AN: I've gotten the impression that Sakura being a whiny fangirl turns people off in the first chapter. Don't worry that part of her personality goes away real quick. This story takes a couple of chapters to get going but once it does I promise you will enjoy it :)

Hara is the Japanese term for the lower Dantian. It's basically in the middle of the body about three finger widths below the navel. It's important in martial arts, Ki practices and Chinese medicine.


When Kakashi-sensei killed Haku the pink haired kunoichi from Team 7 felt it. From her lower hara felt a tidal wave of pleasurable sensations spread to every nerve ending of her body. The experience was so intense as to be pleasure almost indiscernible from pain in a way that was inexplicably fulfilling. Sakura's eyes rolled to the back of her head and she fell to her knees, trembling, confused and overwhelmed by the indescribable sensation she felt throughout every inch of her body.

"Hey Sakura-san! Are you all right?" came the frightened loud whisper from Tazuna, the bridge builder she was protecting.

Sakura could hear the voices of her sensei, Naruto and the missing nin Zabuza. However she couldn't focus on what they were saying as she with some difficulty tried to shake off the absolutely unexpected and almost invasive sensations. She had to do her best to protect the bridge builder. Shakily Sakura got back to her feet.

"Y-yeah Tazuna-san," she said, trying to give him a reassuring smile she they both knew wasn't sincere, "I'm fine. Nothing to worry about." Sakura could worry about what the hell that had been later, her nerves still tingling and on edge.

He gave her a skeptical and concerned look but Sakura turned her attention away from him as it appeared the thick mist that had been completely obscuring their vision was now rapidly lifting. In seconds she could see what was happening on the bridge. Zabuza stood a distance from Kakashi, both arms seemingly maimed and Kakashi with no major injuries that she could see. Sakura breathed a sigh of relief now feeling secure that they would survive this fight after all. Naruto was shouting something at Zabuza and looking angry and for the first time she spotted the corpse of Haku. Sakura felt a little ill at the sight even from a distance. There was a group of armed thugs moving towards them from the very end of the bridge. But where was Sasuke-kun?

Her eyes scanned the area until a little ways off from where the others stood lay Sasuke unmoving.

"S-Sasuke-kun?" she said softly, her brain trying to process what Sasuke laying immobile on the ground and filled with senbon needles might mean.

Sakura felt a gentle hand placed on her back. Turning her head she saw the sad look on Tazuna's face.

"I think the fight is over. Go to him, I'll be fine," he said in a somber but kind voice.

Sakura hesitated for a moment before nodding in gratefulness and sprinting over to where Sasuke was, yelling his name. She knew there were other voices around, that she should be situationally aware but seeing Sasuke still and unmoving she couldn't bring herself to spare attention to anything else. Sakura reached him and knelt by his still form, checking for breathing and heartbeat and finding none.

"No… Sasuke… you-you can't be dead!" she said to him, the hands that had touched him to check for breath and a pulse shaking after having touched his unmoving form. She knew that that no breathing or heartbeat meant death. She knew that. But in that moment of shock all she could do was go into denial.

"No… no this isn't happening… this is some kind of joke, Sasuke-kun can't die," she said out loud near hysterically. Sakura grabbed his shirt and leaned over him with tears and shock on her face, muttering denials and feeling like her heart was being ripped apart.

That's when the next wave of painfully pleasurable sensations exploded out from her hara and shot through her whole body.

This time Sakura did cry out from the sensations, a sound that was both pain and shameful pleasure. She lost control of herself and landed on top of Sasuke, some of the senbon in his body piercing her arms and torso. Before she could pull herself off she was hit by another explosion of pleasure, then another, and another. She flopped on top of Sasuke helplessly as the overwhelming ecstasy shot through her brain and every part of her nervous system and Sakura howled and moaned as the sensations continued. Tazuna had approached them, looking frightened and perplexed by whatever was happening to the young kunoichi. A few moments passed and one final surge of inexplicable sensation shot through her body and she collapsed, mind momentarily shut down.

