Sakura sat in the stifling silence that had been left behind when the rest of her graduating class had departed, wanting to break it somehow, but not knowing what to say or who to speak to since Sasuke-kun was obviously busy thinking and Umino-sensei was doing some last-minute paperwork. Any minute now, Naruto would be walking through the door with her new sensei in tow. Rather than being worried about meeting her new sensei as she had been when she had set out from home this morning, she was worried about seeing Naruto again.

Several months earlier, after more than a year of following Sasuke-kun's lead and slandering the boy who, as it turned out, really had been a ninja, she had needlessly antagonized him, and had learned the hard way that he was dangerous, as her mother had been telling her he was since the first time she saw him when they were little. In a way, what had happened that day had been all her fault since she hadn't stopped to think like she should have. The Naruto being a dropout scenario had been somewhat believable though. When Naruto was at the Academy, he had been an idiot and had been held up as an example of failure, and that had been why she had believed Sasuke-kun when he'd said that Naruto wasn't a ninja. How could the boy who was held up by their instructors as the worst of the worst, the one most likely to fail, the one who had never been able to dodge a singe punch from her, become a ninja before her Sasuke-kun who everyone said was a genius after all?

As it had turned out, Sasuke-kun had been wrong in this case, Naruto had indeed graduated the Academy early, and had indeed become a ninja. She had learned that the hard way several months ago when she had decided to hit him for old time's sake when she'd seen him hanging out on his old perch on the swing in the tree near the door, and instead of hitting him, found herself flat on the ground. The only reason she'd been able to land even a single blow on Naruto during his Academy days, as it turned out, had been because Naruto had let her hit him because he had liked her. Now he no-longer liked her, such privileges had been revoked.

When she'd seen that hard cold look in the boy's eyes as he threatened to break her arm if she tried to hit him again, she had run. In that moment, the boy who had been standing in front of her had most definitely not been the Naruto that she'd known at the Academy, the Naruto who had single-mindedly chased after her no matter how many times she violently rejected him. There was no laughter, no goofy grin, instead, there had been a complete stranger who had been sizing her up as a potential enemy and finding her lacking.

After she had told her mother about the fact that Naruto had threatened her, her mother had taken her to file a complaint against Naruto. When the Shinobi at the complaint desk had learned that she had attacked Naruto first, the man had gleefully informed her of exactly what she had antagonized earlier that day. Uzumaki Naruto was famous amongst the ranks of Konoha's shinobi, and not for being an idiot either. Naruto had become famous for tearing a team of Genin from Iwa apart with his bare hands.

That had been the day she had stopped backing Sasuke-kun up when he denied the fact that Naruto was a ninja. Not that Sasuke-kun had noticed this of course...

As she pulled out of her musing on her future teammate, she once again turned to Sasuke-kun to see how he was handling the team assignment. There was no indication in his face or body language that there was anything of note going on. Either Sasuke-kun was just that good at controlling his emotions, or he didn't think that there was anything to be concerned about despite the fact that he'd potentially made an enemy of someone who was exceedingly dangerous. She wished that she could be as unconcerned about their situation as he was.

As she heard the door to the classroom slide open, her heart began to pound at least twice as fast as normal. She turned to look as two people entered the room, a tallish man with brown hair and black eyes who wore the standard shinobi uniform, and...Naruto.

Just as it had been several months earlier, this wasn't the brash and loud prank pulling Naruto that she remembered from his days in the Academy. This wasn't the boy who had blinded everyone with a bright orange hoodie, and later a bright orange tracksuit, and an even brighter grin. This was a ninja. The orange was still there, albeit in a more subdued shade, but the smile sure as hell wasn't. Rather than cheerfully greeting her and calling her Sakura-chan like the Naruto she had once known, instead of yelling at Sasuke-kun about how he was going to beat him, this stranger who wore Naruto's face looked at both of them with a blankly neutral expression and cold eyes. Cold eyes that had sized both her and Sasuke-kun up and found them lacking.

Her inner self seemed to agree with her assessment of the boy she no-longer knew based on the way it was trembling in a corner of her mind rather than yelling defiantly about how she was going to rule now that she was a ninja.

It was with a sense of trepidation that she followed her new teammates to whatever fate awaited her.

Shimura Tetsuo sighed after he listened to his new students' introductions. This was the year's top two students? It would seem that he definitely had his work cut out for him. The Kunoichi was a brainiac fangirl whose astronomical academic scores had made up for her abysmal physical ones, a fact that was made painfully obvious by her apparent lack of muscle tone. And the Uchiha...The Uchiha was disturbed at best, and completely unhinged at worst. Whoever had written their files had been glossing over a great deal, and all of it bad if what he'd just seen was any indication. Someone should have picked a more balanced Kunoichi for the top position, and called the Psych-nin on the Uchiha years ago.

