Chapter 2

000

New Comer

000

Tokyo was way different from my hometown. It was much louder and crowded. I felt homesick the following days and I had to entertain myself to keep my mind off home. I hated the fact that I had to move there in the first place, but whenever I think about my father's job, I know I didn't have to be selfish.

I walked around the city to familiarize myself with the areas. I could easily get lost on the road. In my hometown, there wasn't much fuss around the place. Life was simpler there.

However, summer vacation was over and the start of classes is nearing, again.

I only gaped at the towering gates at the entrance of the school on the first day of classes. I didn't expect Konoha Academy to be that huge. The metallic entrance gates were about fifteen feet high, making it looked restricted. A symbol of what looked like a tribal sign of fire was embellished on the center of it, which gleamed against the blinding sunshine. It was open, revealing the core of the school.

I walked inside uneasily as I felt several eyes wandered toward my face. The students noticed a new face in the place.

The high, white buildings of the school were the very first thing that caught my eyes as I entered inside. There were at least ten floors in each of the structures. They were all encircling a vast and spacious court at the center, which I assumed to be use for sports and other special occasions.

Nonetheless, there were hundreds of students present inside, though it seemed to have fewer students than my former school so it made it seemed exclusive.

Female students wear red ties over white buttoned blouses which had sleeves that ended up right around the elbow, and black skirts for the bottom part, which fell just about the knees. The male students wear the same red ties and white buttoned blouses. Black pants for the bottom. The school's insignia was stitched on the left side of the upper arm of the sleeves.

I looked down at my schedule. The first line said:

Subject - Room – Time

Physical Training - U504 - 9:00-12:00

It was a little odd since I was not precisely sure what Physical Training was all about. If it was somewhat like Physical Education.

However, the school didn't seem to be any different than the rest if you'd look at it from the outside.

I walked inside the nearest building from my spot and quickly started to look for the room.

"That's mine, you dickhead!"

I swiftly stepped aside as a guy with messy, blonde hair came tumbling down from the room when I opened the door. He fell flat on his face before me with a loud thud. And his right hand was grasping two chocolate sticks.

"Give that back!"

Another brown-haired guy landed on top of him, trying to take away the sweet sticks on the other one's grip. He had red tint painted on both his cheeks like an ethnic sign, which appeared to be a family symbol.

"In—yuhr—feysh—" the blonde guy grunted as he stuck the two chocolate sticks inside his mouth. He grinned in triumph after swallowing them down quickly.

"You imbecile—" the other one growled, pulling his head from below.

A white dog, which was bigger than the average size of dogs, also landed beside the two. It was growling and barking at them as if it was part of the jumble.

I didn't know animals are allowed in this place.

I only stared at them as they sock each other at the doorway. They only stopped when the blonde one spotted me standing there before them, and immediately loosened his hold from the neck of his opponent.

"Oh, hello. You're new here?" he asked, his blue eyes now fixed on my face. He surveyed my features as though I was someone unusual. His neck tie hung crookedly around his collar.

"Uh, yeah." I said.

"Cool. I'm Naruto, by the way." he said gleefully as he took his hand out and shook mine. The other one only looked at me.

"Sakura." I responded.

"Nice to meet ya. And this one's Kiba—and his dog, Akamaru."

The guy with red paint on his cheeks nodded at me while the dog beside them had started sniffing me.

"So… Is this the Physical Training class?" I asked.

Naruto stepped aside from the doorway. "Oh yeah, it is. Just go in."

"Thanks." I walked in, leaving the two as they continued to wallop each other again.

In any case, I wasn't surprised to see the class like a jungle. There was a huddle of guys at the wide windowsill, who were peeping at the younger girls outside the court, all dressed in their volleyball uniforms. There were a few girls at the middle of the classroom putting their make-ups on. There were a couple of students who were just sitting on their seats in a bored manner as they drew doodles on their notebooks. Some guys were chattering loudly about the cool things they had accomplished.

But as I marched inside, I felt more eyes turned to me. I quickly looked for a vacant seat and spotted one at the back near the corner. I dropped my bag on the desk and took my place.

"Hello."

I turned to the side and found myself staring at a pair of pale gray eyes. She had dark, short hair that was nicely cropped and was in contrast with her fair skin.

"New student?" she asked gently.

I nodded. "Hi. I'm Sakura."

"Hinata." she spoke as she shook my hand. "Nice to meet you. Welcome to the academy."

