The classroom was vibrating when Iruka walked in with the clipboard.
Not literally. That would've involved explosives, and Naruto hadn't had time to get any. But the mood was buzzing—whispers, bouncing legs, pencils tapping. Half the class was already wearing hitai-ate even though they weren't officially on any team yet. Show-offs.
I had mine in my lap, fingers worrying the metal plate.
"Settle down," Iruka said, which did absolutely nothing for the first three seconds. Then he cleared his throat in That Way, and the noise dropped by half.
"Today," he said, "I'll be assigning you to your jonin instructors and three-man cells."
Naruto made a quiet, excited strangled noise from the back.
I was on the girls' side near the window, as usual, desk cluttered with doodles in the margins of my history notes. Ino sat on my right, posture perfect and eyes bright. Hinata was further up, trying to disappear into her collar. On the boys' side, Kiba was vibrating, Shino was a calm silence next to him, and—
My gaze snagged on Shikamaru.
He was slouched low in his chair, arms folded behind his head, looking like he'd nap through his own execution. His energy, though, did that weird thing I'd noticed: slow and deep, like a river pretending to be a pond. No spikes, no jitter, just… steady thinking.
I caught myself staring and yanked my eyes back to Iruka.
"Teams will be formed to balance strengths and weaknesses," Iruka went on. "You'll be spending a lot of time with each other, so try not to drive your teammates—or your jonin—insane on the first day."
Half the class glanced at Naruto automatically.
Naruto scowled. "Why's everyone looking at me?!"
"Because you keep yelling during announcements," I whispered back.
"Shh," Iruka said, not unkindly. Then he checked the clipboard.
"Team 8: Aburame Shino, Inuzuka Kiba, Hyuga Hinata. Your jonin instructor will be Yuuhi Kurenai."
Hinata made a tiny squeak. Kiba whooped, then tried to pretend he hadn't. Shino adjusted his glasses like someone had just told him the weather report.
Kiba leaned over Hinata. "We're gonna be awesome," he whispered. "Right, Hinata?"
She nodded so fast I worried about whiplash.
"Team 10," Iruka continued. "Nara Shikamaru, Akimichi Choji, Yamanaka Ino. Your jonin instructor will be Sarutobi Asuma."
Choji smiled, already halfway into a chip bag. Ino straightened like someone had just called her onstage. Shikamaru groaned audibly.
"What a drag," he muttered.
His energy rippled in this resigned, amused way that made the corners of my mouth twitch. I'd seen them together enough to know that trio made sense: one brain, one tank, one social assassin. Neat little clan set.
Which meant…
"And finally," Iruka said, "Team 7."
My fingers dug into the edge of my hitai-ate.
"Uzumaki Naruto."
Naruto fist-pumped like he'd just been pronounced god-king of the classroom. "Yesss!"
"Uchiha Sasuke."
Half the girls in the room sighed. Sasuke didn't react beyond a faint tightening around his eyes, energy compressing like a spring. Classic.
"And Sylvie."
For a second, it felt like the air stopped.
Then Naruto jumped to his feet so fast his chair skidded. "EHHH?! Why do I have to be with him and her?!"
"Wow," I said, deadpan. "Honored to be included."
Sasuke made a noncommittal "hn," which was the Uchiha version of a full emotional breakdown. His energy didn't spike or dip; it just… cooled. The vibe was pure "don't talk to me or I'll set you on fire by accident."
Outwardly, I was playing it for laughs. Inwardly, I could already see the shape of the trap: if I ended up standing between them, I'd spend all my time translating, soothing, redirecting—being the buffer between fire and dynamite. That played right into my skill set, sure, but it also meant it'd be way too easy to turn into Team 7's emotional shock absorber instead of an actual person with her own trajectory. I made a quiet, private promise to myself: help them, yes, but don't disappear into the space between them.
But it was going to be exhausting. I was already tired in advance.
Iruka moved on to jonin assignments. "Team 7's instructor will be Hatake Kakashi."
There was a little rustle at that. Even I only knew the name in vague, whispered terms: Sharingan Kakashi, elite jonin, habit of being late and terrifying.
"Cool," Naruto said, immediately forgetting his earlier complaint. "Bet he's awesome."
Sasuke's eyes narrowed. "Sharingan…"
I did the mental math of "copy ninja + me + Naruto + Sasuke," and felt a headache forming preemptively.
"Teams will meet their instructors after lunch," Iruka finished. "Until then, stay in your classroom."
