Sai sat down next to his locker, flicking a small red ball between his hands. He hated his new haircut. Hated it really, really badly.

Across the hall, sitting next next to her own locker, was Hinata, hunched down, staring into her sketchbook, looking, as always, like she was desperately trying not to be noticed.

Sasuke appeared, dark hair hanging over his intense eyes, hands in pockets. "Check it out."

Hinata realized that Sasuke was talking to her, and nearly had a heart attack. She looked up, clutching her sketchbook. "Wha-?"

"Look."

Hinata looked over, and Sai followed her gaze. There was a new kid over there, by the principal's office, blond haired, orange jumpsuit, a sort of couched, feline look about him.

"Bit of a strange kid, I think," Sasuke said. This being the most anyone had said to Hinata in a while, she looked like her head was going to explode. "He's forward. Asked me to hang out with him the other day."

"Nothing like a little self-confidence," Sai said.

"Nice hair-cut," a voice said.

A vision of pink, Sakura appeared next to Sasuke, and smiled at Sai.

"I hate it," Sai said, standing up. "I told them to make it look like Audrey Hepburn's hair." He touched his short black hair. "They made it into this."

"You look like a pixie. I think it's hot."

"It's not Audrey-hot."

"Why the obsession with Audrey?"

Sai said nothing. After the haircut, he had returned to his room, knelt down beside his bed and looked up at the massive poster of Breakfast at Tiffany-era Audrey, and said, "I'm sorry" over and over again.

"Again," he said to Sasuke. "Nothing like self-confidence."

"Yeah," Sasuke said. "I'm sure he'll fit in here."

Bells rang, doors opened, students ran. Naruto found himself jostled side to side past Sasuke and the rest and into the first class of the day.

It'd been a long time since he'd been to a highschool that was an ordinary size, with classes that allowed for the teacher to learn his frigging name. He found a desk and sat down. Ahead of him he saw that dark boy, Sasuke, sitting down a few desks ahead next to a vibrantly pink girl.

Philosophy class. How nice. How the hell did that get onto the curriculum at a highschool?

He got his answer when the teacher lurched into the room -- a tall thin man with spiked grey hair, a drooping eyelid, a bandanna pulled over one eye, old tweeds, and a gait that reminded Naruto of a leisurely sloth.

Naruto glanced at his timetable. Philosophy -- first period -- taught by Kakashi Hatake. Huh.

Bam. The teacher fell into his chair, and his feet came up and rested on the desk. "Eh. Sai, could you take attendance?"

Sai's voice was low: "Seriously?"

"So shall it be written, so shall it be done. Get to it."

Sai pulled himself to his feet, walked to the front of the table, grabbed the attendance sheet, stood there.

A blonde girl next to Naruto leaned forwards and said, "Where'd you get your clothes, Sai? The Sally-Ann?"

"Oh c'mon!" Sai said. "The teachers right here!"

Kakashi waved his hand idly through the hair. "Sticks and stones, Sai."

"I'm getting you after class, Ino," Sai said. "Right. First name on the list--"

The girl named Ino leaned over towards Naruto and smiled. "What's your name?"

"Naruto."

"I'm Ino. You're new here?"

"Very."

A ball of paper slapped against the back of Naruto's head. Naruto glanced back.

Crazy eyes: white on white: wild red hair: pale skin. Teeth were bared from the boy behind him. "Turn around."

"You got a problem?"

Ino spun around. "Leave him alone, Gaara."

"Heh."

Ino turned back and muttered, "The Sand Siblings are such assholes."

Be friendly, Iruka had told Naruto, so Naruto turned back to Gaara and said, "I'm Naruto." He held out his hand to him.

A flash of red: Naruto cried out, and stared at the compass needle sticking into his hand. He looked up at Gaara's widening grin.

Gaara and his chair fell back, crashing against the ground. Naruto was on his feet, his knuckles torn from its impact against Gaara's chin.

The class was silent, staring at him.

"Well," Kakashi said, regarding him apathetically. "That didn't take long. Principal's office time, boys."

That was the horrible thing, really. Naruto didn't even register getting up, didn't notice his fist knocking Gaara back. It had been a subconscious response.

No one's completely violent inside, Iruka had assured him once. There's just anger and how you deal with anger.

Naruto had taught himself exercises for dealing with anger before. They never seemed to work.

"Well," the principal, Mr. Sarutobi, said, leaning back in his desk. "What shall we do with you two, hm? We've got one of the school's regular problem cases, and we have our newest addition to our ranks."

