I'm trying something new and NOT plotting out a whole story in advance. Hopefully you won't be able to tell what a test this is for me, but to make things easier on myself I'm starting with the storyline I think every fan fiction writer is required to write at some point: the alternate universe where the characters are attending high school. Since this alternative reality doesn't have things like chakra or kekkei genkai, and definitely no resurrection, it's going to have a number of other variations as well, and the characters may thus end up a little bit OOC. Please don't be mad.

This story was inspired by several movies from the 80s and 90s and may contain references to music from back then because, guess what, that's when I was in high school (yes, I'm old). I don't own them or Naruto and that's why I'm writing for FF instead of taking a swim in my money vault a la Scrooge MacDuck.

At the top of the stairs Sakura hoisted her backpack to a more comfortable position on her shoulder. For perhaps the twelfth time she considered taking off and just taking the 524 bus into downtown. What were they gonna do, give her more detention?

Before she could resolve in which direction her next step would be, a whoop in front of her stopped her.

"Ye-ow! Sasuke, looks like we've got company. Right on! I won't be alone with the bastard this week!" The guy jumping up and down, making all the noise, was a broad, bulky blond kid with blue eyes. From that distance Sakura couldn't tell if he was already growing out a beard, but he definitely had a funny face for such a brash demeanor. Then again, over a black t-shirt he wore an orange jacket bright enough to be nearly blinding.

What the hell, she figured, this could be entertaining.

A shadow against the wall shifted and she realized the loudmouth was talking to someone, not just yelling to himself. Sasuke, I guess. The figure was long and lean and dressed all in black from Nine Inch Nails t-shirt over a long-sleeved fishnet top, to jeans with buckles running up and down the sides that plunged into heavy duty boots. A pale, pale face turned toward her, and for just a moment she was aware of regal features framed by spiky black hair that made her heart stop and her mouth go dry. Then, before she could stop it, her face wrinkled. Is he wearing eyeliner?

Waaaiit... Sasuke? Sakura swallowed hard. Without noticing she took two steps forward. "It is you," she whispered.

Sasuke merely issued a "hmph" in her direction and resumed his position against the wall, one foot braced against it, hands in his pockets. Sakura realized he had earbuds in his ears, a tinny hiss issuing from his head. Her lips pressed together. Guess he hasn't changed that much in five years.

All too soon the loudmouth was invading her personal space. "Dude! You know the bastard? Awesome! How come I don't know you?" His arms were open wide and Sakura feared the worst.

Before he could hug her, a complete stranger, she shoved a hand out. "Sakura Haruno. And you probably don't know me because I don't usually get caught."

There was a slight insult in there somewhere but the knucklehead just threw his head back and laughed. "Hah! Sweet! Naruto Uzumaki, detention specialist!" He didn't simply take Sakura's hand but grasped it joyously and pumped it up and down. "I love your hair! Is that why you're here?"

Sakura struggled to get her hand back. When she did she answered, "more or less." They walked the last few paces to where Sasuke leaned, right next to the door of the detention room.

"So how do you know the bastard, Sakura-chan? He just started attending Konoha Central now for senior year, so I thought I was his only friend." Sakura was starting to understand that despite his excited and slightly breathless tone, this was Naruto's normal, conversational voice.

Her eyes flitted to Sasuke's face, though she was trying to do anything but that. His eyes caught hers and they both looked away at the same time. She shrugged. "Middle school."

She remembered the sting of his rejection five - or was it six? - yearsearlier all too well. She wasn't the same person, of course. Not nearly so foolish, nor so dedicated to what other people thought of her. But it had hurt like nothing else had before that point.

Beside her Naruto prattled on. "Whoa! Middle school? That must have been sixth grade, 'cause that's when Sasuke-"

"Shut up, you idiot." Sasuke was looking at her again. "It's ancient history." No, he was studying her. With a start she realized he was working out how he recognized her.

