Konoha's Red Dragon

Graduation day

Aki, in her six years at the academy, had never once made a friend.
The girls pushed her away, too absorbed in their near freaky obsession (it crossed the borders of a crush a long time ago) to actually take her seriously and were really, really  loud. Too loud for her to handle.
The boys... were too impatient to deal with her silence or much too loud. She could tell the boys didn't mind her, some, mainly the civilian kids, had found her weird, or unapproachable. But most of the clan kids were okay with her.
Shikamaru, Choji and Shino seemed to dislike her the least, seeing as she was silent and tried her best to stay out of the way.
Too quiet to try and make friends.

She thought Sakura and Ino would have been nice friends, both charming in their own ways.
Even if both were somewhat aggressive in their competitions or jolted her to the point she had nearly started scratching again.
But that soon fell away when their own friendship had crumpled after they found out they both liked Sasuke, and they had only gotten worse with their 'crush' the older they got.

So Aki had stopped trying.

She sat at her desk in the back, tucked away in her corner where no one bothered her.
Her headband tied around her neck as she twirled her thumbs idly, trying to pick out Iruka's voice over the rush and beating drums, howling wind and jumbled thoughts that were her world.

She didn't know what would happen with the team placements now. Naruto had ended up passing in an unknown way, and because of her there were an uneven number of graduates. It made her own pulse soar and her hands clammy.

Her eyes unfocused as that familiar static blanketed her mind and pushed the non important sounds of the world away, letting her focus on Iruka's voice as she relaxed.
A tumbling "relax. I have you." Made her muscles loosen and her eyes droop as time moved, passing without her knowing.

She had snapped back into attention when she, Sasuke, Sakura and Naruto were the only ones left in the classroom. Purple meeting black and she shrunk into herself. She heard the throaty scoff come from the Uchiha and the scrape of a chair dragged on her ears, making her want to cup her hands over them with a frustrated cry.

It stopped and she peeked behind rusted red hair to see Naruto setting an Erasure in the doorway, she tilted her head. 'Why?' she had asked silently, her mouth opening, but the puff of air was the only thing that escaped her lips.

She finally took notice of the extra heartbeat just beside the door, of the gentle intake and release of breath. Of the relaxed feeling clouding the figure. The sharp taste of Ozone and the Konoha forests, the stale scent of blood, old and gone, but still lingering. And the prickling feeling of electricity shrouding him.

The hair on the back of her neck stood up and she quickly got to her feet, not used to the sudden surprise of a body she hadn't heard just as a hand crept from behind the door and pulled it open. The erasure landing on his silver head with a poof and Aki stood still.

Naruto burst into unrestrained laughter at the fact it landed, Sasuke stared in disbelief, and Sakura sniggered at the unimpressed look the Jonin had sent them. Aki huffed, and tilted her head at the odd man standing in the doorway.

"I'm so sorry sensei! I tried to convince Naruto not to do it, but he never listens!" Sakura cried and Aki looked at her in confusion.

'She did? I didn't hear anything of the sort...' Aki shrugged to herself, she lost a lot of things when she went static.

The soon to be sensei didn't say anything, simply looking over at all of them, taking in the four-man cell he had been given. Looking, searching, analysing.
It made Aki uncomfortable and she unconsciously curled her shoulders inward to make herself less of a target, something he wouldn't be interested in, something that wouldn't catch his attention. When his eye stayed on her longer her skin prickled and she nearly stopped breathing, closing her eyes for a long moment.

"My first impression of you four, is that you're annoying." Aki sighed quietly, and quickly raised her head to look imploringly at him. She had been expecting a reprimand, not... whatever that was.

"Meet me on the roof in five." and he was gone in a near silent displacement of air.
It disturbed Aki that someone who had such an odd feeling around him could be so silent. She supposed that's what Jonin's were trained to be.

Silent, unobtrusive. Intimidating.

She scurried after her teammates to get to the roof, always behind, always a few steps away, out of sight, out of mind. She'd get her turn. Her sensei seemed fair like that.

Introductions had moved slowly, long and drawn out, she hadn't talked, she never talked. But she had practically felt the frustration radiating off her teammates with her persistent silence, felt her sensei's curiosity at her lack of words. She was uncomfortable with the weight of so many eyes on her.
It made her skin tingle and the static threatened to over take to get her to calm down. She pushed and said 'no. I want to try.' and it went silent, accepting, though not liking.

When her sensei had said that they would be given a test, to prove they were good enough to be actual genins. That they might be able to have a smidge chance of survival outside the walls of the village. The low percentage rate of student's actually passing, Aki had blanked, not knowing how to feel about the misdirection the academy teachers had lead her and others to believe.

"He will be fair," the voice rumbled, the soothing chime relaxing her. "Be kind, try and work with the others, and he will reward you well." It advised and she breathed a small, audible breath out of her nose in a confirmation.

(Kakashi had caught the oddities that were Aki, had pinned them when he was looking through her file, when he walked into the classroom, and even after. Her lack of speaking was going to be hard, how she managed to get this far he doesn't know.
She was an odd child, a challenge to teach in a different way compared to the other three rowdy, rambunctious personalities. He'd have to pull her aside eventually.)

"Meet at training ground 17 at 0600 hours tomorrow, see you later!"

He said cheerfully and poofed away, leaving a visible cloud for everyone to see.