I feel like a zombie on my feet as I head over to meet up with Hiro and Isamu. They mentioned training and even though I am exhausted from lack of sleep I agreed to train with them. Sasuke relentlessly drilled me about everything I could remember from the chunin exams and we were at it for hours. He seemed angry and irritated regardless of anything I said.

"Sasuke are you sure you're ok?" I asked. My concern was growing and I think he could see it in my eyes.

"Yeah" he responded and stood up "I didn't realize how late it was, we should probably be getting to bed," and by we I'm sure he meant me, he held out his hand to help me get up. I took it gratefully happy that the questions were over. We both walked down the hall to our respective rooms. When the rest of the clan was gone Sasuke let me choose the house we got to live in. All I really wanted at the time was to be close to my brother, so I chose a place with the rooms close together. M Our doors are directly across from each other.

"Goodnight," I say and give him a hug.

"Goodnight" he mumbles in my hair while hugging me back. The hug a little longer than normal as if he's gotten lost in thought. When he finally lets go he doesn't go into his room but instead goes down the hall. I haven't seen him since.

"Hey" I hear Hiro say as I make it to the training ground. I shake my head to clear my thoughts.

"Hey" I respond trying to look more energized and happy than I feel.

"You don't look super well" Hiro says as he gets a closer look at me. "I thought you said the hospital discharged you with a clean bill of health," he accuses.

"They did," I exclaim. Leave it to Hiro to sniff out if anything is wrong. "I just didn't get a lot of sleep last night, I am totally fine." I look to Isamu for support. "You don't think I look unwell do you?" I ask.

Isamu looks at me thoughtfully for a moment then shrugs. "You look a little ragged" he says "but I have seen you look worse." I smile at that. At least I am not an absolute disaster.

I decide to move the conversation along "You guys dragged me out here to train so why don't we start training." At that Isamu nods but Hiro goes over to his bag and pulls out a small bottle with a stopper in it.

"Here take this" he hands me the bottle "I've been working on making an energy drink that is can be easily accessed during missions, it might help you."

I grab it and chug it without a second thought. "Thanks."

Isamu works on his sword wielding while Hiro is working on his blocking and counter attack. I am throwing demon wind shuriken at both of them trying to attack them while getting the shuriken to curve back and return to my hand. I've been messing all morning with chakra strings and wire to see if I can use them on the return. Hiro and Isamu throw the failed attempts back at me so I am under pressure while throwing. When Isamu and Hiro aren't blocking my attacks they are fighting each other. Isamu is stronger and can bear down on Hiro but Hiro can evade easily with his speed and quick thinking. Four out of five times Hiro is about to avoid the attack.

Hours later I block one final shuriken and land on my butt. "I'm done" I shout. Both stop for a second to acknowledge what I said then get back to fighting. I need to work on my stamina. I take a breath.

I start to get lost in my own thoughts again when I notice that I feel a presence just out of my sight. I turn to look in their direction which just shows how tired I must be because obviously I wouldn't see them. I look over at Hiro and Isamu but they don't seem to notice. I have always been the strongest sensory type among the team.

I don't sense that it's a person I know and I start to get flashbacks of the chunin exams. I go on high alert so I am ready for a fight but I will ignore it for now. There are too many people close by for an ambush. I know after training Emiko sensei wanted to talk to us. Maybe I'll bring it up with her later.

Hiro and Isamu finally finish their final match and sit down next to me. "That was a good session" Isamu looks to both of us.

"Hopefully Emiko sensei will be impressed" Hiro muses.

"Speaking of Emiko" I say "what do you think she's going to talk to us about?"

"I don't know," Hiro takes out some rice balls from his bag and gives us each one. I'm thrilled because I am starving. His energy drink helped my energy but I think it made me even more hungry. I'll have to tell him about that later.

"A lot has changed with this attack on the village," Isamu chimes in "it may just be a talk about what is going to change as a result." I nod at him. I know the amount of missions has recently increased due to the attack. The village is under scrutiny from others and many of our ninja are currently out of commission due to injury. That can lead to the other villages taking advantage of our weakness. Unfortunately, I was one of those out of commission ninja until yesterday.

"Yeah maybe we'll get back to missions" I smile. "It has been a while." Hiro looks concerned at my statement and I frown at him. "What's the matter Hiro?"

He pauses for a second before answering. "It's nothing, I'm just still trying to figure out everything that happened the day of the exams. There's still a lot I don't know. The sand said they were tricked but by who and why. I think immediately of what Naruto said about a guy named Orochimaru. You never did tell us what actually happened to you. I just have a lot on my mind other than missions.

"Don't be like that" I exclaim.

"Maybe telling us what happened would help" Isamu says. I see the unease hiding on his face too.

"Did you guys plan this?" I ask. "You wanted to question me this whole time didn't you?" Both of their faces remain neutral. They did plan this but they don't care that I know it.

This feel like Sasuke's questions all over again. I look at them both "there isn't much to tell. I was surprised by someone dressed as an anbu, I was knocked out and woke up in Emiko's arms. That's all I really know. No one has really told me more. Sasuke might know something after talking to Emiko but we haven't really had time to talk about it. He left late last night and I haven't seen him since"

"Doesn't that bother you?" Hiro asks.

I think about this for a second. I am honestly more concerned about Sasuke than I am about myself. I seemed to be more of an after thought where Sasuke was the target.

"Not really" I say and try to lift the mood "I have you guys to watch my back after all."

Isamu is about to say something when Haruna appears. I guess it's time to talk to Emiko sensei.

Authors Note: So it has been EIGHT years since I added a chapter to this story. I recently got challenged to finish this story so if I get enough interest from everyone I will try to finish it. Obviously my writing style has changed in eight years so even through I tried to keep it similar some things will be different from this chapter on. I will not be changing any of my previous chapters before this so there will always be this divide. Thank you for your time and please leave a comment so I can feel confident about finishing this story.