If it hadn't been for the promise he'd made Naruto when he Suzume and Satoshi had left for Iwa back in June, he would have immediately thrown these two back and requested more students in the Spring. As it was, he was seriously considering doing so anyways. How he was going to turn this mess into a cohesive team in two months, he didn't know. As it stood, it looked like he would be forced to neglect Naruto in order to get his teammates in shape. He didn't want to do so, especially since a good deal of the recent progress he'd made with Naruto would be lost, but unless a reasonable solution could be found, that may just end up being the case.

Hatake Kakashi had been talking about wanting to train Naruto, perhaps, if he phrased things the right way, he could get him to help...

Grumbling over the fact that the plans he'd made were going to be absolutely useless since what was standing in front of him didn't come close to matching the reports, not by a long shot, he dismissed the team and ordered them to meet him tomorrow. Hopefully, by then, he'd have a workable plan of action. One day soon, he was going to track down that Mizuki fellow who had done Sasuke and Sakura's evaluations and give him a piece of his mind, a very sharp and painful piece of his mind.

Sasuke watched as the Uzumaki walked through the village with his new sensei. He wasn't stalking them per se, but the Uzumaki was an uncertain element and he needed to know where he fit, since he didn't fit where he'd pegged him all those years ago. This Uzumaki most definitely wasn't the loud and reckless failure from the Academy. This Uzumaki wasn't the brat who had tried to rub his face in his early graduation only to be met with disbelief over the fact that he'd graduated. This Uzumaki was something else entirely. Something harder, something colder, something more like It- That Man had been.

"...sure that the guys at the prison'll let you in to see him after the T&I department's done with him..." Naruto was saying as the boy and their sensei passed under the tree in which he was perched, either not noticing that he was there, or more likely not caring.

"...about Umino Iruka?" Shimura was asking as they continued walking, and he found himself following, trying to get a measure of his new teammate who had become a completely different person since he'd last bothered to actually look at him.

"He's always been fair, at least to me." the Uzumaki replied sounding much happier as he walked along with his sensei than he had during the team introductions. "It took him a while to admit that he hadn't been the one to nominate me for early graduation. Apparently, one or more of the other Instructors had decided to fail me out of the Academy, ya know the whole three strikes you're out thing. They'd been certain I'd fail when they nominated me, but they ended up making a bit of a mistake and picked the wrong Jutsu to test me on during the graduation exam. If they'd tested me on the Bunshin, I'd probably be trying and failing to find a job as a civilian right now."

Shimura winced at this, apparently recalling a painful memory involving the Uzumaki and the Bunshin Jutsu. Either that, or he'd winced at the thought of the Uzumaki trying to become a civilian. He'd wince at that too. Neither the cretin he remembered from the Academy nor the Uzumaki he was looking at now would make it as a civilian.

"Another year at the Academy wouldnt've hurt." Shimura eventually said.

"If the Instructors had been like you and Iruka-sensei maybe." the Uzumaki said somewhat bitterly. "They pretty much completely ignored me before Iruka-sensei arrived, and even Iruka-sensei ignored me at first. I don't even want to know what that Mizuki bastard would have done to my education if I'd stayed, considering the fact that he was a traitor. I graduated though, so there's no point in wondering 'What If...'."

Despite himself, Sasuke found himself trying to recall what it had been like back when Naruto was at the Academy. The thing was, the boy hadn't actually joined his class until the day Umino Iruka had become an Instructor, so he hadn't actually known him before then, since just about everyone had avoided him when the classes were let out to the yard for Lunch and Recess, or were let out at the end of the day. Since the Uzumaki had joined the class after the Massacre, he'd automatically shut him out like he did just about everyone else back then. He recalled that there had been some tension between the Umino and the Uzumaki though, and if he remembered correctly, it had been because the Uzumaki had caught the Umino in a couple of pranks that...had...actually...worked.

If that had been what the Uzumaki had been like with everyone ignoring him, what could he have been had he had the attention of all of the Instructors and had been given constant offers of help like he had been? Would the Uzumaki have tied It- His record, or beaten it?

The Uzumaki had graduated the Academy two years early with little or no help from the Instructors aside from Umino Iruka, and with no help at home since he had no clan, no family, no parents to teach him anything. Because everyone had been acting like the Uzumaki belonged beneath their notice, he had believed it was so, and placed the Uzumaki beneath his notice. In doing so however, he had made the serious mistake of drastically underestimating him. As a consequence, he had been left in the dust by someone he'd thought was so far beneath him it wasn't even funny, and didn't even realize it until it was far too late because, who would believe that the so-called moron who had appeared to fail at just about everything would graduate before the class genius?

He would not be making that mistake again.

Now that he knew that the Uzumaki was actually a genius like He had been, he would be testing himself against him to see how far he'd actually come in his quest to avenge his clan. He would surpass the Uzumaki, and then he would climb even higher until he was at, no, above His level.

Edited 10-04-12