I just knew that it was going to be a long morning.

I ran from those vicious creatures for two hours, and was thoroughly mauled and exhausted. I guess this would be the ninken equivalent to freshmen hazing. By the time eleven o'clock came around, I was cornered in an alleyway and too tired to even attempt an escape.

"Alright already." I said. "You win. I give up. What do I have to do to get you guys to stop chasing me?" I complained.

The dogs, not even winded, grinned again in unison, and it was just a little creepy that they could do that at the same time. The pug Pakkun jumped up and landed on my chest, pushing me to the ground and simultaneously tearing my mask off. I closed my eyes bracing myself for the worst as all the dogs closed in on me.

"Punishment is... a healthy slobbering by the Henohenomoheji Ninken!" Then they proceeded to lick me all over my face, hands, feet, and pretty much any bare flesh they could reach outside of my clothes. Considering they had torn my sleeves and pants' legs to ribbons, they could reach all the way up past my elbows and to my knees. And it tickled. A lot.

As exhausted as I was, I couldn't help but laugh and flail and scream as they ripped off my shoes and got to the soles of my feet. By the end I was bone tired and didn't have enough energy to even get up, not that I could with all of the dogs lying on top of me, but at least I could breathe.

"Pakkun," I managed. The pug looked up from his position on top of Bull who lay across my stomach. "Shouldn't you go back to Kakashi-san now? You've accomplished what you needed to do right? You should go back."

"If we go back you have to go back too, pup." The pug smiled. "It wouldn't do to leave you out here all alone now would it Ame-chan?"

"You'd have to drag me back. I'm too tired to move." I complained.

Pakkun considered for a second then said, "You heard the pup. Come on, Biscut, Shiba, Uuhei, Urushi, Guruko, Akino. Help the pup onto Bull's back." I was consequently flipped over onto my stomach and pulled onto the big bulldog's back who, despite being roughly the same size and weight as my ten year old self, easily carried my weight. I just laid there limply as the dogs ran back to the apartment as if they hadn't just been chasing me around like hunters after a rabbit. I didn't even have enough energy to complain about the smell or the loss of my nose protector.

When we got back to the apartment, Kakashi greeted me by shocking me with his finger to check if I was still alive. I yelped and swatted his hand away as I fell off of Bull and onto the floor.

"You better hit the shower again. You just got licked by a group of dogs. You don't smell so good." Kakashi smiled at me.

"You're mean." I said to him as I trudged over to the bathroom. "What did I ever do to you?"

"Think of it as training so that you can actually survive at the Academy today." He called.

"I have to go to the Academy!?" I screamed back at him as I stopped myself from turning in to the bathroom. "When? Why?"

"Two hours and forty-five minutes ago and for your first day of school." He replied. "If you're lucky, you'll get there only three hours late." He eye smiled.

"I'm LATE!" I screamed as I hurried into the bathroom, completely forgetting about my previous tiredness. I swear I heard him chuckling. He did that on purpose. The next five minutes were a mad scramble to get ready. I dried and fixed my hair as quickly as I could, grabbed an apple from the fridge for breakfast, some money for lunch, and a mask for when I wasn't eating. Just before I rushed out of the door, I skidded to a halt, grabbed my white scarf and the map that Kakashi held out in his hand, and then on impulse I hugged him.

"Bye, Kakashi-san." I said.

With that, I ran out of the door, bit into my apple and unfurled the map. I nearly choked in relief when I saw that the Academy was only a ten minute walk from the apartment. Running, I could make it there in half the time. Slightly rested and nourished, I felt that the run wouldn't be as bad as the two hour chase.

I could still be there before the full three hours had passed.

I literally burst through the Academy doors out of breath and completely disoriented. Even with the map, I had to ask directions from random strangers six times.

"Sorry I'm late." I said, irony heavy in my mind. "Someone played a prank on me and then I got lost on the way here."

The teacher sighed and then put his chalk down.

"Come to the front of the room please." He said. I did as he asked and tiredly dragged my feet to the front of the room. I looked around and saw that everyone was staring at me. That made me uncomfortable. "Class, this is Hatake Ameko." I stiffened at the surname. "She'll be joining this class during her stay here and I expect that you'll be courteous to our new member as she settles in. Please tell the class something about yourself Ameko-chan."

