Let me explain the timeline thus far. Sayuri began feeding Kimimaro when she was eight and he was ten. Two years passed and the Kaguya clan was wiped out. When she was ten she met Satoru. Now I looked all over and I couldn't find an actual age for when Academy students start school, so I went with eight. We know Sakura and Ino met in the early days of the Academy, and they look around eight to me at that point. Academy students graduate around age twelve or thirteen, and I'm assuming they have more than two or three years of school. Five seemed about right to me.

This is kind of a bridge chapter. I'm not going to describe too much of Sayuri's Academy days or her week of training with Satoru. Why? Because you don't want to read about every sweaty pushup any more than I want to write it. Plus, I want to get into the meat of the story- when Sayuri gets a team and starts going on ninja missions.

Alright, enough of my blabbering. Story time!

Truth: She could to anything.

Ayano returned Sayuri to Satoru safely. Satoru sent her off to put away her new things. He'd cleared a space for her in the bathroom and found a box for her to put her weapons in and another for her clothes. They fit smoothly under the coffee table by the couch. It occurred to him that he'd have to make some allowances if Sayuri was going to be there for any length of time.

"I like that kid," Ayano said as Sayuri busied herself in the bathroom putting on her new training clothes.

"I do to," Satoru said, glancing towards the door. He was pretty sure Sayuri would be able to hear them from there.

"You're getting soft, Minamoto," Ayano chuckled, punching Satoru's shoulder. He rubbed it with a wince.

"You're certainly not. That hurt."

"Ah, don't be a baby," Ayano scoffed. "You've got a pretty sweet deal though. Housekeeper and cook all for the price of playing teacher again, and soon you won't even be doing that."

"I'll keep teaching her even when she's in the Academy," Satoru corrected. "She's too behind for a week of intense training to fix. If she's lucky she'll walk in able to throw a kunai and shuriken decently and easily use her kekkei genkai."

"Have faith in her," Ayano rebuked. "She might just blow your mind. Maybe I'll drop by to hang out with her again," she said teasingly. "That kid's better company that you are."

"Hey!" Satoru protested dramatically, pressing a hand to his chest. "I'm wounded. Seriously though," he added, teasing tone vanishing. "Thanks for taking her out for me."

"Hey, I owe you a couple small favors," Ayano shrugged. "Just let me know when I can help. You know, you're gonna be dealing with a teenage girl here in a few years. Think you can handle it?"

Satoru winced. "I may hand her off to you."

Ayano chuckled. "Satoru Minamoto: badass shinobi, runs in fear at the thought of a teenage girl. You, sir, are a wimp."

"I, ma'am, am not a girl," he corrected. "I don't know about girl things."

Ayano chuckled. "You sure? There's a bet going around…"

Satoru swung at her teasingly and Ayano darted back.

"Later, Minamoto!" she chuckled as she walked off.

"Do I need any weapons?" Sayuri asked, poking her head out of the bathroom.

"Set up a standard equipment pouch and kunai holster," Satoru ordered, sliding easily into teacher mode.

"Yes sir," Sayuri responded. She struggled slightly to get everything in place, but she got it in the end, attaching her equipment pouch to her hip and her kunai holster to her taped thigh as Ayano had told her.

Satoru took her to a place out in the open. She felt grass against her toes and vaguely heard the wind in the trees nearby.

"Where are we?" she asked.

"An empty training field," he said, turning to face her. His face was serious. "Sayuri, I'm not going to lie. This is going to be harder for you than most people , because you're blind and because you haven't trained for this like other kids have. For a while you will be weaker than others-"

"I'm not weak!" Sayuri snapped.

"I didn't say weak, I said weaker," Satoru corrected. "These kids have trained for a couple years now. You get that, right? They've been developing muscles and skills you haven't. You'll be weak compared to them, but you're already strong for your age.

"What I'm saying is I'm not going to go easy on you. This will be hard, and it will be painful. I'm not going to let you quit halfway through and waste my time. I need to know that this is what you want to do, or there's no reason for either of us to be here."

Sayuri thought for a moment. Until Satoru dropped into her life, she'd never considered becoming a ninja, in part because she didn't have access to the kind of training. She also was told she couldn't fight. It had never seemed possible to her until Satoru offered her the chance and told her he thought she could do it.