I guess the pink hair does throw people off. To shove the thought of Sasuke staring at her out of her mind, she checked the time on her cell phone. "Well it's three-thirty. Where's the detention person?"

"I bet it's Kakashi again. He's late for everything." Naruto rolled his eyes.

Sakura quirked a small smile. Naruto was loud but also pretty informal. Other students wouldn't dare speak of the physics professor so casually. But Sakura was very well acquainted with Mr Hatake's trouble with punctuality.

Naruto shook his head. "I wouldn't smile yet, if I were you. I'm not kidding, the guy defines tardy. I don't get how he's supposed to set an example for us. Hey, Sasuke, remember the time he kept us waiting for two hours for Saturday school?"

"Tsh. Of course I do, loser. It was last week."

"Oh right." Naruto didn't even slow down. "Well anyway, we're probably going to be here for a while." Naruto reached to his shoulders and slid the straps of his backpack down. He tossed the blue and orange bag to the wall where it landed next to a black messenger bag. Sasuke's bookbag, guessed Sakura. "Wanna tell me why you say you don't get caught?"

Sakura was slightly taken aback. It had just been a quip in the moment, she'd meant little by it, only that she wasn't a detention regular. It implied that she courted trouble but managed to avoid it through her wits. Though now that she thought about it... Absently she scratched her cheek. "Well, let's see..."

"Whatever," announced Sasuke. "You don't dye your hair pink if you don't want to get caught."

Sakura frowned. Two things were immediately apparent – Sasuke could hear her perfectly well despite the music that was blaring in his ears and he had recalled Sakura from their pre-teen years. Well, year. Sixth grade to be exact. Sakura deliberately took in a deep breath through her nose, using it to straighten her spine so she would stand her full five feet, four and a half inches. Back then, back when she was a stupid little 12 year old with an unrequited crush that ruled her world she would have quivered – caved in – at having such harsh judgment sent her way.

But she was 17 now and Naruto might not be the brightest bulb but he was right about one thing, Sasuke was a bastard. "Maybe I'm trying to do something that just has a side effect of detention. Maybe I already pulled that thing off and if this is the worst consequence then it hardly counts as getting caught." Sasuke's face was impassive. Maybe he heard her, maybe he didn't. It pissed Sakura off. "Maybe I won't wait around for Mr Hatake anymore."

She turned on her heel, intending to march down the stairs and off campus to the bus stop. Bouncing on his toes, Naruto waved his hands. "Whoa, whoa Sakura-chan, I don't think you want to do that! Skipping out on detention means Saturday school!" Sakura stepped around him and continued forward. "And the school will call your parents!" Sakura scoffed and carried on again.

"Sakura-chan! Wait, no! Let's talk some more!" Naruto reached out to take her arm at the same time that Sakura reached the top of the stairs and came to a standstill.

"Damn," she muttered under her breath and shook her arm free from Naruto's grasp. "Don't touch me." She backed up a step as they were joined by a white haired man in loose gray slacks and a dark blue turtleneck sweater. He stopped directly in front of her. A kind of a staring match ensued. Kakashi Hatake sported his usual eye patch that led many students to imagine he was a severe individual. Sakura knew better as she took in his look of indifferent ease. He wasn't staring as much as he was waiting.

She started to frown but with a shrug a studied look of apathy came over her face. She readjusted her backpack and headed to the detention room door like it was the most natural thing in the world. Sasuke snorted; Sakura ignored him.

Sakura watched Mr Hatake unlock the door like it didn't make a whit of difference to her where she spent the next hour. Off to the side Naruto looked back and forth between her and Sasuke and their mutual looks of detachment. He scratched the back of his head and muttered to himself, "great, just great. This is gonna be loads of fun, believe it."

The boys picked up their bags and silently filed into the room. Usually it was the Health Studies classroom, but after the school day let out recalcitrant students were assigned detention there. Sakura had taken her required Health class during her sophomore year. She had passed the class with perfect scores on her tests and an overall B- thanks to multiple absences. A quick scan of the walls told her they were largely unchanged save for a new poster warning of the consequences of meth use.