There was a sound of a short stumble, and a girl with long blonde hair tied in a pony tail appeared next to her. She had tripped on her way there to that spot.

"Why, you're new here, aren't you?" she said with a confident aura, her blue eyes flashed in intrigue. She must had instantly spotted a new face in the class. "Well, it's not everyday Konoha Academy gets to accept a transferee for the senior level." she said suspiciously, taking her seat next to Hinata.

"I've heard." I said.

"Sakura, this is Ino." Hinata introduced, pointing the blonde girl.

Ino observed my appearance for a few seconds. And after it, she blurted. "Boy, you sure have a strange-colored hair and a wide forehead."

I felt my hand twinge. What an insult.

Hinata noticed the expression on my face and drew herself closer to whisper. "Don't worry about her, Sakura. She's really nice if you'd get to know her better. She's just—well—very frank with words."

"I can see that."

As I leaned back on my seat, the bell suddenly rang, indicating the start of the class. And one by one, the students marched inside and sat on their own places in the classroom. The class held about thirty students.

Naruto and Kiba strode back to their seats, which were only a few chairs away from ours. Their blouses were crumpled due to their childish tussle. Akamaru, the dog, on the other hand, sat next to his master's seat on the floor.

"Wonder where that asshole had gone to." I could hear Naruto grumbling something as he took his seat.

It was only then that I noticed the other students of the class. Some of them were quite odd-looking; like the red-head who had a Chinese sign tattooed above his left eye and had hanging chains from his pants' pockets. He was just sitting at the corner, not bothering to entertain anyone. And there was this other male with a bowl-cut hairdo who was just executing weird stunts a moment ago around the room. I also noticed another gray-eyed student in the class that had obvious similarities with Hinata. Only this one was a male and had long dark hair tied loosely at his back.

"You have a twin brother?" I asked my seatmate quietly.

Hinata shook her head. "That's Neji. He's my cousin."

Before I could ask her again, the door of the room swung open and a man with bristly, silver hair strode inside. He was wearing an unusual black mask that concealed his mouth and his left eye. He was holding a small red notebook. He promptly landed before the teacher's table and faced the class, who was all watching him eagerly.

The class knew the professor very well. It was a senior class, after all. The man in front of them placed his miniature notebook down on the table and held both his arms openly in the air.

"Welcome back, seniors!" he greeted merrily, though his smile was being concealed by his mask.

The class shortly wooed at his gesture. Some of the guys even yelled something about a pornographic book.

"That's Kakashi-sensei." Hinata whispered to me. "He's very popular with the guys."

The so-called Kakashi scratched the back of his head. "So, I see that you'd be graduating this school year. Nah, too bad—no more crazy parties and wrecking rooms." he smirked. "But that's all right. I still have my eyes on the lower years. What a bunch of little brats."

The small discussion was suddenly interrupted by a loud screech from a motorbike coming from outside the building, which made most of the class looked outside the window—though I was too far away from it to see who or what it was. The noise was loud enough to be heard at the fifth floor.

Kakashi glanced outside the window and shook his head shortly after seeing who it was. Looked like someone seemed to have just arrived in the school.

"The bastard finally showed up." Naruto muttered after yawning.

Kakashi went back to his small talk. He folded his arms together and scanned the class again.

"So, are there any new comers for the class this year?" he asked, altering the topic.

I flinched. I hate introduction in front of people.

Most of the students' heads rolled around to me. And that caught the professor's attention as well.

"Oh—so we have one. Now, that's interesting." he said. "Like to introduce yourself, missy?"

I sighed as I got up from my seat.

"Good morning. I'm Haruno Sakura." I almost choked. I could barely look at anyone around.

Kakashi nodded. "Welcome to Konoha Academy, Sakura. I'm Hatake Kakashi by the way, if you're not yet familiar with me."

"Glad to meet you, Kakashi-sensei." I bowed slightly.

"So… a transferee, eh?" he said, eyeing me in a perplexed manner as he rubbed his chin with his right hand. He mumbled something about an old hag, though I was too far from him to hear him clearly.

He was about to ask something again when the door of the classroom suddenly swung open once more. This time, the girls appeared more alert to see who was about to enter inside.

A tall, lean guy with spiky, jet black hair and dark gray eyes came in. One of the straps of his navy blue backpack hung on his right shoulder, making it dangle behind him. His neck tie was leashed a bit loosely, revealing the first button of his blouse left open. He looked extremely cool and confident (and arrogant) with his stance, which appeared to give out a unique aura in the place. The class felt like it froze the minute he walked in.