But now she wanted more than anything to fight. Not the thirst for violence the Kaguya were known for, but she wanted to fight nonetheless, to prove herself, to prove them wrong. She wanted to be able to show that even after being put down and stepped on her whole life, she could do something she never thought she'd be able to do. She wanted to prove to herself that she wasn't worthless, as she'd thought for so many years.

She remembered Kimimaro, curled in his cell, flinching at the sight of the light, carving a face in the wall so he had someone to talk to. She remembered hearing him talk about having someone watch over him, wondering if it was true that everyone had someone like that, protecting and guiding him. She couldn't be that for Kimimaro, but maybe she could be that for someone else.

"I do," Sayuri said confidently. Satoru nodded approvingly.

"Alright then. Let's get started."

Sayuri was on the ground, unable to move, by the end of the day. Satoru squatted next to her, calmly patting her shoulder.

"You did very well," he encouraged. She groaned in response.

"How do people… do this… every day?"

"You signed up for this," Satoru pointed out.

"I kn-now."

Everything hurt. Muscles she didn't even know she had were suddenly making their presence very clear in the form of screaming, burning pain. She hadn't quite understood the severity of what she'd signed up for, but she wasn't turning back now. Somehow though, she couldn't picture Ayano having done all this. She just seemed a bit too… flighty? That wasn't the word… uncaring, that was it. Sayuri couldn't picture Ayano putting this much effort into anything.

"And Ayano… is a… jonin?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Well," Sayuri began, wary of insulting her, also still struggling to breathe. "She just… doesn't seem… all that…"

"Powerful?" Satoru finished, easily guessing where she was going. "Yeah, she doesn't, but don't ever piss her o- oh, er, make her mad," he corrected sheepishly.

"I've heard… worse," Sayuri assured him.

"Ah. Well, she's dangerous one because she uses lightning ninjutsu-"

"You can… do that?" Sayuri asked in awe. "Will I learn?"

"Not for a while kid, it takes way more chakra than you've got to use right now," Satoru chuckled, ruffling her newly-shortened hair. "It's not just that though. For a while, when we were younger, Ayano focused on taijutsu. Her kicks were – are – legendary," Satoru said, rubbing his side with a winced. Sayuri guessed he'd felt those kicks personally before. "But then she found out she was good with lightning and developed a whole new fighting style."

"What do you mean?" Sayuri asked blankly. How could one create a style of fighting?

"What she does is uses her hands to focus her chakra while using her legs to direct it. Her kicks are powered with lightning and used to fling the lightning at a target or electrify something she kicks. She could literally kill you with both hands tied behind her back."

"Wow," Sayuri breathed. She was starting to be able to talk without panting. "That's incredible. It sounds so useful too! Like if you were tied up and captured, you could still fight just as well."

"Hey, play your cards right and maybe when you're out of the Academy she'll teach it to you," Satoru grinned crookedly. He privately rather doubted it. Several new genin, chunin, and even jonin had come to Ayano begging to learn how her style worked. Fighting with just your legs was nothing new, but the way Ayano used her legs to direct the element for than her hands and hand signs was unheard of. She'd never taught anyone though. He vividly recalled a time two Hyugas approached and tried to buy the knowledge from her. She'd sent them back to their clan scorched, hair on end, and smelling like ozone.

"How long have you known her?" Sayuri asked. Clearly they'd been friends a while. Satoru spoke about her confidently, like he was sure of what he knew of her character.

"Since we were fresh out of the Academy," Satoru recalled. "We were on a three-man squad together when we were genin. Before that we'd never spoken much. But we advanced at different rates, and she's always been stronger than me, so we got different missions, and sort of… drifted apart."

"I'm sorry."

"Nah, not a big deal. Happens to most genin teams."

"So women can be just as powerful as men?" Sayuri asked. This ran very much contradictory to what she'd learned from the Kaguya, but then she'd learned there was a lot the Kaguya were wrong about. Here she was, blind, on the verge of becoming a fighter. She'd learned there was more to life than the fight. There was shopping with a friend and learning from a teacher.