Sakura took a seat by the window. Sasuke took a seat four rows over. Naruto looked back and forth between them again and with a put-upon sigh took a seat equidistant to each.

Mr Hatake pulled out a paper lunch sack from a satchel that hung by his hip and placed it on the table at the front of the room. He set the satchel next to the sack. Sakura rifled through her backpack to pull out her anatomy notes. She wouldn't be able to do all of her homework here without her computer and supplemental material but she could take care of the basics. To her right she could sense that Naruto was fidgeting. Maybe he was trying to think of something to say. A deep throat clearing made her look up.

Mr Hatake was standing over Sasuke who was doing the best to ignore him, earbuds still blaring, eyes boring holes into the bare desktop. In a calm voice Mr Hatake finally spoke, "turn it off or hand it over. Pick one." Sasuke rolled his shoulders like he was taking a moment to think. Mr Hatake spoke again in a terribly conversational tone, "if I take them I'll spend the next hour listening to your most recently played tracks. I'm sure it'll be instructional for the next time I meet with you-know-who."

Sasuke looked up then with a fierce glare for the teacher. Nope still doesn't like being tested. Sakura watched with avid interest. Nothing ever seemed to ruffle Mr Hatake and in return he almost never had to push his students. He made his requests and most of them, most people, Sakura presumed, just fell in line. But...she was perfectly aware that Mr Hatake wasn't one to be pushed around. She surmised that Sasuke already knew the rules about listening to music during detention and, furthermore, that Mr Hatake would most certainly make good on his threat.

Her wide-eyed attention was rewarded when Sasuke made an annoyed sound and reached into his pocket to turn off the player. She waited until he pulled out the earbuds and then mimicked his snort. She chortled to herself when, without looking at her, Sasuke frowned before he could control his face.

Sakura smirked. Well, Mr Perfect he isn't anymore. Briefly she wondered just where he had gone when he left in sixth grade and what he had done. A pang flashed through her and left her stomach feeling unsettled.

"Right," said Mr Hatake. "This is detention, you've been very bad, blah, blah. Don't be a pain and it will all be over in an hour. Do be a pain and it'll take a full 60 minutes. No talking, no eating, no listening to music or playing with toys, electronic or not." He gave a distinctly pointed look at Naruto who failed to look innocent. "You can do your homework or something that looks a lot like your homework, so long as it's not too much fun." Again he stared directly at Naruto who made a theatrical display of throwing his hands in a universal "what me?" gesture.

With that Mr Hatake turned back to the table and pulled up a chair. He sat facing the trio and pulled out a magazine from his satchel.

Sakura assumed the teacher had tuned them out. The half finished thought of Sasuke's early teen years presented itself again and she wondered if he was back now because he had found whatever it was he was looking for. She looked at her notes and tried to concentrate. A blood pressure reading is a ratio of systolic to diastolic pressure, figures for which are yielded by...

As if fighting off thoughts about a missing childhood crush wasn't enough, there was a loudmouth knucklehead trying to be discrete about getting her attention. Sakura held in a sigh and shot Naruto a look the third time he hissed at her. She wanted it to be an ice cold glare, but, whether or not it reached maximum chilliness, Naruto ignored it.

"Heyyy." He issued in a stage whisper. "Are you any good at algebra?"

Sakura couldn't help it, she rolled her eyes. "I took it in middle school. Why don't you ask your buddy Sasuke?" Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Sasuke scowl. This was becoming a fun game.

Naruto looked pained. "He hates explaining things to me. Plus the way he learned and does his math is just-"

Sasuke cut him off with growl that was half gurgle and half choke.

"Oi." At the front of the room Mr Hatake was looking at them over his magazine. "If she's not going to help you then you're on your own, Naruto. Next time pay better attention in Ms Yuuhi's class."