Moments later when Sakura began to regain her fleeting senses from the experience it was to find a pronounced feeling of euphoria and wellbeing throughout her whole mind and body. She felt like she could walk on clouds or run all day. An inappropriate giggle escaped her at how amazing she suddenly felt from head to toe.

That was when she remembered she was laying on Sasuke's body. The though made her freeze. Her eyes were stinging again and she was about to resume crying when she felt a hand weakly try to push her off.

"Sakura… get off of me," said a tired and pained voice coming from the body underneath her. It was his voice. Sasuke's voice.

"Sasuke, you're alive!" she said in surprise and sudden joy. She sat up ad looked down at him, his eyes weakly focused on her and his breathing shallow but present. He was alive, her teammate who she was in love with was still alive.

Sakura bent down and reached under his head and pulled him to her, hugging him and crying in relief. Sasuke only allowed this for a second before he went still and started weakly trying to pry her off of him. After a few seconds Sakura acquiesced, moving away to give him a bit of space with a silly smile wide on her face.

Slowly, painfully Sasuke made his way to his feet Sakura for once having the insight to not to interfere since he would have rebuffed any offers for help. The raven haired boy really was much too proud but he did have a surprisingly strong will that Sakura admired.

"Oi, Sasuke! You're alive!" came the surprised and joyful cry from Naruto who Sakura saw was running over to where they were. Kakashi-sensei came towards them too walking at a more sedate pace behind Naruto.

Sakura let out a sigh of relief. They had made it. Everything was going to be ok.


A couple of days later Team 7 was back on the road taking a leisurely walk back to Konoha. Kakashi-sensei said they would start traveling at more ninja appropriate speeds after lunch and that for the morning he just wanted to walk and take in the sights. Sakura wasn't sure what sights he was taking in with his nose buried in that suspicious orange book of his.

Sasuke had recovered quickly with no lasting damage much to her relief and he was almost back to a hundred percent already. Naruto was talking loudly to Sasuke as the two of them walked in front of her and Kakashi-sensei, Sasuke doing his best to look annoyed and put upon but Sakura suspected a small part of him enjoyed the banter. Looking at the two of them walking ahead of her she couldn't help but feel kind of sad. It was strangely symbolic of how the team dynamic seemed to be shaping up. Sasuke and Naruto were both stronger than her, if she was honest she would say they were both much stronger than her. They were walking ahead and leaving her behind as the most useless member of Team 7 despite her considerable intelligence and near perfect memory. She had been almost worse than useless that last mission. It stung her pride and made her depressed but unfortunately that was the way things were.

"Sakura," said Kakashi calling her attention.

The girl looked up at his tall frame, "Yes sensei?"

"During the mission, I've been meaning to ask… what happened when those men died?"

The Haruno blinked up at him, "What do you mean?"

"When Haku died you fell to your knees. When Zabuza killed those thugs and Gato you collapsed on top of Sasuke. It's curious since both things were out of your direct line of sight at the time. I'm just wondering what happened to my cute little student," he said.

Sakura's jaw dropped open. Avoiding the most disturbing of the two issues, she first considered how Kakashi could have been aware of that happening to her. When Haku died the whole bridge had been covered in thick fog and from what she remembered Kakashi-sensei had been facing away from her completely when Gato's men attacked, not that she had really noticed them since she had been crying over Sasuke. For him to have been aware of what was going on with her along with everything else spoke of amazing skill. How he had managed to do that she had no idea.

The second point, she didn't want to think about. You'd think being shot through with the most pleasurable physical and mental experiences of her life back to back would be a good thing but it had just confused and frightened her. She felt a bit violated and dirty since she knew that kind of thing wasn't normal. The other reason she had been refusing to think about it was because a large part of her that she didn't want to admit to wanted to feel that again. What she had felt had been like pure bliss and for days afterwards she had felt the aftereffects and it had felt simply amazing, like a whole new Sakura. But all that still didn't ease the uneasiness she felt about the experience as a whole.