"Oh yeah," Satoru snorted. "A lot of people will tell you the women are more vicious then the men. They may have a bit of a biological disadvantage, but I can't think of one kunoichi I know who I'd willingly tick off." He glanced at the sky, judging the time. "Come on, let's get some food in you and then you can sleep."

Satoru hadn't lied. This was not easy. Sayuri panted. She sweated more than she ever had in her life. She struggled for breath. Her muscles burned and tore. She cut and bruised herself all over, and she didn't get proper time to heal. When they sparred, Satoru didn't pull his punches he hit her as hard as he would an enemy. The aches and pains just compounded day after day. Sayuri knew how to take a hit, but now she was learning how to take it and still keep coming.

But she reveled in every bit of it. She felt a rush of pride every time she was a second faster, a bit stronger. Every time she hit that little bit harder or reacted that little bit faster, was that much more accurate with her kunai or shuriken, she luxuriated in the feeling of accomplishment.

She was doing it. Against all odds, she was doing it. In that week, she found a new truth: she could do anything.

She thought she'd just be running and doing pushups to build up her strength and speed. She envisioned sparring practices, but there was so much more she hadn't even considered.

Sayuri began her days at the same early time, but now instead of cleaning, she did stretches to loosen her muscles and improve her flexibility. She fixed a quick breakfast and then Satoru took her to the training field. She ran laps and did pushups and sit ups until she dripped sweat, and then the real work began.

Satoru had her use her kekkei genkai over and over, doing the same thing time after time until it was instinctive. She learned to coat her body just under the skin with bone stronger that steel. Satoru would punch and kick at her from random directions. It was her job to block it with a bone from the right spot, and if that wasn't feasible, with her arms or legs.

Satoru coached her on how to grip and throw shuriken, kunai, and senbon correctly and how to throw a curve, where the weak points on the human body were, how to counter it if an opponent was wearing armor. Sayuri proved very adept with finding weak points on the body using her sensing, but she struggled with stationary targets.

Her sensing was another thing they trained. It was very basic when they started. She could usually only tell who it was by the feel and where they were. If they started walking, she could tell what direction they were going. If they did something obvious like thrust out a limb she could tell, like a little shock in her mind telling her which way the limb was going, but for more subtle things she was lost.

The training Satoru developed for that would probably have looked a little hilarious to an outsider. A grown man standing in the middle of an otherwise empty field making random, strange movements while a little girl told him what he was doing wasn't exactly normal.

Sayuri learned basic moves and hand signs quickly. She was very good at mimicking things once she'd observed them once or twice. She learned to throw a punch correctly, not to bend her wrist or put her thumb on the inside. She learned how to kick without hurting her toes or her ankle.

Satoru also taught her basic things like knots and traps. When night fell and they returned to the apartment, Sayuri still insisted on making dinner for them. Satoru watched her limp around the kitchen nightly, wincing at every movement, cooking for him. While they ate, he would quiz her on the handbook.

All in all, Satoru was proud of her progress. In only a weak she'd gone from knowing nothing to being able to do basic taijutsu moves, throw weapons with a decent amount of accuracy, and sense most movements.

"I'm scared," Sayuri admitted softly as Satoru walked her towards the Academy. Normally a student would be given directions and sent off, but Sayuri couldn't exactly read street signs and Satoru couldn't really say 'twenty-eight steps, then a right, forty steps and a left,' so he was left walking her.

"Everyone is their first day," Satoru soothed. "You're just starting a little late."

Sayuri heard the whispers as she walked into the building. Clusters of students muttered as she passed with Satoru. They speculated on who she was, why she was with Satoru, and what they were doing here.

"I wonder why she's holding onto him like that?"

"Big baby."

"What's she thinking, covering her eyes?"

"Idiot."

"You'll be in Iruka's class," Satoru instructed as he paused outside a door. Children's voices could be heard talking softly inside.

"Ah, Satoru, it's been a while," greeted a man's voice in a friendly way.

"Iruka," Satoru grinned at the teacher.

"I know you're not coming back to teach," Iruka said knowingly.

"I've got your new student," Satoru explained.

"Oh right! I heard you were catching her up on some things," Iruka recalled.