Something about he noted how Sakura wasn't willing help irked her. And at the mention of Ms Yuuhi's name Sakura gave a tiny jolt. She was her calculus teacher. "It's alright, I can help, I guess. I know Ms Yuuhi's methods."

"Alright, Sakura-chan!" Naruto was half way out of his seat, pumping a fist before Mr Hatake got him to calm down again.

"Thank you, Sakura. Just remember to keep it down." As one they glanced at the fourth person in the room. He had a paperback book open but was watching them openly. "Other people might be trying to study." There was a slight emphasis on "might."

Sakura nodded, picked up her things and circled around the desks to sit beside Naruto. She scanned the page his textbook was on. The room became silent with occupants reading and studying. She gave a little hitch of realization, whispering, "This is algebra 2! I thought you meant algebra 1."

"Well, yeah," whispered Naruto, "I am a senior, not a remedial freshman."

"Anymore," came the soft qualification from their right.

It was finally Naruto's turn to make a dirty face. "Shut up, bastard."

Sasuke didn't move his body, only turned his head slightly to look Naruto in the eye and take the challenge dead on. At this Sakura froze. It was the look of someone very used to fighting. She buried away her realization when both boys turned to look at her.

"Don't worry, Sakura-ch-" Sakura shook her head at Naruto.

"Let's get to work, ok?" she whispered.

"Uh ok."

On the other side of Naruto, Sasuke continued to stare at her with a slight frown on his face.

She managed to get through all of five minutes of explaining the factors of a coefficient before she noticed that Naruto had gotten very quiet. That's odd. And probably not good.

Sakura had been writing with one hand and pointing at a diagram with the other. And now Naruto seemed to be staring at both. She began to withdraw them but, faster than she thought possible for him, he grabbed her left hand. He had a firm grip on her wrist but managed not to hurt her – as long as she didn't struggle. He held up her hand so the back was in the light and the swollen red knuckles in full display. "What happened to your knuckles?" he whispered.

She scowled and pried his hand off with her right. "None of your business." How sloppy. She had let herself think Naruto was harmless and allowed him within arm's reach. Stupid! "I already told you not to touch me."

Sakura ignored Naruto's offended look. She scooted her chair away. She was about to reopen her anatomy notes when a low voice spoke up.

"Since you can still use the hand you must not have hit a stationary object." Sasuke wore a cocksure smirk. "I'm guessing you gave the other person worse than they gave you."

She gave Sasuke a murderous look; what was it with these guys and not letting things be? Whatever book he had been "reading" was lying ignored on the desk as Sasuke was turned fully to them. Naruto stared at her wide-eyed. Sakura tried not to grind her teeth. Great, just great. The goof was going to be yet another person who thought she was nothing more than a powder keg that could blow up at any moment. A violent harridan who broke laws and furniture with equal aplomb. A natural disaster in a red vest top and -

"Sakura-chan, that's so cool! Who did you knock out? I gotta know!" Naruto erupted with no further regard for the sham of whispering over textbooks and class notes.

Sasuke turned away with a groan. Sakura followed suit, adding a hand to her forehead. In another heartbeat Mr Hatake loomed over them. "What did I say about making this harder than it has to be?"

Sakura brought her hands to her chest and studied her nails intently. Sasuke crossed his arms and stared off into the distance. Naruto could not be silenced. "No way, Kakashi! I gotta know! C'mon it's not fair to make me wait to ask her the same thing again later. I'll have to find her again and she'll say it's none of my business again and then I'll have to ask her again. And I won't know who's around listening and she'll get all embarrassed and say it's my fault. And I just want to know!"

Sakura listened with growing ire as Naruto worked himself into a tizzy. Of its own accord her left hand made a fist. Or rather, it tried to, but the knuckles would still have none of it. The resultant pain left her gasping.

"Sakura-chan!"

"Sakura?" Mr Hatake stepped toward her.

Instinctively she pulled back and muttered, "it's nothing."

She ignored the snort off to her right. Mr Hatake was more verbal. "It's obviously not nothing. Maybe you should go back to the nurse for some more ice."