Even now she felt only the scant residues of whatever it is that had happened to her and she already felt herself wanting more. Now Kakashi was suggesting that it had something to do with those people being killed? The very idea made Sakura sick. Whatever she was feeling must have shown on her face as Kakashi looked suddenly interested, which was two steps above any interest he had shown in anything else as far as Sakura could tell.

He was clearly waiting for an answer and she didn't know what to say. She wasn't going to tell him the truth. Besides, he was wrong. There was no way what happened to her had to do with those people dying. It had to be some sort of coincidence. Maybe one of her the channels in her chakra network spontaneously opened near one of the pleasure centers of her brain or something. There was no way that kind of feeling came from something as sick as death.

Sakura decided to tell Kakashi a half truth. "I don't know what happened sensei. There was this powerful sensation that spread from my hara to everywhere in my body and it made me temporarily lose control. It happened a few times but I recovered just fine after that," she said.

Kakashi gave her an evaluating look and she couldn't tell if he completely believed her or not. After a few moments he said, "Well if anything similar happens again I need you to tell me, all right? If it does then we'll go get you checked out with the medic nins."

Sakura relaxed, relieved he wasn't going to push any further. "Hai sensei," she said.

They walked in silence for a few minutes and while she was a little envious of Naruto walking ahead next to Sasuke, the pink haired girl realized that this was one of the few times she had ever had her sensei to herself as a more-or-less captive audience. Deciding not to waste the opportunity Sakura spoke up.

"Kakashi-sensei… I'm a lot weaker than my teammates aren't I?" she asked hesitantly.

"Well, you still have a lot of time to learn. I'm sure you'll get a lot stronger over time."

So basically that means yes. Well at least he tried to soften the blow for me, she thought sullenly.

"Sensei I felt completely useless in that mission. I scored the best in all the tests at the academy and I thought that would help me out here in the real world but all that knowledge feels worse than useless. Turns out that doesn't really help out in the real world," she said as a conversation opener before she angled where she wanted to take it.

"Well, sort of. The academic learning won't hurt you but it's true that some of it is more applicable if you're the one calling the shots and the rest requires good physical abilities make good use of it."

Implied meaning: you lack the physical abilities to make good use of it she thought feeling somewhat down by that assessment but also a bit hopeful. At least sensei was telling her that her book smarts were not a complete waste, something she had been doubting herself on since they finished the mission in Wave.

Sakura was starting to learn how Kakashi-sensei taught. He was never the encouraging and motivational kind of teacher, or even a teacher who would just come out and tell you things. He expected you to be self-directed and motivated and to figure things out on your own. At first glance it seemed like he wasn't teaching at all. After a little over a month with him she was learning that this was not the case at all. It was just so subtle it was hard to pick up on.

Probably the worst teaching style in the universe when trying to teach Naruto, but that was another story.

"What do you think I should train in then sensei? I wasn't really thrilled about being dead weight on the team," she flinched at her own frank assessment but she thought it might actually spur a slightly more verbose reply from her sensei than usual.

"You're a smart girl, you know where your deficiencies are. Work on that," he said offhandedly not even bothering to look up from his book.

She wanted to scream at him for his apparent disinterest but she restrained herself. She was NOT Naruto. Besides he had just told her in a roundabout way that her physical abilities were lacking. It was true that Naruto and Sasuke both had much greater physical strength and stamina than her. It made sense that those things were of fundamental importance to any student and even in the academy she had been slightly below average in those areas. If she wanted to be a good shinobi it made sense that she needed to get those things up to par.

"Hai sensei," she said firmly. It was a little disappointing that when she asked for advice he didn't offer to personally train her or teach her a jutsu but she wasn't Naruto and she could sort of understand where he might be coming from. She knew a sensei didn't need to supervise a Genin doing normal strength and stamina training so why would he waste his time? If that is what she needed she could do it on her own.

They walked for a few more minutes in silence and Sakura started to look around enjoying the look of the forests of Fire Country all around them. It was a while before Kakashi spoke up again surprising her.