Satoru gently tugged his sleeve from Sayuri's fingers. "This is her."

"Hi," Iruki smiled. "I hope you'll enjoy your time in my class and learn a lot. You're lucky to have Satoru teaching you too."

"Thanks," Sayuri murmured.

"Can you introduce yourself to Iruka?" Satoru encouraged.

"Yes."

Satoru looked at her in amusement. "Well, will you?"

"Oh, right," Sayuri said, flustered. "My name is Sayuri Kaguya."

"You think you'll be able to find your way to the classroom on your own tomorrow?" Satoru asked, concern leaking into his voice as he tried to hide it.

"Yes," Sayuri replied. Nerves seemed to be making her incredibly monosyllabic.

This was what she had feared. She knew children could be cruel. She anticipated being mocked for being weak at first, but she kept telling herself it wouldn't be so bad. Sayuri promised herself that she'd be the hardest-working student Iruka had ever had. She'd be on par with these other students as soon as humanly possible.

"Alright then. Can you get home?" Satoru asked. She nodded. "Okay. Iruka, I'm turning her over to you."

"Okay then," Iruka nodded. "You can take the seat in the second row from the back, two chairs from the wall. That sound okay?"

"Fine," Sayuri agreed as Satoru put an encouraging hand on her shoulder. Iruka gave such good directions Sayuri wondered if he'd taught blind kids before.

"See you after school," Satoru said, walking off.

"Take your seat," Iruka said. "When class starts, I'm going to call you up to formally introduce you to the class, okay?"

It wasn't particularly okay with her, but Sayuri just nodded, mouth too dry to speak. Sayuri stepped inside the classroom. Or at least she tried to. She ended up slamming into a wall.

"Ow!" she yelped, rubbing her nose. "Who put that there?"

"Uh…" Iruka said blankly, turning her slightly and giving her a light shove in the proper direction.

Sayuri slid into her assigned seat as instructed, flushing. She sat there, back ramrod straight, hands knotted in her lap, just listening to everyone talking around her. There were a few people whispering about her, but most people didn't seem to notice her.

"Alright you all, settle down!" Iruka called. There was a great scraping of chairs as people settled into their seats. Sayuri stiffened, knowing what was coming next. "As I expect you've noticed, we have a new student. Sayuri, would you come down here?"

Sayuri used the presence of other people to guide her and keep her from falling down or running into desks as she walked to the front of the tiered classroom. She stopped next to Iruka and turned to face the class, hands still knotted in front of her. She was nervously popping her joints.

"Tell us your name, where you're from, and something you like to do," Iruka encouraged.

"Sayuri Kaguya. I'm from somewhere near the Village Hidden in the Mist. I don't know precisely where," she admitted. "Something I like to do…? Um, I like to clean, and I like to carve wood."

"That's very interesting," Iruka nodded. "Any questions for Sayuri?"

"Yeah, why've you got your eyes covered? You're not gonnr be able to see like that, you know. Do you have some kind of scar or something?" blurted out a voice to her right.

"Naruto," Iruka groaned from next to her. "You don't just ask questions like that…"

"I mean we're all curious sensei," called a girl's voice from the back. "Everyone knows blocking off one of your senses is just dumb!"

"It doesn't make any difference whether I cover my eyes or not," Sayuri said softly. "I'm blind, so I can't see anyway."

The muttering around the class increased to fever pitch at that.

"Well I think it's great she'd trying to become a ninja," Iruka said over them. "Now I hope you'll all welcome her. You can return to your seat now," he added softly to her. Sayuri nodded and moved back towards her seat.

Sayuri enjoyed the Academy, but there were certain things she wasn't prepared for. She was supposed to be learning to reading, math, and science.

Science was rough, as she had none of the building blocks to keep up with the lessons. Satoru took her to the library to find books on the subject to help her catch up, which he read to her at night before she went to sleep. Reading was her biggest problem. She couldn't see the letter to read or write them. This exempted her from part of the work, but not the comprehension or vocabulary bits. Math wasn't so bad. She knew how to count, and once she knew the different ways the numbers were supposed to work together based on what symbol was used, she could pretty much figure it out if someone read her the problem.