"Nice of you to drop by, Uchiha." Kakashi said in a saracastic tone as he walked passed him.

"Nice to see you again, Kakashi." he simply said as he made his way to his seat, which was next to Naruto. Several girls had their eyes fixed on him all the way.

"What took you so long?" Naruto whispered to him.

The guy just shrugged as he placed his backpack on his desk and took his seat.

On the other hand, I only stood there and watched them for a moment. The new arrival was very much good-looking, which had shaken the female population in the class. He was popular from the looks of it. He didn't seem to care whether all eyes of the students were glued on him. He acted to be too good to apologize to the professor for his lateness, too—and that had bugged me a little. Or that was just how they treated each other for all the years that had went by in that school?

Kakashi straightened up again.

"Anyway, let's go back to our transferee—" he said, turning his head back to me. The rest of the students followed him. I hated it. "So, would you like to tell us from which school did you come from, Sakura?"

"I'm—" I began to spoke. It was only then when the dark-haired guy noticed me (that a girl was standing in the room and introducing herself before he bursted in and shook the attention of everybody) since his head leisurely turned around and his onyx eyes met mine. That made me more nervous. "I'm from Scion Academy." I uttered.

He stared at me for a moment, as though I was some kind of an alien, and finally turned around after. He looked quite surprised to see me, though. Perhaps because he didn't expect to find a new student in the last year of college, too. And… there was just something different about the way his eyes scanned my appearance.

"That's not in Tokyo, is it?" Kakashi said as he scratched his head.

I nodded. "It's in Sapporo."

"Sapporo's nice." he beamed. "So you must've just moved in, then? Well, in behalf of the citizens here, I would like to welcome you to our bustling city." he grinned again and urged me to sit down. "Anyway, since you're new in this school, I suspect you're not too familiar about how things work around this place. But don't worry, you'll get use to it sooner or later."

He turned around and began to search for a chalk around the blackboard.

And before I know it, he had started explaining some fundamentals about physical activities which I didn't really understand. The subject was more like physical education, though it seemed to deal with some skills which I'm not really sure about.

000

000

Lunch time soon came and I shortly found myself sitting on grasses under a tree at the school park. It was more like having a picnic inside the institute.

However, I was able to meet another one of Hinata's friends in the class as well, Ten Ten. She was brown-haired and had an athletic body. And I was thankful to have found nice people in my first day of classes. It wasn't everyday that I'd meet people like them, anyway.

"So how did you really end up here?" Ino asked me as I chewed a piece of a chicken sandwich.

And I told her how I came there.

Because of our little chitchat, I had also found out more things about them. Ino, Hinata and Ten Ten had been in that academy ever since they were in elementary level. I also found out that we had a few classes together even though our courses were different. Ino and I were both taking up Journalism, Hinata was Food and Nutrition, and Ten Ten was Management.

"Oh, look—isn't he cute?" Ino suddenly giggled, turning her head around and pointed someone at the cluster of senior boys who were all sitting at one of the round tables near the park.

I looked up, only to see the spike-haired guy from the first class we had. Naruto and some of the other boys were pushing each other in order to get a nice view from the mobile phone which the chubby one was holding. They were all clustered behind him, sniggering as they watched something from it. The attractive one, on the other hand, was just leaning on the table, playing with the pasta before him uninterestedly. His chin rested on one of his palm as he continued to ignore what the others were doing.

"Hey, Sasuke! You should see this one!" Naruto snorted as he called him, his eyes glued on the phone screen.

The other one didn't show any sign of interest.

"What're they doing?" I asked Ino.

Ino pouted her lips. "Watching porn videos."

I chuckled.

"They usually do that during break time, those perverts." Ten Ten muttered as she took another sip from the can of soda she was holding.

Ino brought her knees to her chest and rested her chin on top of it. "Hope Sasuke's different from all of them… He doesn't need porn videos to get laid. He could get what he wants with those looks." she joked.

"You've met them, right, Sakura?" Hinata asked, turning to me.

"Not exactly." I said as I heard some of the boys at the table jeered at one of the scenes from the video in the phone.

Ino did the honor of pointing each and one of them out and introducing them to me as we sat on that spot. I only nodded as she continued to give me a few information of the person she was talking about: like Chouji was this chubby guy with a very huge appetite; and Shino was this quiet type who had this thing about bugs; and Shikamaru was the one in a pony tail who had an IQ of a genius; and so on and on. Until she arrived to the male whom she was very interested in introducing to me.