Sakura shook her head and cradled her hand. She just wanted everyone to back off. She barely noticed when Naruto explained the nurse would have gone home for the day by that point.

"Hm. It's not track season so I don't have everything on me." Mr Hatake wandered back to his table. "Oh I know!" he brightened. He pulled out a small, squat jar.

Sakura was impressed he had such a thing on him. "Arnica."

"Ah you know what this is. Good." He walked back to her, working the cap off. He set both jar and cap in front of her. "You apply it, you probably know best how to do it. Sorry, I don't have any tape."

Sakura was grateful he took the cap off; doing it herself would have made the knuckles hurt all the more. She began working at it, trying to ignore the two boys still staring at her like an interesting science experiment.

She looked up again when she heard a desk scrape on the linoleum floor. Mr Hatake was turning around one of the desks, clearly so he could sit closer to them. She stifled a groan.

"Don't looks so upset, guys. You wanted it the hard way, so here we go." Each of the three students scowled furiously at the teacher. He continued speaking as if he were talking about a nice day at the beach. "Each of you is here for being a disruption. Perhaps you are a repeat offender." He looked at Naruto who grinned as if Mr Hatake had been praising him. "And you're barely toeing the line between being a pain and being expelled." Naruto's face fell.

"Perhaps you did something big enough and bad enough that it's going to be a while before the powers that be feel they can trust you again." This was to Sasuke. He stared at Mr Hatake with fingers laced together and held against his mouth. His gaze was steady and hard.

Hard, thought Sakura, I can't tell if he's angrier or calmer than he used to be.

"Then again," he addressed Sakura, "maybe this is your first detention in high school. You've held it together pretty well, in fact, you've been a model student...most would say. Hardly any problems that couldn't be explained and subsequently excused. And then you decided to flagrantly break with the school dress code and succumb to the cheap taunts that followed." He regarded the three of them. "Maybe you're angry and maybe you're lonely and maybe you're tired of keeping it all in, it doesn't really matter because here you are."

Sakura pretended to keep fiddling with the liniment to avoid looking at Mr Hatake. To one side the boys found the things on their desks suddenly, inordinately interesting.

"So... since you three can't keep quiet and respect detention as the dour bore-a-thon it's supposed to be, I propose an alternative. We use the rest of our time together – and keep in mind that you're all in here with me, every day, for the rest of the week, yes, I'm as thrilled as you – to talk about your failings and how they've landed you here."

Sakura gave Mr Hatake a scandalized look. Talk about her failings? She uttered squawks of disbelief, unable to make a real word come out.

Naruto babbled his disagreement while Sasuke was concise. "No way in hell."

Mr Hatake held up hand. The students quieted down, though they were now restless. "If you don't talk about yourself then the other three of us will start talking about you, guessing at just what is wrong with you and offering our best solutions for the problems in your life."

All at once the three resumed protesting. Mr Hatake let them chatter for a minute with a faint smile on his lips. They ran out of steam within a few minutes and stared back at him. Sakura could almost feel herself shaking with anger.

"Your disapproval has been noted. Alright, so let's begin. Now, I don't need to guess why you were assigned detention, but your mates may not know so -"

Sakura stood up. "Nope. Not happening. I'm outta here." Ignoring the fire in her left hand, she roughly shoved her notebooks back in her backpack. "Give me Saturday school, suspend me, hell, expel me. I don't care. You're not going to dissect me for shits and giggles. At least not with me still in the room." Naruto nodded vigorously. Sasuke sat up straight.

"Sakura..."

"I don't care. You can't physically keep me here. So I'm going -"

"You won't be allowed in at least the first track & field meet in the spring, maybe more. Try me and I may not even allow you on the varsity team."

Sakura was caught up short. "I- what? I... you can't be serious!"

