CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

SCHOOL AND TRAINING

BANG

BANG

BANG

At six in the morning, Ren made his way down the stairs, banging on the bedroom doors, only a few minutes ago he had received a phone call pertaining to the youngest four of his ten dimension-hopping house guests. When banging on the doors failed to wake them, he resorted to plan B. Walking into the rooms he turned on the lights and pulled off the covers. He was met with a bit of resistance from some, but those he just smacked awake. Soon he had them all sitting in the living room area still dressed in their pajamas. Most wore dangerous glares, other fought to hold back yawns and struggled to keep their eyes open. How adorable.

"So, I got a phone call this morning," he started. No one was paying him any attention. "Hinata, Sakura, Naruto, and Sasuke have to go to school." That certainly got everyone's attention.

"What," the three sixteen year olds shouted, jumping to their feet. The fifteen year old simply nodded in understanding, resigned to her fate.

"The three of you are only sixteen years old, and like all sixteen year olds you have to go to school," Ren stated the obvious.

"But we graduated from the academy when we were twelve," Sakura tried to reason.

"You graduated from a school in a different dimension, it doesn't count," Jade put in, attempting to diffuse the situation, like gasoline on a fire. "They don't have any records of you guys. So, you have to go." The four ninja made faces of distaste. "It's either go to school, or pay a fine and your guardian goes to jail. Right Kim?"

"Don't ask me. I never enrolled," Kim replied, snuggling deeper into the sofa.

"Why do we have to go?! Kim didn't go, dattebayo," Naruto shouted. He was hit with a decorative sofa pillow.

"I was home-schooled," the girl hissed, shaking her head. "I went for like a week for placement tests, and to visit the classes I could be placed in. I didn't enroll because I tested for high school level classes at twelve, when usually a person would enter the ninth grade at fifteen. They insisted it would be in my best interest to stay with students my own age. So... homeschooling."

"Can I be homeschooled as well," Sasuke asked, taking a liking to the idea.

"No," Ren declined bluntly. "Mainly because someone would have to be making sure that you guys would actually do all of the assigned work, and the other reason is, no one actually wants to do that."

The three sixteen year olds of Team 7 looked at the other occupants of the room with varying degrees of pleading eyes. Every person that they made eye contact with shook their heads in a silent no. Some smirked at them. Kim reminded that that she was only seventeen, and not yet a legal adult. Sasuke glared at nothing in particular. Naruto pouted. Sakura crossed her arms and groaned. Hinata remained silent, having already decided to make the best of it.

"When do we have to go to school," Sasuke asked the question on all their minds.

"In about an hour," Ren replied. Everyone's jaws dropped. Sakura, Sasuke, Naruto, and surprisingly Hinata all groaned at the news. The others laughed at their misfortune.

Jade jumped up, grabbing Hinata and Sakura by their arms and escorted them to her room to play dress up. Naruto and Sasuke begrudgingly went to get dressed for their first day of school.

"We have less than an hour to make you guys look cute for your first day of school!"

"Someone carry me back to bed," Kim moaned, though she was ignored as everyone tiredly shuffled back to their rooms to get some more sleep.

A figure loomed over Kim.

"Come on," Kakashi said. "Let's get dressed and start your training." He lifted her up and threw her over his shoulder. She started wiggling in his hold trying to get free.

"I don't want to! It's too damn early!" The white haired man shifted her body over his shoulder, making her face dangle dangerously close to his behind. "If you fart, I'll kill you! Let me down! I changed my mind! I can walk to my bed! Sleepy! I want to go sleepy pillow!"

"Stop complaining. You agreed to do this my way," Kakashi reminded her with a sigh. He was trying to hold her legs down and prevent them from kicking something 'important'. Entering her room he dropped her on her bed. "Get dressed in something comfortable and breatheable."

When he closed her door, she stuck her tongue out at him while making obscene hand gestures. She got up and rummaged through her drawers looking for something to wear. In the end she found a pair of yoga shorts and a green tank top. Putting on a pair of black running shoes, she laid back down on her bed, glaring at the ceiling.

Just as she was about to fall back to sleep, Kakashi decided to barge into the room. She screamed in fright. Kakashi walked over to where she sat, and took hold of her ankle and pulled her off the bed. When he tried to pull her out of the room she held on to the door frame. He lightly ran his fingers along her side forcing her to let go with a squeal. Wrapping his arms around her waist from behind, he carried her downstairs and out back.

"Okay you four, now we head to the front office. Where I have to fill out a bunch of paperwork to get you all enrolled," Ren narrated as he was lead the four teens to the school's main entrance. They walked in through the doors and were met with the school's receptionist.

