The next day, Ko got up at five in the morning out of habit. She did her stretches and a light work out for the day despite the pain she was in. She mostly worked on her upper body strength by doing pushups and pull ups. After working up a sweat, she took a shower then got dressed in her new clothes she bought yesterday. She looked in the mirror and decided to put her long hair up in a ponytail. The outfit she wore was a red short sleeved top with a dark green jacket unzipped along with black shorts and common blue sandals. She had to admit, it was a lot warmer and dryer in this country compared to the Sound village.

As she was getting herself breakfast, she couldn't help but feel homesick. She missed her old room and Tayuya's cooking. She was an excellent cook making it worth getting up in the morning just by smelling her cooking. Tayuya was sort of a mother figure to Ko being as she has never had met another woman until she joined the village.

Sasuke stood outside Ko's door debating if he should knock. He did say that class didn't start until eight but it was seven now. He had always left early avoiding the fan girls as much as possible to enjoy the silence for a while but he had to take Ko to class for a few days. He wasn't sure if she was even up yet or if she was ready. He didn't know if he should come back at seven thirty since it takes ten minutes to walk to the academy, but he would lose his peace and quiet for an hour. With her in the classroom early like him it wouldn't be silent anyway since she would most likely try to talk to him.

Ko sense someone in front of her door so she walked over to look through the peephole seeing Sasuke standing there looking like he was in deep thought. She opened the door slowly and saw Sasuke looking straight at her.

"Hello Sasuke, are we leaving early?" She greeted giving him a smile.

Sasuke nodded so Ko walked out then locked her door. She walked with Sasuke to the academy in silence which both enjoyed. Ko knew not to push Sasuke into becoming friends with her right away, so she gave him his space which she knew he wanted. She didn't want to blow the mission by making him hate her. She had over five years in this village having plenty of time to talk to him and convince him to go to with her to Orochimaru's hideout when the time comes. Finally, they reached the classroom and they both sat down. Sasuke sat in the back while Ko sat in the front where she sat yesterday after lunch. She looked around the room seeing that Naruto did a good job cleaning everything up.

Sasuke and Ko didn't speak to each other and sat in silence until everyone started to show up around seven forty. No one sat next to Ko still not acknowledging her presence in the room. All the girls just glared at her and the boys didn't seem to care. It still felt weird to Ko and it made her wonder why no one was trying to talk to her. Her father had told her about the Leaf village when he was still a shinobi here and he made it seem very friendly and everyone was everybody's friend.

"I guess this generation is different from the last." Ko thought to herself as she looked at everyone.

Just the thought of Orochimaru made her want to see him. The Hokage said she will be safe within the village but she felt much safer close to her father. She started to wonder what he was doing along with Kimimaro and Jugo.

Class began which Ko wasn't excited about. She would listen but then start to tune out Iruka. She wasn't interested in the academy's teachings for she knew what she needed to know. She also had to keep a low profile so she couldn't stand out. If there were tests, she would have to do decent anyway so there was no point in listening.

"Alright class we're going to do an exercise so boys come with me and girls you will be going with Yumi-sensei." Iruka said as a young woman with long blueish black hair walked into the room.

Everyone got up and went with their assigned sensei. Ko, along with the other girls were sitting in a circle outside with their temporary sensei. Yumi looked down at the students with her dark blue eyes.

"As female ninjas, we must not only be skilled in Ninjutsu...but also possess a wide amount of knowledge and culture. If you cannot sneak into enemy territory and pass for a normal woman, then being a spy will not be possible. Today's lesson will be in flower arrangement."

"What kind of assignment is this? It's a waste of time." Ko thought. She would rather burn the field of flowers rather than arrange them.

"Yes!!" The rest of the girls cheered making Ko scoff at their idiocy.

All the other girls ran over to different patches and started to pick flowers. Ko stood up and walked over to one and looked at the flowers in disgust. She didn't understand what flowers had to do with being undercover. She never had any interest in flowers and honestly have never actually stopped to look at them since she was only outside for missions or training. There were various colors such as red, yellow, pink, orange, even blue. Ko didn't understand why girls would be interested in such useless things.

"Ino- chan!" Ko heard making her turn to her left seeing a pink haired girl running towards the blonde girl, who Ko sat next to yesterday, which she presumed to be Ino. The pinkette tripped falling forwards making Ko snicker finding her pain amusing.

"Jeez so clumsy Sakura." Ino muttered giving her a smile as she bent down to help her friend.

After exchanging a few words, they started to collect flowers by themselves. Ko didn't really know what she was supposed to do so she picked random flowers, plucking a few petals off some as well. She found herself at the same patch as all the other girls but they kept their distance.

Finally, one girl looked over noticing Ko so she walked up to her placing her hands on her hips. "Hey, you can't be over here with us."

Ko looked up at the girl who had long brown hair and a face of disgust. "Why not?" She questioned innocently tilting her head to the side.

"Because we don't like you." Her statement was brash which caught the attention of the other girls in her group.

"Why don't you like me?" Ko glanced around at the other girls preparing for one of them to attack her.

"Because you look weird and you were looking at Sasuke yesterday. He doesn't like freaks like you."

Oh how she wanted to rip off their heads showing that she was not to be messed with but she couldn't start anything with these girls and they weren't worth the energy. Ko got up to walk over to another patch where Sakura and Ino were.