"Water walking and being able to do the three academy jutsu without hand signs would be good too. Who knows, someone who could do that might be worth teaching something good to," he said nonchalantly as if he were just talking about the weather.

Sakura was surprised. He'd already given his advice and then he took the initiative to give her more direction. Maybe it was a reward for figuring out his previous direction, or had she misjudged her sensei that badly in thinking he only ever tried to teach in obtuse roundabout ways? Then again he did teach them the tree walking exercise. That was the only time she could think of that he had been plain straightforward about anything except when it came to teamwork.

"How do I do water walking and how do I do the academy jutsu without hand signs?" Sakura asked cautiously.

"Water walking is like tree walking, only harder. The other three? Practice," he said, then he walked ahead of her and turned the page in his book as he giggled about something he'd read. Sakura rolled her eyes at Kakashi-sensei being such a weirdo. Still he had answered her questions. On the other hand his response was a bit infuriating by how completely minimalist and slightly condescending it was.

That's just how Kakashi-sensei is. I need to stop getting irritated, I think it only encourages him she thought wondering if ending up with someone as Kakashi as her sensei was a lucky or unlucky thing.


When Sakura finally walked through the front door of her house what she desperately wanted was a shower. "Mom, I'm home," she called out in the house knowing that her mom would probably be home and her father most likely at work or on a last minute trip. Not hearing any immediate reply she figured her mother was out and rushed up the stairs to her room.

A shower and a fresh change of clothes later Sakura was feeling more human than she had been, though a bit twitchy. She was hungry from her trip and decided getting something to eat and turning in early would be just the thing – she had been feeling restless and was eager to start her training the next day.

When she came downstairs she was a little surprised to find her mother in her house clothes sitting at the dining table drinking tea. "Hey mom, did you just get in?" Sakura asked bouncing over and giving her mother a quick hug and kiss on the cheek.

Her mother, Haruno Aiko, hugged her daughter and gave Sakura a smile that seemed just a little bit forced to the pink headed child. "No I've been here for a while. Did you make it back ok?" she asked.

It was a bit odd that her mother hadn't answered when she had called out when she'd gotten home but Sakura just shrugged it off as no big deal. "Yeah we made good time back. Sensei ended up pushing us pretty hard to make good time, called it 'endurance training' but I think he was fed up with the mission and just ready to get back." Sakura walked over to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator looking for something to make quickly. Maybe there were leftovers?

"How-how was your mission. First C-Rank right? Did anything unusual happen?" her mother asked maybe a little too nonchalantly but Sakura was too preoccupied to notice.

Sakura didn't want to tell her mother the details of the mission and that it had ended up a terrifying A-Ranked affair, she didn't want to frighten her. Besides her mother had never been a shinobi and part of the training that had been pounded into them was that shinobi business was not civilian business.

"There were a couple of hairy moments but nothing my sensei and team couldn't handle," she said, finding some leftover rice and chicken that she started to pull out.

"So was there any fighting?" her mother asked again. This time Sakura did pick up the decidedly strange tone in her mother's voice but she didn't know what to make of it. Maybe she was just being a concerned parent having heard that on C-Ranks they could encounter bandits and such.

"Meh, a little bit, no big deal though," Sakura said walking the her bounty over to the microwave.

"Did anyone die?" she asked. Sakura froze suddenly not thinking about why her mother was acting weird but about the strange reaction she'd had on the bridge when those men died. Around the time when those men died, she corrected herself, because there was no way whatever she experienced and those deaths had anything to do with each other. Still Sakura felt the urge to cover up that anything untoward –at all – had happened.

"No, no one died. Just a couple of thugs that we beat up and handed over to the local authorities," she said chirpily. She set the timer on her food and turned and raced up the stairs with a mumbled 'forgot something' to her mother when in truth she just needed to get away for a bit. Aiko's gaze followed her daughter's passing, worry and anxiety clear on her face.