I turned to the class and frowned underneath my mask. I didn't have a good enough back story to be saying anything personal and the teacher would surely pick up on it. I would have grumbled if the teacher wasn't two feet away.

"Yo." I stated with a flick wave. I swear they anime style sweatdropped. "I'm Ameko. I like..." I thought about my answer. "I like it when people smile." I settled for, smiling with my eyes as best as I could. "That's all you're getting."

The teacher and the class looked at me strangely. I could tell they thought I was crazy. Well, at least I'll be left alone for now.

"O-kay. Any questions for Ameko-chan?"

A kid with messy blonde hair practically jumped out of his seat.

"Why are you wearing that weird mask?! And how come Sensei didn't punish you for being late?!" He yelled loudly. A couple of other students started to protest too. I rubbed my ears.

"Ask my-" I tried to think of a good description for Kakashi. "brother." I said simply. "It seems to be a tradition he wants me to keep too." I finished with a bit of sarcasm.

"Hey, that didn't answer my question!" He yelled again. Geez, did he have a volume control on him? The class was getting wilder.

"Naruto sit down!" the teacher yelled.

"But Iruka-sensei it's not fair!" He yelled out. "How come when I'm late I get detention and she just-"

"Naruto!" Iruka wound up. Okay, time to diffuse this quick.

"When's detention Sensei?" I asked. The entire class fell silent. Now Iruka-sensei was looking at me like I was crazy.

"Wh-what?" He managed to stutter out.

"When. Is. Detention?" I asked with exaggerated spacing. "People serve detention for being late so when do I have to show up?"

Now everyone was staring at me like I was crazy again. "What?" I asked. "Something wrong?" I acted innocent. I know it must have been strange to have a kid willing to go to detention, but I was a strange child that had Catholic Guilt bred into my personality. Even though I wasn't sure what I believed in now, my morals were skewed in self inflicting mental punishment for things I do wrong. I briefly wondered if life as a shinobi would beat those chivalrous notions out of me or if I was destined to keep them for the rest of my life.

Sensei composed himself again. "It's after school at four. Don't be late. You can take your seat next to Shino and Sasuke. Both of you raise your hands so Ameko-chan knows where to go."

"No promises." I said airily to the man as I trudged over to my new seat. I scooted over in the second row past Shino, who I identified by his shades, and slumped into my seat next to the grumpy looking Sasuke.

As soon as I had touched the seat I could feel the glares being directed at me. I looked around to see Sasuke's fangirls practically murdering me with their eyes. Shit, I wanted to be left alone, not have rabid fangirls chasing after me. I leaned over to my left and said quietly, "Psst! You're name's Shino right?" The boy next to me turned suddenly as if he wasn't expecting me to talk to him but nodded. "Do you mind switching places with me? I feel like I'm gonna get murdered in this seat!"

He pushed up his glasses slightly, as if in a nervous habit, and then said, "If it would have helped the situation any, I might have. However, the girls will hurt anyone who is sitting next to Sasuke-san and I am not willing to risk their wrath." I slumped dramatically.

"Alright, thanks anyway." I said as I turned away and tried to ignore the threat of imminent pain as Shino went back to playing with his bugs. I looked up to the board and saw that we were doing algebra work. I almost sighed aloud at the good fortune. I took algebra in freshman year and I could actually keep up with what the curriculum was in this world. I leaned forward and got comfortable resting on my arms.

I gazed at the board and looked for anything that was different or new but didn't find anything so I just used my finger to ghost write on my desk and figure out the problem. I was hoping I didn't get called on though. I would have gotten wringed for not having the work to show for it.

Lunch went relatively well, if I considered that I had to sneak off school grounds to go get food. I ended up going to the nearest food place and just quickly snagging a prepackaged umeboshi rice ball off of the shelf and hurriedly run back to school before anyone caught me. I also had to find a good hiding place to eat because everyone wanted to talk to me during lunch or something.

On the way to the bathroom though after lunch, I was jumped, by Sasuke's fangirls of course.

"Little bitch!" Rabid Fangirl said. "What are you doing to my Sasuke-kun?! Why are you sitting next to him, freak?"

"Hey, I'm not-" I tried.

"Don't give your excuses! We don't want them! You're gonna regret ever laying a hand on him!" Idiot Fangirl said.

"You guys can have him." I tried again. They stared at me like I was crazy. "Again with the stares. Okay, how about you guys go over and fight over that seat next to him then? I'll just end up taking the empty seat."