"I can and in fact I am. Sakura, sit down. I have been watching your discipline deteriorate over the past two years and though you can still pull off remarkable feats on your own, you've made it increasingly harder on yourself when it comes to working with others or accepting authority. Last year in my class you broke the curve on every test and out on the track you ruled the 300meter hurdles. But when I recommended you for the academic decathlon you got into a screaming match with the team captain." Sakura was sitting again by this point, staring at her hands. "Though I guess I should say I'm impressed that you got a rise out of Shikamaru. That's almost as tough as taking all state in women's hurdles."

Despite herself a small smile wormed its way out. She tipped her head forward so her hair would hide some of it. When she thought about it, she supposed having these two idiots know some of her life's problems was probably a small price to pay to run track again. She smirked. At some point she should probably apologize to Shikamaru for calling him a lazy asshole. Well, he was lazy, but not really an asshole.

"Sakura? Are you going to stay then?"

Head still tipped down so her chin was against her collarbone, Sakura spoke softly, "yeah, I guess."

"Well that's good to hear. So -"

"But I want to talk for myself." Sakura looked right at Mr Hatake. "I don't even want to think what you would say on your own about me, coach." He gave a small laugh. "Are they going to stay?" Sakura looked at Naruto and Sasuke fast enough to catch them staring at her. Naruto grinned while Sasuke looked away with a faint "tch."

"Well ultimately it's up to them. Though I think Sasuke's alternatives are far worse and I suspect he agrees. And Naruto will probably stay, though honestly his reasons for doing things make the most sense when he explains them."

Sasuke crossed his arms and kept looking straight forward. Naruto's grin deepened. "I'm not going anywhere, believe it!"

"Great." Mr Hatake sat back, straightened and crossed his legs at the ankles. "Well then, Sakura, want to tell us what you're in for?"

Her gaze drifted to the floor. She really didn't want to say it out loud. Finally she muttered, "fighting."

The others in the room shifted, unconvinced. Mr Hatake spoke, "Come on now, Sakura. You've got 20 minutes to the end of detention. There's more to it than that. You sent Taro Imura to the hospital."

The boys' reactions were swift, shock marking their faces. "Taro... Imura?" Naruto finally found his voice. "Isn't he one of those Root guys?"

The satisfaction of putting that ass Taro in his place warred with worry that now even more students at Konoha would think she was a scary, scary girl. Naruto swiftly put her worries to rest, at least where he was concerned.

"Right on! Those Root bastards need to be shown a thing or two!" He was standing now and had a hand up, clearly waiting for a high five.

"Naruto!" Mr Hataka interjected before Sakura could even think of meeting the high five. "What we're not going to do is cheer each other on in our transgressions."

"Aw but Kakashi..." Naruto whined.

"No. Sakura, explain to Naruto just how you ended up punching your classmate when he hadn't lifted a finger against you. And don't leave out the part where it was a foolish thing to do."

Sakura huffed. "Taro said some stupid crap to me and it made me mad so I hit him."

"And you shouldn't have because... it's bad to hit people? Or because it put him in the hospital?" Naruto looked confused.

Sakura rolled her eyes and was about to say "both" but Sasuke spoke first. "No, you idiot. Because striking one person in Root is striking them all."

"Violence begets violence." Mr Hatake had a benevolent look on his face.

I can't believe this is happening. Maybe I should just go and forget about a track scholarship. But the image of an older woman with blond hair and a very angry face flashed through her mind and Sakura stayed in her seat. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. She played with the jar of arnica and worked out how best to tell the story.

"I dyed my hair for a concert I was going to on Saturday night." At Mr Hatake's gaze she added, "and because it would piss off my dad..."

The knucklehead is pretty obvious. And yes, I made Sasuke the goth in the bunch. Because when I was 17 Brandon Lee in THE CROW was the sexiest thing around (RIP). And Sakura is...the rebel? Ok, that wasn't so obvious but stick with me here. I'm rewriting a bit of her backstory (she didn't know Naruto before, but *did* have that horrible rejection from Sasuke years earlier), and hopefully it'll make some sense.