There were two hundred and ten students enrolled in the academy. Thirty of those were separated into classes to be taught by one teacher.

However, Sakura only cared about the two ninjas sitting beside her at their shared table: Ino and Sasuke, and their own teacher, Iruka-sensei.

She was secretly happy and relieved this arrangement was made, it was a satisfying thing not to deal with Martina or her friends, who were sent off with the others down another hall.

Far away from Sakura.

Add that to Iruka sensei's hard, but relaxing teaching, and Sakura was finally comfortable for the first time.

If only she could get rid of the thought of something coming through the windows around them and smattering her classroom with bullets.

She forced herself to forget the broken images of the new faces beside her, shivering inside at the prospect of them lying dead and bleeding on the tiled floor beneath her feet.

No one else has these kinds of thoughts! She whimpered inside her mind, disturbed. I have to be normal.

It was like a curse she had, thinking of such things. However, it was also her life.

"Snort"

Sakura jumped at the sound beside her, turning her head to look at the blond haired girl lying against the desk.

She fidgeted with her fingers. Iruka-sensei was talking about the concepts of what being a ninja was like, and Sakura knew she should have been paying more attention, but the fact that she was beside a girl currently snoring on their shared desk was distracting.

Plus,the other fact where she still hadn't thanked her or Sasuke for their help was gnawing at her mind, but she just chalked that up to nerves.

Iruka-sensei, still talking about ninja basics, moved to the blackboard.

"By the way, if a certain Kunoichi isn't up by the time I turn my head, she will have detention with me and the Hokage. And no recess."

Sakura was shocked, looking at Ino by her side, still snoring away. She wanted to wake her up so bad, but what if she didn't want her to?!

But she's going to get into trouble if you don't do it! Don't you want to repay her for helping you earlier?

Sakura began to hypervilenate within herself, torn between her doubts and her desire to help the girl, when Sasuke poked her smoothly in the side.

She thrust her head up like she'd gotten zapped, mouth open. "Up! I'm up!"

The class laughed out loud.

However, Sakura was not laughing, stiff from her indecision to help, and then from the disappointment of someone else taking her chance.

She watched forlornly as Ino rubbed off her drool and flashed a smile of thanks at Sasuke.

"Thank you!" She gushed. "aren't you a lifesaver."

"You don't even know what he saved you from, Ino," said a pissed off sounding kid.

Sakura and Ino both looked behind them at the person who spoke. It was a boy with short blond hair styled up in shorter spikes on top of his head. His blue eyes were narrowed securely on the back of Sasuke's head. Sakura felt a little annoyance at his obvious dislike, but didn't say anything.

"And did you think to wake me up, orphan boy?" Ino bit sharply, glaring at him.

Orphan? Thought Sakura, she took a double take at the boy. He wore a dirty orange jacket and a blue shirt underneath. She could see it because the jacket was fashioned to have no sleeves.

The boy turned his blue eyes on Ino, about to speak, until he caught Sakura watching. With his mouth still open, he blushed a deep red and started stuttering.

"I-I-I could have if he hadn't d-d-done it first!"

He managed to get out, eyes still on Sakura. Confused to be looked at this way, Sakura turned back to Iruka-sensei- who was staring at them with a hard glare.

Finally, Ino and the boy noticed the place was quiet, and turned to see Iruka-sensei too.

The teacher grinned darkly. "Are we done?" he asked, stressing every word.

The three of them nodded in fear.

Iruka-sensei shook his head and returned back to his teaching.

Sakura tried to get back to work, but Ino's staring made it hard to concentrate.

She was getting into his lecturing better, however, when the Jounen started talking about Genjutsu.

"Genjutsu is like putting someone in a dream, and there are different types-"

"That's Sasuke for ya," said Ino in her ear, scaring Sakura to her wits. "Uchiha's never fail."

Fail at what?

Then she remembered when he poked her awake. Was she even listening to the teacher?

Sakura wanted to say something back to the talkative girl, but she was still afraid she might do something wrong and didn't want the girl to stop talking to her anyway.

Then she thought of what Ino said and snuck a look at Sasuke. There was a reason why everyone thought he was so cool.

The dark-haired boy was part of the infamous clan of the Uchiha, the most powerful and dedicated people Sakura ever heard of. If Ino said Sasuke did fail at something, she wouldn't have believed her. Like hers, however, the Uchiha had a bad reputation. Sakura didn't know what it was, though, and she wasn't about to ask Sasuke about it.

Besides being afraid of making conversation with the most popular kid in the academy, she didn't even know about her village's bad reputation.

And just like that, thoughts of her people came back to her.

She grabbed at her pink locks, squeezing her eyes closed to try to stop thinking.

No,no,no, no! Only school thoughts, only school thoughts, only-"

"Haruno?"

Sakura jumped at her name, and popped open her eyes to look at Iruka-sensei's concerned face. To her embarrassment, everyone else was watching too.

"Are you ok?"

She tried to ignore everyone's eyes on her, especially the ones beside her.

"I'm fine," she squeaked out, and blushed horribly when she heard snickering around the room.

Iruka-sensei was still giving her a weird look, but he moved on with a reassuring smile and pointed at his handwriting on the board.

"Anyone know why shinobi must never cry in front of their peers?"

Sakura was startled to see the tanned-skinned Jounen ninja still looking at her.

Does he want me to answer it?!

Fearful, she opened her mouth to say anything. Then a cool, relaxed voice spoke instead, cutting her off.

"To show emotion is to show weakness."

Sasuke

Sakura looked over Ino's equally shocked face to Sasuke on her other side. He was staring ahead, like talking volunteeringly didn't come as a surprise to him.

"Correct, Uchiha. You never skip a beat, do ya?" He added with a chuckle, and turned to the blackboard behind him.

The girls in the room seemed to swoon at Sasuke without Sakura seeing, and it sort of creeped her out how she just knew they were doing that. There was a "hmph" sound behind her.

Ino nudged her suddenly. "Hey," she whispered in her ear. Iruka-sensei was still looking at the board, so Sakura turned to her.

Ino's blue eyes were narrowed, thoughtful. "Are you ok? Really?"

Sakura nodded her head, surprised.

"Y-yes, why would you say that?"

Ino continued to look at her strangely.

"I want to ask you something later. During lunch."

"Huh?"

"Lunch. You and me. And..."

She trailed off, looking slyly at Sasuke, and raised her voice a little for him to hear. "Sasuke, too!" she nudged him in a cuddly way to get his attention. "Right, Sasuke?"

Sasuke turned an irritated glare on her. "Listen to the teacher."

"But are you gonna go to lunch with us?"

For some reason, Sakura felt her heart speed as he turned to look at them together, then he sighed.

"I don't eat lunch here."

"Huh?" asked a bewildered Ino. "Then where do you eat lunch? We'll come with you!" She was practically hanging off him now.

He looked so irritated as he pushed at her head to get her off him.

"Let me go," he growled.

"Yamanaka, this is your last warning!"

Shouted Iruka sensei, turning around to laser-eye her. "Let him go now, and stop talking over me."

Ino, moved away fast, giving him her most innocent smile.

"Sorry, sensei." She sing-songed. And winked at Sakura when he turned around.

Like the genjutsu she learned about from her teacher, Sakura was put in a daze. A giddy daze.

I was asked by someone to eat with!

Perhaps her first day at school wasn't so bad, after all.