The next morning Sakura woke up early feeling restless and anxious. She wasn't especially a morning person and had to prod herself to do extra training but today there was no need to force herself to get up before dawn. All night she had tossed and turned and she needed to do something to take her mind off the strange feeling inside her. What better way than to start her training so she wasn't completely useless next time they went on a mission?

With that Sakura got dressed in something more practical than her usual red dress, some shorts and a long sleeved green top for the chilly mornings, and got out the door. Since she had to increase her endurance she decided to run laps around Konoha. 'Laps' became 'lap' as she barely made it around the city one time, stopping after she returned to her starting point to place her hands on her knees and try to force her heart rate and breathing to slow to something vaguely resembling a normal level.

Does this mean I'm really out of shape? I don't really have anything to compare it to. But something tells me nobody is going to be very impressed when I tell them I can run one lap around Konoha.

However it did take the edge of whatever it was she had been feeling last night and this morning so that was a win. She forced herself to run over to the training grounds closest to her house and just about collapsed when she got there. Sakura contemplated doing some strength training but decided to start working on one of the other things Kakashi-sensei had 'assigned' her to work on since she was going to need some time to let her body recover after her run.

Luckily for her there was a small shallow stream running near the edge of this particular training ground. She went over to the stream thankful to let her racing heart and lungs have a break and now 'rewarded' herself by working on something she was actually good at: chakra control.

Pooling chakra into her feet as with tree walking Sakura tentatively put one foot in the water. Her foot seemed to hold over the surface for a fraction of a second before her foot fell in the stream. Sakura tried again using more and less chakra than she had to with tree walking but the result was the same, a split second of resistance before her foot sunk in.

'Just like tree walking but harder'. Thanks for the useless crap directions Kakashi-sensei she thought irritably.

Sakura began to experiment doing different things with her chakra when she tried to put her foot on top of the water. After a few attempts Sakura was pretty sure a steady continuous release of chakra from her feet was the ticket. By starting with a low chakra output and gradually increasing it wasn't long before she got the sense of how much chakra was needed to hold up her weight.

Less than twenty minutes with terrible instructions and I pretty much got this figured out. Gotta feel pretty good about that thought Sakura feeling rather pleased with herself. Shakily she kept her foot on top of the water and brought her other foot to join it putting out the same amount of chakra. Adding the second foot made her wobble and feel like she was about to fall in but after a few seconds and some minor adjustments she felt herself stabilize above the water.

Tentatively she took a step but moving on water was harder than just standing on it. Her feet sunk into the shallow stream a few times, but it was only another ten minutes or so before she was more or less comfortably walking on top of the water.

This is so cool! I wonder if I'm a water type ninja? If I can train myself to fight and practice while walking on water that's going to do wonders for my control while working on my stamina at the same time. Double bonus!

Like most people success made Sakura a bit giddy. She started moving around in the water as fast as she dared which wasn't much more than a fast walk with a silly smile plastered on her face. Being so focused on what she was doing she failed to notice two figures appearing on the training field so when a loud yell cut across the early dawn hours she lost control and fell on her butt in the water.

"LEE! Are you ready to fan our youthful fires together until they blaze across the sky?"

"YOSH! So inspiring Gai-sensei. I'll show you my explosion of youth!"

What the heck? Did two people escape the mental ward at the hospital? Wondered Sakura in fascination at what she was seeing, too surprised right then to be too upset about falling ass first into the stream.

They were standing on the other side of the training field and in the low morning light she could only make out a few details. Both were male and wore what looked like dark colored body suits and… were those orange leg warmers? Sakura's face curled in distaste at the fashion atrocity that was. One of them was wearing a flak vest so he was either a Chunnin or Jounin. They faced each other in a martial arts stance she had never seen before with one hand forward and the other almost completely behind their backs.

Technically all training grounds were for anyone to use but in practice teams staked out their claim on different training grounds. For some reason she had just assumed the one closest to her house would be unused but that had been a dumb thing just take for granted. The polite thing would have been to leave the training field and leave these two to their training. However Sakura was curious and the two of them didn't seem to be paying her any attention.