The effect was instantaneous. They all completely forgot about me and went running over to the classroom and fighting to get in first. I breathed a sigh of relief and made sure to wash my hands in the bathroom of the sticky rice from lunch before heading back.

While I made the trek back though, I felt the exertion of the day hit me like bricks. I nearly collapsed in the hallway, but was able to steady myself on the wall and recover slightly. I was exhausted, and it was only the beginning.

After lunch, was shuriken throwing and sparring.

I tried my best to hide my exhaustion while we were called up individually to throw at the targets, and put extra effort into appearing completely nonchalant and lazy to cover it up. I also discreetly paid attention to the throws and errors that my classmates had made so I could quickly put together the correct technique.

But then I was called up. Iruka-sensei handed me four shuriken and instructed me to hit the four targets all at once as best as I could. I felt everyone watching me as I threw them at the targets.

THUNK! THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!

I was actually able to hit the targets, each of them within the third ring of the four ringed targets too! I was mentally celebrating in my head when someone spoke up.

"That's it? I was expecting you to be better at this." I turned to see Sasuke in all his jerkishness looking at me disappointed. "What a loser."

I actually laughed aloud at that. I clamped a hand over my face to try to stop it from erupting as I clenched my stomach as if that would help. I coughed to recover and then just smiled.

He sneered at me. Geez, mean much? "I bet you don't even practice!" He said. "You're worse than Naruto."

"Sasuke!" Sensei reprimanded as I heard Naruto protest. "That's not something you should say to your teammate."

I couldn't help it.

"He is right though." I spoke up. "I don't practice."

"Ameko!" Sensei said disbelievingly. "You should be ashamed not- not smiling!"

"Well I don't practice, I didn't expect much. I've never done this before either." I said honestly. "I'm just happy that I actually hit the target on my first try." My grin widened underneath my mask and they all gave me the 'are you crazy?!' look again. It was getting old. "What?" I asked, seriously.

"How did you manage to do that if you didn't practice?" Sensei asked. "It takes at least ten hours of practice with shuriken before most students figure out how to even hit the target by themselves."

I shrugged. "I was watching when people threw." I said. "And listening when you gave them advice. 'Don't be timid. Be sure of your throw.' 'Always keep your eyes on the target.' 'Follow through with your throws.'" I recited.

"So," a girl asked. "You didn't transfer from some other class?" I nodded. "You came from the civilian school?!"

"I guess that's right."I said. People started to mutter amongst themselves and as I walked back to my spot, Iruka-sensei spoke to me privately.

"See me after class." He said.

No one seemed to want to bother with me after that. I was glad, because I got paired up with Shikamaru for sparring. He seemed to recognize me somewhat but didn't put much effort into the spar. As weak as I was, I didn't know if I could hold up in an actual spar anyway.

By the end of the day, I was glad that I had to have detention. I just sat in the classroom, unfortunately still seated next to Sasuke, until detention started. Once it began, I could literally just rest as long as it seemed like I was paying attention. I even stayed later than that, because Iruka-sensei still needed to talk to me and was in a meeting until five thirty.

I took a mini power nap in my seat as I waited patiently for him to arrive. A familiar voice jolted me out of my sleep though.

"She hasn't moved from that spot since she came in. She's just been waiting for Iruka-sensei to show up." someone said quietly.

"I see. Thank you. Nezumi." I heard Kakashi say. "We should probably go in then, Iruka-sensei. We don't want to keep poor Ame-chan waiting any longer."

The door opened and I rubbed my eyes sleepily at them, as if I didn't even hear the conversation. I looked surprised at Kakashi.

"Iruka-sensei? What's Kakashi-niisan doing here?" I asked, testing the waters. Was the conversation serious, or just mandatory?

Kakashi held up his hand as if to stop me. "You can cut the Academy act now." He said. "We both just want to know if you're taking these classes seriously or not."

I looked at him surprised. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"You didn't pay attention during the lectures today and you joked about not having prior practice with shuriken before. Are you even trying?" Iruka asked seriously.

"I wasn't paying attention because I already learned the math concept you're teaching, and I wasn't joking about not ever throwing a shuriken before. The only practice at throwing objects like that I've ever had was stone skipping. I came from a civilian school." I objected.