Chairs scraped. Conversations bubbled up. Iruka started collecting stray papers and mercifully pretended not to notice Naruto's chair was now slightly more broken than it had been this morning.
Ino turned to me the second his back was fully turned.
"Are you kidding me?" she hissed. "You, Naruto, and Sasuke? That's so unfair."
"Unfair how?" I said. "From a fatigue perspective, I agree."
She waved a hand toward the back where Naruto was loudly complaining to no one in particular and Sasuke was pointedly ignoring him.
"You get both the cool idiot and the hot idiot," she said. "Some of us have to make do with one."
I blinked at her. Then I looked back at them.
Naruto was currently trying to balance his hitai-ate on his nose.
Sasuke was staring out the window like he wanted to challenge the sun to a duel.
I turned back to Ino.
"…Which is which?" I asked, genuinely.
She slapped a hand over her mouth to muffle a laugh.
"You are impossible," she said, eyes crinkling. "Naruto's the cool idiot, obviously. Sasuke's the hot idiot."
I squinted thoughtfully. "Counterpoint: Naruto is many things, but 'cool' is not on the list."
"He's cool in a dumb way," she said. "Like, he says what he thinks, he doesn't care what anyone thinks about him, he's loud. That's cool."
"That's also a cry for help, but sure."
"And Sasuke—" She eyed him, then lowered her voice. "Look at him. He's like… brooding pretty. It's the hair. And the eyes. And the… everything."
"Walking unresolved trauma," I reminded her.
"I never said my taste was healthy," she shot back.
We both snorted.
As the buzz of conversation swelled, my gaze drifted back to the other side of the room—past Naruto trying to get Sasuke to high-five him ("Don't touch me." "C'monnn, we're teammates now!"), past Kiba mock-growling at Hinata, to where Shikamaru was still slouched in his chair.
He was staring up at the ceiling now, lips moving faintly like he was already running scenarios about his new team. His energy had settled again into that lazy-deep flow, barely disturbed by the news.
Something about it tugged at me. The way he wasn't loud in my senses, but he was present. Solid in a way that felt… safe? No, that wasn't quite it. Predictable. Like if the whole room suddenly caught fire, he'd sigh, say "what a drag," and already have three exit plans.
I realized I was staring again when Ino's eyes flicked from my face to where I was looking, then back.
Her expression did something sly.
"Oh," she whispered.
"…Oh what," I said, suspicious.
"You're looking at Shikamaru like he's a puzzle you want to solve and also possibly climb," she said, way too pleased with herself.
My brain shorted out for a second. Heat rushed up my neck. "What?! No. I just—he's—his chakra is—"
"He's lazy and smart and you're doomed," she said. "Admit it."
"I do not have a type," I said, which was exactly the kind of sentence people with a very specific type said.
She leaned closer, voice dropping even lower. "You wanna trade?"
For half a heartbeat, the image flashed in my head: me on Team 10, across from Shikamaru and Choji, planning things in quiet voices while Ino went off to survive Naruto and Sasuke and Kakashi alone.
My stomach did a weird, swoopy thing.
I imagined Naruto's face if I wasn't on his team. The empty space next to him in missions. The way he'd probably say "it's fine" and mean "it hurts" for weeks.
The swoop turned into a knot.
I shook my head, harder than necessary. "No," I said. "I'm not abandoning him to that."
Ino's grin softened into something more fond. "Yeah," she said. "Didn't think so."
She bumped my shoulder. I bumped hers back.
Still, when I risked another glance toward Shikamaru, my cheeks felt hot.
"Stop staring," Ino whispered, sing-song. "You're so obvious."
"I will personally seal your mouth shut," I hissed back.
"Promises, promises."
At the back of the room, Naruto threw an arm dramatically around Sasuke's shoulders and announced, "We're gonna be the best team ever!"
Sasuke shrugged him off like he was shaking off a mosquito. "Don't touch me."
"See?" Ino whispered. "Cool idiot. Hot idiot."
I looked at them, then at my hitai-ate, then at Shikamaru's lazy profile and Choji's crunching and the way Iruka watched all of us like a tired, worried parent.
Somewhere outside this classroom, real missions and real danger were waiting. Somewhere down that road, people were going to get hurt. People would probably die.
Right now, though, we were just kids in a sunlit room, arguing about who got stuck with which idiots.
And me?
I was the ink-stained maybe-girl who'd somehow ended up slotted between a hedgehog and a hard place, blushing over a genius who thought teamwork was "troublesome."
This world was the kind of mess I loved.