"Let's start with a light spar Lee. Even though we're warmed up from our youthful stamina training you should always get a feel for your own body and that of your opponent when you start taijutsu training," said the older one in the flak vest. Normally Sakura would not have been able to hear someone that far away but the wind carried the sound and these two seemed to have no volume control.

"Hai Gai-sensei."

"Well then. Let's go!"

And then they moved. They both darted forward towards each other and clashed with speed that left her slightly open mouthed and gaping. She had been able to see them move but there was no way in the world she would have been able to keep up with them. Not even Sasuke was that fast!

She almost slapped herself for saying something disparaging about Sasuke-kun but… damn if it wasn't true.

"Sugoi…" she whispered as she watched the scene in front of her unfold.

The two exchanged punches and kicks at what seemed like lightning speeds to Sakura, occasionally doing an acrobatic flip, roll or cartwheel to get a bit of space or find a better angle to attack from. Sakura could almost physically feel how much power the blows they were dishing out at each other had from this far away. The pink headed Genin was almost certain that if she tried to block one of those blows head on she would probably end up with a broken arm.

Now Kakashi-sensei's admonishment to increase her strength and stamina made even more sense. If she ever had to fight a ninja that outclassed her as bad physically as those two did then she couldn't see how any jutsu could possibly make up the difference. The gap was just that great.

Eventually Sakura pulled herself up out of the water and went to lean again a tree watching the two strangely dressed ninja go it with strength and speed she had only seen surpassed when Kakashi-sensei had fought Zabuza, but with the heavy covering mist she had only gotten to see bit and pieces of that fight. This was the first time she had been able to simply watch a fight between ninja that were clearly above her level.

She had to admit, it was more than a little intimidating. But part of her was also resolute. If other people could get to that level then she could too, there was no reason that she couldn't. She just had to figure out how it was done and reproduce the conditions that led to the result. Sakura was a thinking ninja and making the problem on how to improve herself an intellectual one put her on more comfortable and confident footing.

And though she didn't want to admit it this new uncomfortable gnawing emptiness she was feeling inside was also pushing her to train. When she had been running or water walking she almost didn't notice it anymore. Sakura pushed whatever it was she was feeling aside and decided to at least for now re-label it a 'good thing' and use it to push herself in training.

She watched fascinated for another thirty minutes until the older one – Gai-sensei from what she had heard the other one yell – called for them to take a five minute break before they began with 'serious training'. At this point it would have been incredibly rude to stay further or to just walk away without saying anything since she had been standing out in the open and there was no way that the taller one she now assumed to be a Jounin had not noticed her. He was just being polite and not looking her way and giving her a chance to leave without any awkwardness if she wanted. Oddly enough it was that nice consideration on his part that gave her the courage to do the right thing, which was to approach them, introduce herself and apologize for observing their training time uninvited, something very much frowned upon in the shinobi world.

As Sakura got closer to them she got to see details that she suddenly couldn't un-see and which she concluded should be listed as crimes against humanity. Both looked up to see her as she approached and she was glad she had a few seconds before she had to speak because what she saw left her somewhat numb with horror. They looked like a big clone and little clone of each other, dressed exactly alike in a green spandex outfit with orange leg warmers. They both had the most horrible bowl hair cut and seriously overgrown eyebrows that were just that side of frightening. When they turned to face her Jounin was not at all surprised and gave her a big welcoming smile which she appreciated and the boy… were those little hearts in his eyes? Suddenly Sakura was reconsidering the wisdom of coming to talk to these two.

Well it was far too late to run away so Sakura decided to try and play the 'nice and cheery good girl card'. It always seemed to work on guys. Except for Kakashi-sensei. And Sasuke.

"Hi," said Sakura cheerily, putting her hands behind her back and trying to turn up the cuteness factor, "I'm Sakura. I'm sorry I looked in on your training without permission but I was doing my own training over there by the water and I couldn't help but watch for a bit once you got started. You two were really amazing," she said enthusiastically. And they had been even if she was laying it on a little thick.