"I'm so bad at this stuff. What about you?" Sakura cried seeking help from her friend. Ko couldn't help but listen in on their conversation.

"What? But you are named after a flower! Hehe there's a trick to this." Ino's voice was filled with confidence and sincerity as she talked to Sakura who Ko could tell was a fragile girl.

"Oh? Really?" Sakura questioned.

"What you do is find a main flower, and then add another that compliments it." Ino explained as she watched Sakura looking at the many flowers around them.

Sakura reached for random flowers clumping them together in her left hand but Ino disapproved of the arrangement.

"You can't have the flowers clash. For example look," Ino showed Sakura her 'skill' to arranging flowers. Then the same bunch of girls from before came up from behind them.

"You look like you are having a fun today, Ms. Huge forehead." The leader teased,
"you're trying to make yourself look better recently. Who do you think you are? And you're also hanging out with the freak over here." She reached out her arm motioning to Ko who was sitting a couple feet away.

Ko sat in the grass watching the scene before her seeing Ino slap the young girl hearing the slap echo throughout the field. The air was still besides the light breeze the flowed through the grass. She didn't care for these girls finding the drama very entertaining.

"Oh sorry, I must have mistaken that opening for a vase." Ino's tone was condescending towards the girl which made Ko smirk.

The girl had fallen to the ground sliding a bit. "Bimbo!" The girl shouted with a flower in her mouth when she got up.

"It may be weak but that flower is poisonous, you better spit it out." Ino said causing a look of panic to appear on her face.

"Sensei!" They all shouted running away.

"The poison is in the root though." Ino told us with a coy smile.

"Well that just made my day." Ko thought.

Ino then gave Sakura a red ribbon making her look up at her friend.

"Why did you give me this ribbon?" Sakura asked.

"That's because I thought it would be a waste....if you ended as a bud....a flower is meaningless unless it blooms, right? And it could grow into...a flower even more beautiful than a cosmos."

Sakura's face scrunched up as her eyes began to water.

"Let's hurry up and get the flowers." Ino noticed her expression and showed concern. "Sakura, what's wrong?"

"Oh...when I fell earlier, I got sand in my eye." Sakura lied wiping the tears away then smiled brightly up at Ino.

Everyone then started to gather over towards Yumi-sensei meaning that the stupid activity was over.

"Now everyone gather around, let's see your flowers."

She looked around seeing everyone's but her eyes stopped at Ko's.

"I don't really know anything about flowers. I never really paid attention to them." Ko admitted.

The other girls in the group snickered at Ko but Yumi smiled. "They're beautiful Ko. All flowers are beautiful." She said with a smile.

Ko kept a blank face not wanting to show her disgust. Yumi finally brought all the girls back in and they sat in the classroom until Iruka brought the guys back in. Once everyone was back inside Iruka went on with his lecture.

"What did you guys do?" Naruto whispered.

"We had to pick flowers and put them in an arrangement. Pretty useless if you ask me."

"That does sound dumb, we had to learn how to set traps."

"That sounds much better and useful."

"Yeah," Naruto agreed.

As Iruka was talking, Ko couldn't help but think about how those girls called her a freak. She didn't mind the hateful words but she wondered if her father received the same treatment when he was a child. They both had abnormally pale skin and dark hair but her father had the eyes of a snake while Ko's looked somewhat normal. If the kids back then were just like the kids now, her father must have been bullied a lot due to his appearance. She wondered if that was a part of why he hated the Leaf so much.

Once again it was lunch time. Ko got some food and went over to the same table as yesterday. She quickly finished eating and went outside to sit by the tree watching the others. All the kids were so innocent not knowing the truth about the world yet and how most of them were destined to die one day in the midst of battle. She watched them play ninja which was such a stupid game to her when she is already one. They just started the academy and can't wait to be ninja but once they are, they'll wish they were back in the academy where they are safe. Images of the Kaguya massacre flashed through her mind seeing the dead bodies of both the clan and the Mist shinobi.

Class was finally over which Ko was happy about, she hated being stuck in a boring classroom. She debated if she should go back home or not. There wasn't really anything to do at home so she decided to look around some more. She noticed that there were many villagers who weren't ninja. It looked like there were more normal villagers than shinobi since she hasn't seen another shinobi walking around yet. The only shinobi she knew of were Iruka, Yumi, and the Hokage so far.

Ko found herself at the graveyard. She walked around for a while looking at all the graves until a gravestone caught her eye so she walked over to it. She didn't know why but the names on it seemed vaguely familiar. She stared at them for a while then remembered why they seemed familiar; they were her grandparents. Her father only mentioned them once to her when she was younger but after that, he never spoke of them. She knew that they died when he was young and a snake appeared near the graves which gave him the inspiration to study kinjutsu.

"I wonder how Father's life would've turned out if you guys didn't die. I probably wouldn't be here right now." Ko said as she traced the names on the stone.

She knew if she was caught staring at the graves it would draw suspicion to herself so she had to leave. She started to walk away even though she wanted to stay a little bit longer. She walked out of the cemetery and kept walking around taking note of the architecture of the village. It was a strange place to her and would take time getting use to the smiling faces of the villagers. She couldn't wait for her mission to be over and go back to where she belonged, in the Sound village. 

Edited March 14, 2020