"Hello, how can I help you today, "the woman asked looking up from her computer screen? She was an older woman who looked like she would rather be anywhere than surrounded by teenaged degenerates six days a week. It would've been five, but most of the little delinquents managed to get thrown in Saturday school.

"I'm here to enroll my lovely children," Ren stated with a slight sarcastic undertone. The woman blushed when she had gotten a good look of him. The four teens behind him shivered, a bit disturbed. Sasuke felt sympathy towards Ren. Fan girls were no fun.

The woman kept smiling at him as she handed him a four small stacks of forums for him to fill out. The five took seats as they waited for Ren to be done with the papers. Every few minutes he would look up and asked them a question. After he was finished with that, he handed the receptionist the forums and waited for her to enter the four into the school system. The woman handed him their school schedules after searching available classes.

"Here are your class schedules," Ren said as he handed them out. "Class starts in about five minutes. Don't do anything stupid and get yourselves expelled. Try going a sports team or a club or something. Have fun kids."

"You seem oddly excited about this," Sakura noted.

"I never got to do the whole child's first day of school thing with Kim, so I'm going to use you four," Ren explained, smiling sheepishly. "Head to your homerooms, and don't do any ninja things. Got it," he warned looking at Naruto and Sasuke. Then he walked out of the school waving goodbye.

The four ninja stood and compared their schedules. They had a few classes where they were all together like homeroom, Chemistry third period and Gym class seventh period. First period Sakura and Hinata had World History, while Sasuke had Spanish and Naruto had Algebra II. Second period Sasuke and Sakura had Algebra II, while Naruto had Spanish and Hinata had English. Fourth period Naruto and Hinata had Art class, while Sakura had Spanish and Sasuke had World History. Fifth period Naruto had World History, Sakura had Art class, Sasuke had English, and Hinata had Latin. Sixth period Naruto and Sakura had English, while Sasuke had Band and Hinata had Algebra II.

With that the four headed off to their homeroom class before the bell rang.

"WATER! I need water!"

"Feel the burn!"

"Stop spending so much time with my dad! It's creepy how much you're starting to act like him!"

"No pain, no gain!"

"WHY ARE YOU SO PASSIONATE ABOUT THIS?"

It was around nine o'clock in the morning, three hours after Kakashi had started her training. The two had found a clearing deep into the forest, and decided it would be a good place for training. Kakashi had created a whole work-out routine the night before, one he implemented immediately. He had her stretch for about ten minutes before moving on to the other things. Then it was the usual push-ups and sit-ups. When he made her do pull ups it took a while before she was able to lift herself up; he would have to work on building up her upper body strength. He made her do lunges around the entire perimeter of the clearing. Then he had her running laps nonstop.

"Can I please take a break," Kim asked as she collapsed in front of him, spread out eagle style on the grassy ground, her breathing labored.

"Yeah we can take a little break," Kakashi mused, taking a seat next to her fallen person. He handed her one of the chilled water bottles he had brought down from the loft. She drank all but a fourth of it. "Slow down."

"Are you trying to kill me," she grumbled. "What's next?"

"How about… some combat training. Do you know how to throw a punch," he questioned. She gave him a look. "That's right... I almost forgot. You punched me in the face when I first met you."

"Hey! In my defense I was pretty freaked out. You were a cat one minute, then the next you were a man. Don't go making it seem like I punched you at random," Kim hissed, her eyes narrowed.

"You tried to kill me," he said dramatically, the back of his hand on his forehead. Then he smirked under his mask. "Yeah, because a little tiny person like you can kill me."

"I'm not tiny or little," Kim screeched jumping to her feet. "And given time, I bet I could beat you in a fight."

"Let's start working on your hand to hand combat," Kakashi said standing up. He took a few steps back and got into a fighting stance. "Or is the little person to scared," he taunted.

Kim narrowed her eyes yet again, and lunged at him.

"SASUKE, you bastard, I've found you," Naruto shouted from down the hall. The other students in the hall covered their ears from the loudness of the blonde's voice, while some of the girls, who relished the sound of his raspy voice, had hearts in their eyes. He ran over to the aforementioned bastard, jumping on his back.

"Dobe, get off me," Sasuke growled, trying to pry the blond off of him.

"I've missed you, Teme. I haven't seen you since third period, 'ttebayo," Naruto stated as if it had been years rather than less than an hour; they had fifth period lunch. "Have you seen Sakura-chan or Hinata-chan?" The blond had put a hand over his eyes and started scanning the crowd of students. When he spotted pink, he grabbed Sasuke by the arm and dragged him over to their pink haired teammate.