Her lack of sight wasn't as big of a problem as she thought it would be. In fact, it led to finding her first friend in the Academy. Iruka assigned the shy girl who sat next to her, Miyako Hasekura, to read the assignments and worksheets to her. From there, Miyako also helped her reason her way through the subjects in the first few, roughest days.

At first, both girls were shy around each other, being naturally wary of new people. Miyako and Sayuri were both fairly quiet people to begin with, and they spent class quietly mumbling to each other about the assignment. It changed when Sayuri walked up to Miyako during lunch and asked for help with a math concept she didn't understand. From there the conversation evolved and they ended up talking about their home lives and their classmates.

From then on, they were friends and always ate lunch together. Miyako even came over for dinner with Satoru and Sayuri every now and then. They studied together and once Ayano even took them out for ramen when she dropped in and found the two buried in dense science textbooks. 'Saving them from becoming little nerds,' she'd cried before dragging both girls out of the house.

That wasn't to say Sayuri had a lot of free time. Satoru still worked her hard even when she came home from the Academy after a long day of rough training. She was still rolling into bed sore and bruised and waking up the next morning hating her muscles for still hurting. She frequently was asked by people at the Academy why she was always bruised, but she just shook her head and didn't respond.

Sayuri loved it though. She took the pain as a consequence of the advancement. She reveled every time she was able to do one more push up or sit up than the day before, or run that extra mile. The day she did her first jutsu correctly she had actually squealed in delight and hugged a startled Satoru. Considering she was transformed into Ayano at the time it was a bit awkward, what with Sayuri not being used to the extra height, and she ended up sort-of tackling him.

The last straw came in the form of a simple mutter of, "Stupid."

Sayuri's palms slammed down on the desktop and she stood up sharply.

"Sayuri?" Iruka asked in shock.

"I'm sorry I haven't spent years learning about math and science or how to read words I'll never be able to see on a page. You see, my education up until a few years ago was a bit different. My clan only wanted to fight, and I couldn't do that, and I'm a girl besides. So guess what? I became their personal slave. I cleaned up them and mended their clothes and fed them and they repaid me by telling me how worthless I was and beating me up. So no, I don't know how to read or write or do much math, but I'd like to see any of you provide for yourselves as well as I can."

Sayuri unzipped her shirt and shrugged it off. She rolled her shoulder, popping it loudly. A spur of bone shot out of her shoulders and palms and Sayuri held up her hands so everyone could see. There were several cries of disgust and someone screamed, "Freak!"

"Maybe I am," Sayuri agreed. "But I am not. Stupid. The next person that says I am, I will skewer with my radius, I don't care."

That said, she turned back to a wide-eyed Miyako. "Now, explain long division to me again before I hit something," she ordered.

Miyako immediately began doing so, struggling to hold back a smile. Iruka turned everyone back to their work, also smothering a small grin as he did so.

The day of the graduation exams, Sayuri practically vibrated with nervous energy. She was holding Miyako's hand under the desk, and she was shaking as well, more out of fear than nerves.

"Miyako Arita!" Iruka called. At her side, Miyako winced.

"You'll be great," Sayuri assured her as she stood.

"Thanks," Miyako whispered back as she left for the testing room.

Sayuri had every confidence in Miyako. Her friend may be more of a genjutsu-type, and she may be shy and nervous, but she was good, and she had a strong kekkei genkai, despite the conflicts it caused in her family. She studied hard and maintained good grades. She was constantly jockeying with Sasuke, Sakura, and, surprisingly, Ino for the best grades.

Miyako didn't really look at first glance like she could handle the life of a shinobi at first glance. She was a petite, red-haired girl. She always wore plain, loose, black clothes and the only ornamentation was her family's symbol just above her wrist on the sleeves, a red dragon. Her black eyes were usually fixed on the ground, and she rarely looked people in the eye when she spoke to them. She was a lot like Hinata in her shyness.

She didn't see Miyako. Once you took the test you were allowed to go. Most people had family waiting outside to congratulate or sympathize with them depending on how they did. Miyako would be with her parents, and they would undoubtedly be proud. There had been some doubts she would be able to do it, which was a problem, considering she was the heir to her clan.

"Sayuri Kaguya!"