The large muscular man gave a way too loud booming laugh that made her flinch and cringe internally. "Don't worry youthful Sakura! If we thought there was a problem with you watching our little spar one of us would have said something, it's nice to see a Genin such as you take such a youthful interest in our training. I don't believe we have been introduced. I-"

Then there was what must have been a minor genjutsu as suddenly Sakura was seeing a sunrise and waves crashing against the rocks behind him as he struck a dramatic pose.

"-am Konoha's Noble Sublime Green Beast of Prey, Might Guy!" He yelled dramatically from his utterly ridiculous and over exaggerated pose.

Sakura just stared numbly, her brain somehow refusing to process what she had just seen. The shorter boy must have taken this as a good sign because he went ahead with his own overly dramatic introduction.

"And I am Konoha's Beautiful Green Wild Beast-" the boy then did a flip and got next to Guy-sensei, striking his own dramatic pose to compliment that of his mentor, "-Rock Lee!"

Then the sun behind them seem to glow even brighter as a wave crashed against the rocks and a large spray of water rose up into the sky. When it fell away a rainbow was left hanging over the two posing spandex clad ninja.

Oh my kami… does being a strong shinobi mean having some sort of crippling mental weakness or freaky habit? This, this… I will never be able to un-see that!

Might Guy and Lee left their poses seemingly oblivious to her face being frozen in a bewildered and horrified state.

Guy gave her a big smile, "So, anything we can help you with Sakura-kun?" he asked.

Guy's question brought her back down to reality. She was going to regret asking this, she just knew it, but for all the baffling weirdness Sakura couldn't deny that these two really seemed to know what they were doing, at least when it came to physical training.

"Err… well you see Guy-san when I asked my sensei what I should do to become a better ninja he told me I needed to work on my strength and stamina," not in so many words but that had been the gist of it, "and then he pretty much left me to work on that on my own. Since you two seem to be really good at that I was wondering if you could give me any tips or ideas about training."

Sakura felt a shiver of unease travel down her spine as already wide smile got even bigger and there was an almost palpable sense of joy and eagerness from the large man after she asked her question. However he controlled his smile shortly and took a serious thinking pose for a few moments before answering her implied question.

"Your sensei left you to train your strength and stamina by yourself? Well, it is certainly most youthful that you seem so motivated to train by yourself. How exactly were you planning on making your flower of excellence bloom?"

Sakura parsed that to be a question of how she had been planning to train easily enough. "Well I figured I'd just do what they taught us at the academy. Basically running for stamina and pull ups, sit ups and push ups for strength training." They'd occasionally had them do other exercises like squats but those four activities had been the core of their physical conditioning at the academy.

Guy's smile came back, "That might be good for teaching children the basics of the noble arts of strength and endurance training but only doing those things is completely unsuitable for a proud shinobi of Konoha. There are far, far better ways to train that yield much better results," he said in a lecturing tone.

Sakura deflated a little unhappily. She didn't doubt for a moment that what Guy-san saying was true but Sakura was somewhat disappointed that she hadn't known or realized that the same training they gave six year olds might need to be changed as you grew and became an official Shinobi. "What do you mean?" asked Sakura hoping he would elaborate.

"Well there is a careful balance that must be met between endurance training, strength training and taijutsu. Also once you are a strong enough there is considerable overlap between 'strength' and 'endurance' training. For example, doing one thousand one armed pull ups serves both purposes! To different extents of course. But for Shinobi one must also take into account something else; training taijutsu is also a fantastic way to increase one's speed and stamina! But there must be a careful balance between types of exercise, intensity, duration and even periods of rest to achieve the most effective results in maximizing the improvement of one's youthful body," said Guy enthusiastically, obviously very passionate about this subject matter. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Lee had taken out a small notepad and was furiously taking notes.