"Hey Naruto, Sasuke," Sakura greeted when the two boys came to a stop in front of her. Sasuke frowned at the lack of the 'kun' at the end of his name, though it went unnoticed.

"Hello Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun," Hinata greeted shyly. Naruto threw his arms around her in a tight hug.

"I've missed you! I haven't seen you in years," he exaggerated, rocking the girl back and forth. The shy girl started to turn beet red, though she didn't faint, which was a first.

"B-b-but N-Naruto-kun, we had a-a class together right before t-t-this last period," she stuttered out. Sakura saw that the indigo haired girl was about to faint, and pried her away from the blond's grasp.

"We should head to lunch already," Sasuke suggested. He just wanted to get out of the hall. He didn't like the looks they were all receiving. They all had somehow gained their own little fan clubs.

The other three nodded their heads in agreement and followed after the Uchiha. When they walked in the cafeteria all heads turned to them, before they looked away, resuming their conversations. They got in the lunch line. Naruto was muttering something about ramen. Hinata was the only one to pay any attention to him. Once they reached the end of the line they all had faces of disgust. The group walked over to an empty table and sat down.

"What is this," Sakura asked, poking at the thing on her red and brown rectangular meat thing tray with a fork. Pulling out the lunch menu for the month from her binder, she discovered it was supposed to be meatloaf. It definitely didn't look anything like the one Ren had once prepared.

"It's pretty good," Naruto stated, shoving another forkful into his mouth. The others held their trays towards him. He shrugged before piling their lunches onto his own tray.

"I guess the only thing edible is the fruit," Hinata inquired, poking at the little plastic tray filled with fruit cocktail. Sasuke and Sakura nodded. Hinata looked over at Naruto, but something behind him had caught her attention. "Sakura, um… you might want to see this."

"See what," the pink haired girl asked facing the only other female at their table. Hinata pointed to a scene happening behind Naruto. She looked over to where Hinata was pointing and her mouth fell open. The boys looked over to where the shy girl had pointed, their eyes narrowing when they saw what had caught the Hyuga's attention.

There sitting at a nearby table was Alex. He looked pretty comfortable with the redheaded female that appeared to be trying to suck his face off. The girl was nearly straddling him in his chair, and he had his hand placed high up on her thigh.

Naruto and Sasuke were pissed. They wanted to break every bone in that cheater's body. Sasuke would go first, and then Naruto would get what's left. Turning back around in their seats, they saw their pink haired teammate get up, casually stride over to Alex. Naruto swallowed hard, recognizing the clam face paired with that easy non-threatening walk that was anything but. Hinata watched through worry-filled eyes, her hands placed over her mouth in anticipation for what was to come. Sasuke remained silent as he watched the scene unfold, once again not knowing what to expect from Sakura.

Kim lay on the ground, he chest rapidly rising and falling as she fought to catch her breath. Scratches and already forming bruises littered her body. Kakashi was not one to wait to get to the good stuff. He wanted to see if she had any skill. If there were things he had to teach her from the beginning, or if he could work with what she already knew and build up from there.

From what Kakashi picked up she could throw a pretty decent punch, when she could actually land one. She was capable of using his own weight against him, having managed to throw him off balance several times, once even flipping him up and over onto his back.

She was always moving, it was almost as if she could not stay still, and she was highly aware of her surroundings. She lacked physical strength, but she made up for that in agility. He suspected most of it was due to her time doing ballet as a kid, the rest from Ren's self-defense lessons. Overall she was not that bad, but she had potential to be great.

"Are we done yet," Kim gasped out.

"Yeah, we're done for the day. Do you want to continue training tomorrow," Kakashi asked looking over at the girl.

"It's hard work. I know for a fact that I will be sore tomorrow, but… I want to keep training. Today was fun," she said smiling. "I want to see how far I can go."

"We should go get something to eat now," Kakashi stated, " and that's not something I want to happen again. You're still recovering."

"Can you carry me," she asked with wide and glossy eyes; puppy dog eyes. Kakashi looked away, and when he looked back, she had stuck her lower lip out. With a long-suffering sigh he crouched down in front of her motioning for her to get on. Once she was on, he hooked his hands under her knees to keep her up, and walked back towards the loft. "I want a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, and iced tea. Oh, I wonder if we have beef jerky left. Or did Sasuke eat it all? He's always eating my snacks." He swore that she was a long lost member of the Akimichi clan, but he preferred her that way.