Naruto didn't like the principal's office. It was too symmetrical, two perfectly squared windows set two meters apart from each other, wherein Mr. Sarutobi sat perfectly still in the center, fingers clutched together in front of him.

Naruto was about to say something, when Gaaru spoke up: "My fault, sir. I provoked him." He bowed his head. "He shouldn't be punished. I should."

What the hell?

As Naruto stared at him, Gaara glanced towards him, a look of pure malevolence in those white-on-white eyes.

"Oh, yeah, sure, that makes sense." Mr. Sarotobi looked out one of the perfect-square windows. "Let's let Mr. Uzumaki off with a warning, shall we, for his incredibly open display of physical violence. Yeah, that'll put this school on the map. Regular example of discipline, us. Question, Mr. Uzumaki, what possessed you to actually punch a fellow student?"

"He stabbed my hand."

"Well, that's unacceptable. But there are structures in place to deal with that sort of thing." He looked back at them. "But I suppose you thought you were acting in defense. Detention then. You're spending lunch in your respective home rooms. But, Mr. Uzumaki -- you hurt another of my students, and I'm going to seriously regret adding you to my school."

"Uh huh."

ooo

Detention.

Naruto sat down in the desk, looked around his home room. There was a plastic skeleton hanging up next to the books. Scientific diorama or just something anticipating Halloween?

He glanced back and saw that Sai and Sasuke had joined him, sitting behind him. Naruto looked back at his notebook, wondering what schoolwork he could possibly get done during this time.

"That was awesome, by the way."

He looked back. Sai smiled, reached into his pocket, took out a cigarette, stuck it into his mouth.

"What was awesome?" Naruto asked.

"Punching Gaara."

"I guess. What are you two in for?"

"I'm in here for smoking on school property," Sai said, lighting his cigarette.

Sasuke shrugged, not looking up. "I just like to come in here to get extra work done."

"Sasuke here has an elitist complex."

"Not listening to you."

"Look at him. Taking his lunch to get some math done. What do you have in that class? 95? 96? Oh, your precious four percent."

"Look how easy this is for me to tune you out. I'm tuning you out right now."

"Why are you wearing that?"

Naruto realized this last question was directed towards him. He looked down at his orange tracksuit.

"You look like you're on Death Row," Sai said, letting smoke fall out of his mouth and around his face.

"I run."

Sasuke looked up, looked at him. "You run?"

"Yeah."

Sai smiled. "Ooh, does someone smell a rival?" He looked at Naruto. "Our Sasuke is very threatened by competition."

"You run too?" Naruto asked.

"He does everything," Sai said. He poked him in the arm. "Trust fund jerk."

Yes, but he doesn't have to be good at running, Naruto thought; his life doesn't depend on it.

Naruto grinned. "Hey! We should run together sometime! You and me!"

Sasuke looked up at him, stunned. "Uh. Maybe."

"C'mon, it'll be awesome. Running's always more fun if cough -- could you point that thing away from me?"

"Oh," Sai said. "Sorry."

"Smoking's bad for you, you know."

"Audrey does it, and she's the most beautiful woman in the world."

Naruto leapt out of his chair. "But yeah! We should get into training. I'm sure there're some track and field competitions coming up! We could-"

"Where do you get your energy?" Sasuke asked.

Naruto shrugged. "Did you want to run today? After school?"

"I'm probably busy."

Sai snorted. "Trust fund jerk," he said.

ooo

Naruto entered the school washroom, found it empty. He scratched his head, and bounced on his feet. Sasuke had a good point: where did he get his energy? He sometimes hated it, the way he could never sit still at times like these.

He went to the tap, twisted it, let the water run out. He splashed his face, looked up.

Oh.

That was one big mirror.

He took a step back, staring at the boiling darkness appearing over his reflection. "No," he said. He looked around for something, anything to shatter the mirror.

"Naruto-"

That voice. Naruto was rooted to the spot, staring into his reflection, as a form appeared out of the boiling darkness. Mizuki.

"We're going to have some fun, Naruto, aren't we."

Get out, Naruto thought; run, just get out. He took another step back, but the paralysis was already on him.

Mizuki grinned, reached forward; his fingers began to slide through the surface of the mirror into the real world.

Bang.

The door opened. "Naruto, is it?"

Naruto looked up, shaken out of his paralysis. Kakashi stood there, newspaper under his arm, hand in his tweed coat pocket.

"Shouldn't you be in class?"

Naruto looked back at the mirror. There was just him and his reflection. "Yeah, sir," he said, and pushed past the teacher.

Kakashi watched him go, and stepped into the room. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, staring. "Hm," he said.