Well, it turned out that the question of 'improving her physical abilities' was a lot more complicated than she had been led to believe. What Guy-san said made a lot of sense and she did want to work as efficiently as possible to improve herself physically. How was she going to research how to do that though? Her thoughts must have shown on her face because Guy spoke up interrupting her thoughts.

"If you like, young Sakura, you could join us in our early morning workouts. If you are eager to learn how to maximize your youthful physical grown I, Might Guy, would be happy to show you how!" He said with another huge smile, somehow the light shining and glinting off his teeth.

Sakura was flabbergasted. Teaching someone was a big burden and ninja in general were secretive and hoarded all knowledge, be it jutsu or training methods. It flew in the face of everything she thought she knew about Shinobi culture that this Jounin would be offering to train a perfect stranger. Most ninja would have been mad as hell with her for peeking in on their practice, not asked her to join their training!

"Why would you do that? And won't I get in the way of your training? I'm nowhere near good enough to keep up with the two of you," she said wincing internally at how ungracious that had actually sounded coming out of her mouth. Guy-san however didn't seem to notice.

"Excellent questions! To answer your first one, it would be most unyouthful of me not to nurture a growing sapling of Konoha when they have both the interest and drive to do so. Also it could be a precious opportunity to my student Lee-kun as well. Teaching is a skill that must be practiced just like anything else and this could be an opportunity for Lee-kun to learn how to teach others when he passes on his youthfulness some day," said Guy.

Sakura looked over at Lee who she had frankly almost forgotten was there when talking to Guy. He – blushed? – at her attention and said, "It's my dream to not only be an excellent shinobi but one day be able to take others under my wing like Guy sensei has done for me. Maybe as a Jounin instructor, or as a teacher of taijutsu at the academy," he said not quietly but sounding a bit embarrassed to be sharing that with her.

The pink headed girl gave him a small smile to reassure him. He might be really strange but he seemed nice at least. The boy's cheeks seemed to redden even further.

"As to your second question," continued Guy, "while our training might be minimally slowed down it is only our morning training and any deficiencies would be easy enough to make up with added time or intensity later in the day. With our afternoon and evening training it would be easy to make up any small lags behind while we work on your budding youthfulness. Our youthfulness would in no way be affected, but it's heartening to see you being so concerned about us. It shows you have a truly youthful spirit inside you!"

Again, the Guy might be weird but his seemingly spur of the moment offer really did seem to be well thought out. Then something of what he said registered. "Wait, this is just your morning workout? And you have two more? Just how much do you train?" asked Sakura a little afraid of the answer.

"On a regular day when we have missions we train in the morning and in the evening, plus in the afternoon with the rest of our team. Sometimes they join us for morning or evening workouts but usually they like to do any additional training on their own time. On a normal days with missions we only train about ten hours a day. The rare times when we have a day off we aim for a youthful fourteen hours of training. We would do more, but there is only so much you can do in a day before it starts to become counterproductive."

Sakura gaped. Ten hours of training a day? She only trained maybe three hours a day with her team! Sakura would have called them stupid or insane if only she hadn't seen the amazing display between the two of them earlier. Is that what it took to be that strong a ninja? Ten hours a day of training along with missions would mean training almost every free moment of the day. Sakura couldn't help but look at the two weirdos in front of her with something like astonishment and respect.

She was interrupted out of her musings by Guy's still inappropriately loud voice.

"So what do you say Sakura-kun? Shall you be joining us for a youthful workout bright and early tomorrow morning?"


AN2: For any of you wondering why Lee is acting shy around Sakura when he was so confident in the manga, asking her out on a date the first time he met her, well in that instance it was clear Lee already knew Sakura and had observed her for at least a short time beforehand. He'd had time to get used to the idea he liked this girl and get his confidence up to go up and ask her out. This time Lee is forced to interact with Sakura right away and he doesn't quite know how to deal with it.

This story will swing from humorous and lighthearted to pretty grim and dark. Just thought it would be good to say that so it didn't catch anyone by surprise.