"And that mysterious, gorgeous guy over there is Uchiha Sasuke." she said in almost a giggle, pointing him at the table as he only sat there unperturbedly. "If you ask me, I think he's the guy who's just about good at everything—that's why a lot of girls are chasing after him in the campus."

"Really." It was a sarcastic tone.

"Uh-huh. He's taking up Mechanical Engineering, just like Naruto." Ino said assertively. "He's been elected as the president of Student Body several times, though he keeps on turning the position down. He's a member of the Racing Society and Sports League, and he plays guitar, too. And he's also one of the best rogue students around."

"Rogue students? Are they like the mental bunch?"

They laughed, but the three heads all turned to me at the same time.

Ino moved closer to me.

"Do you know the Mortis Organization?" she whispered.

I shook my head.

Ino leaned back and paused for a moment. "They must be still scheduling you for an orientation."

I only looked from one to the other.

"Am I… missing something?" I asked them. "What is it about—well—rogue students?"

"It's what we call the students who're members of the Mortis Org."

000

000

Kakashi marched across the dim corridor and soon landed at the door of the school head. It was a wooden door with a Japanese word that means "Fire" imprinted on it.

He knocked a few times, and after hearing a quiet response, he pushed it open and walked inside.

The room had shades of white. The cabinets and shelves were aligned at the corners neatly. And an enormous window, which showed the view of the core of the school, was facing the door across the other end of the room.

A blonde, pig-tailed haired woman with a robust built was standing in front of it, her back was facing him. Her silhouette figure was defined from the lighting of the area. She was dressed in a red coat which had some insignias painted on the back.

A massive, polished table stood behind her. A few piles of papers and folders rested on it, along with a glass of alcohol.

"Good afternoon, Tsunade." Kakashi greeted.

"What brings you here, Kakashi?" the woman in front of him spoke, though her back was still turned to him. She knew who it was the moment he entered.

"I just want to ask about the single newbie in the senior year." Kakashi said. "It's quite surprising that you let a student enter in the school in the batch's final school year… I seem to be unaware of something here."

Tsunade only tilted her head, her eyes were fixed on the sight from the window.

"You mean Haruno?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"She arrived late in this academy... Sarutobi should've let her enroll in this place years ago." Tsunade spoke.

"She's Sarutobi's granddaughter?"

Tsunade nodded. "He called me a month ago, some time during the summer, and told me that it's about time he let her enter inside this place."

"So Sarutobi is also back in Tokyo, isn't he?" Kakashi said. He chuckled for a moment. "That old prick."

Tsunade turned around. "But there's a little problem. She doesn't know about the underworld yet." she said calmly, her auburn eyes meeting Kakashi's. "She doesn't know anything about it."

She took the glass of alcohol from the table and sipped from it.

"That old lunatic didn't even bother to tell his own granddaughter about it and left us to do all the work." she hissed, a nerve twitching on her forehead.

"Oh, I see…" Kakashi said coolly as he leaned his back against the wall at the corner. "Does he have any idea if she has a bloodline?"

"He said he wasn't yet exactly certain, but he could feel a different chakra from her. He suspected the moment this girl was born that it's possible. Either that or she just have a strong chakra."

Kakashi fell silent for a moment. Sarutobi was one of their best rogues, but he had retired years ago. And as far as he know, only a very selected few of his relatives know that he wasn't one of the normal people around. He wasn't even sure if his descendants even knew what kind of world he was living in. Kakashi and the other professors were still a bunch of youngsters during his glory days.

"So, what are you planning to do with her?" Kakashi asked after a minute of silence, looking up at her.

"I've just discussed it with Sarutobi. She's not the type of girl who goes blurting things out in the open, so she can be trusted." she said, rubbing her chin with her fingers. Her long, red-tinted nails glimmered in the afternoon sun. "We'll introduce her to the Mortis Organization and the whole underworld. If she can be as good as I suspect, then we'll see."

"When do you want her to be put on training?"

"Sooner or later she's going to find out the school's secret. Anyone who enters this place automatically becomes a part of our world, anyway. Make sure she knows everything by the end of the week."

Kakashi shrugged and leisurely moved away from the wall. "No problem."

He couldn't help but grin to the fact that a new member might come into the school's restricted and top secret association. And he seemed to like the idea that it might somehow be a change.

000

(To be continued…)