"Ok, here's how this is going to pan out. Sasuke, you come from the left, Naruto, the right. I'll come down the middle and we'll get them while they're distracted."
Sakura looked down at the drawing in the dirt and tilted her head, confused.
"Umm, Kakashi-sensei? What am I going to be doing?"
Kakashi turned to her, smiling innocently under his mask, giving her the eye crinkle.
"You have the most important job of all."
Her eyes lit up, momentarily forgetting the two boys on her team.
"Really? What?"
Kakashi kept on smiling.
"Bait."
When Sakura eventually opened her eyes, her neck was killing her. She tilted her head back and groaned when her neck cracked. She tried to move her arms to massage it, but when they didn't come up like her brain commanded them to, she was instantly awake and looking down at herself in disbelief.
"Why am I tied up?"
She looked down at the ropes again before glancing around the clearing.
"Uhh, Kakashi-sensei? Sasuke?"
She gulped.
"Naruto?"
There was a snap of a twig behind her and she jumped, slowly turning to see who was there. A broad shouldered, grubby man stood behind her, leering at her helpless situation.
"Look what I found. A girl, tied up in the woods. What a catch too."
She just stared at him with wide eyes, unable to speak or even think. She started shaking as the man was joined by two others, equally as scary and equally as dirty. They slowly advanced, and soon, all their attention was on her. That was when she heard the countdown.
"Three, two, one. Go."
Just as Kakashi had planned, Sasuke came from the left, Naruto came flying from the right, and Kakashi swooped down in front of Sakura with a kunai in his hand. The battle was over before any of the men had begun to fight, since the ambush had worked. Kakashi wandered over to Sakura and untied her, giving her arm a rub.
"Good job Sakura. You were amazing."
He didn't dodge the fist that hit his cheek, and had the grace to hold his face as Sakura stormed away with tears streaming down her face. He turned to the two boys, and Sasuke just shrugged, then tightened the rope around one of the men. Naruto snickered and created some clones to help them carry the bandits back into the Leaf Village.
On the way home, Naruto was heard to say:
"Wow, Sasuke. That hit to the back of Sakura's head was amazing, although I hope you don't have to use it on her again."
A/N: Ok, so Sakura eventually betters herself and makes things run a whole heap smoother, but I couldn't resist. In the first series, she was so wimpy, that this is probably how the missions turned out anyway.