"That's impossible." Kakashi said. "Civilians don't learn this level of math until business school."

I was getting slightly frustrated and heaved a sigh. "You assume that the place that I come from is exactly the same as what's customary here." Their surprise was visible.

"In the place where I'm from, there are three mandatory schools to go through and one optional one. From ages four to eleven is Primary school; six grades organizing children's education by age. From ages eleven to fourteen is Middle school; three grades with the same organization. From ages fourteen to nineteen is High school; four grades. After that the optional education would be college that serves any age as long as the classes are paid for. I had completed my second year in High school before arriving here and that math is old news to me."

They were both silent for a while. I was rather winded. That was a long speech for my tired state.

"So you were between sixteen and seventeen years of age, highly educated, but you've never thrown a shuriken before?"

"Yeah. People don't really use shuriken where I come from. We don't even have chakra. We use machines and scientific weapons of mass destruction to fight instead. The civilian population is really large and we spend our lives doing things that commit to society. People can take a self defense class but breeding children for the military isn't as well known in- where I come from."

Iruka-sensei seemed speechless of the thought of not having chakra.

Kakashi's eye narrowed. "What were you going to say?"

"In my world." I said. I looked around nervously trying to see if anyone was listening in on this conversation. "Didn't the Hokage tell you that I was from a different dimension? How I fell from the sky?"

They didn't answer.

"The information I know about your world is dangerous. That's why I put on the crazy person act. That's why I make sure that people think that what I say is complete nonsense. I'm not a threat as a person, as you can see. It's what's inside me that could tear the world to pieces. And I'm not letting it out."

"So you won't tell us." Iruka-sensei said. It wasn't a question. "You can't just leave the executive decisions to the adults? Ameko, you're just a child!"

"However much I trust you, I can't." I said. "I wasn't even going to attend the Academy if I didn't have to. It was too dangerous. I don't even know what the Hokage was thinking when he put me here."

I slumped in my chair. "I just-" I paused. "I just want to go home." I whispered. "I don't even know how I got here! How am I supposed to get back?! I hate being here! I shouldn't even be alive!" I screamed. I was close to snapping.

"Then what are you doing here? Just go die and rid us of the problem." Kakashi said coldly. I wanted to think that he was just testing me, but for some reason, having someone I had put my trust in tell me to 'just go die' was too much.

"If I died, I'd leave this entire world to perish, but if I live then I could change something." I began tearing up. "But I'm too scared to live and I'm too scared to die! I don't know what to do! All I'm doing is running away! Hiding from everything behind a smiling mask! What does the Hokage want with me?!"

I had finally cracked. I was too stressed, too tired, and too mentally vulnerable to think straight. All I could do was lash out blindly. I didn't know if it was for help or for the fact that I wasn't anything to them. I was just another pest to squash. Disposable. I didn't like any type of attention; be it popularity or hatred or otherwise but I'd rather be treated like nothing than like dirt.

I felt someone grab me from behind and try to restrain me. "Let me go! Don't touch me!" I said. "Why are you doing this? I'm nothing but trash to you! Let me go!"

I felt the pull of shunshin and suddenly I was in the apartment in my room. I pushed the arms away and scuttled over to the farthest corner of the room burying my face into my arms.

"Ameko-" Kakashi tried.

"Leave me alone! I hate you!" I yelled. "I want to be alone..." I faded.

Kakashi was quiet again for a while. Then I heard him sit on my bed. All the while, I cried and cried just like this morning. Tears flooding because the dam had broken. "I'm all alone." I sobbed quietly. And no one wanted me.

I don't know how long I stayed there, but I just kept going, thinking about how completely and utterly alone I was, until I ran completely dry; until I the little energy I had left to cry was gone.

Silence filled the room as my choking sobs stopped and I just sat there in the corner unmoving.

"Are you really that scared, Ameko?" Kakashi asked suddenly.

I peered up from arms and straight into his eyes. I felt completely empty now, having nothing left inside to try and fill the aching hole.

"I'm terrified." I answered honestly. I fell asleep sitting in that corner, not even bothering to move.

And I knew that even after everything had happened today, I would get up in the morning tomorrow. I would get up and move forward, even if I was just going to relive this nightmare every day.

AN: I hope I'm keeping Ameko realistic. Writing her character seems to just ask for this mental breakdown. I cried a bit as I wrote it. Please review!