Sakura, Strong like no other [Editing]

Chapter Nineteen: Teams and The 'Incident'

June 24th

I walked into the classroom as if it were any regular day at the academy. The students all seated like they usually were, chatting amongst themselves as they waited for Iruka-sensei to arrive (where is he in the mornings anyway? He's never here when we get here...)

I was wearing the same red hoodie and purple t-shirt with navy blue shorts that went down to mid-thigh.  Bandages on my ankles and forearms hid my weights that I had recently increased. So really it was any other day here at the Ninja Academy.

The only difference was the hidden leaf forehead protectors that my classmates adorned on their person. Most girls tied it loosely around their necks while most of the guys had it traditional ties across their foreheads, save Shikamaru who had his tied around his arm.

Mine was tied around my forehead with some of my pink bangs falling over the top of it but the leaf insignia was still displayed proudly for all to see. My long tresses were pulled into a ponytail.

My steps were silent, a trick I had learned from Itachi one day while we were training together. After he had successfully snuck up on me and scared the living daylights out of me, he said it was revenge for the water dragon incident from a few years back when we first met. But I had a feeling he still wanted payback (Lord help me).

The first thing I noticed when I came in was the crowd of girls surrounding one specific row of seats that held two very familiar boys. Naruto and Sasuke were sitting beside each other, arguing while they fended off their fangirls. Glaring at each other as the shallow girls cooed at them, trying to their attention.

In the seat in front of them sat Shikamaru who was looking out the window lazily. No doubt watching the clouds pass by, I smiled.

'Same old Shika...'

Since I doubted I could get to my usual spot between my blonde and raven-haired friends, I decided to sit next to the lethargic Nara. I felt two pairs of eyes staring at me from behind me as I took my seat at the wooden desk. Shikamaru must have sensed my presence because he turned from the window and looked at me his dark chocolate eyes. Green met brown and the two of us stared at each other for a moment.

"Hey," he said

"Hey" I returned.

He chuckled and I giggled. Because he and I both knew that he was too lazy to hold a conversation right now. It was very amusing.

I then felt two dark auras behind us, I shared a look with the pony-tail wearing boy beside who had noticed as well. We then turned behind us and was very surprised at what I saw.

We saw Naruto and Sasuke glaring daggers at Shikamaru. The two then noticed us staring at and looked away slightly embarrassed. I then look back at the Nara clan heir who had an equally confused expression on his face. We were clearly both thinking the same thing.