A/N: This AU is so screwed up I doubt Kishimoto Masashi would be able to untangle canon from it. It started as a drabble-ish short story set either before Sasuke left or after he came back. As most of my short stories seem to, it turned into a long story when I rewrote the ending (which I hadn't been happy with). I'm not sure if it's revealed in this chapter or not, but just to make sure I'll state that this happens several months, possibly more, after the Chuunin exams. The catch is, of course, that Kakashi didn't enter them.

Also, this is my first chaptered fanfiction. I've always found fanfics way hard to write, but this one just wants to keep on going. I'm afraid I'm neglecting my original stuff. Oh well. Enjoy!

Sakura walked down the street, heading nowhere in particular. She felt particularly relaxed today. Or perhaps the term was apathetic. No, that wasn't it. Perhaps there were no words that described her current state of mind – she certainly couldn't think of any at the moment.

She wove through the crowded civilians as if she didn't notice them, just kept going.

Looking upward.

Eventually she encountered Naruto, grinning brightly and being his usual cheerful idiot self. He offered to take her out for ramen, because it was lunchtime. Surprising herself, she agreed. Naruto chattered about how he'd managed a successful, hilarious prank on his Iruka-sensei (which Inner Sakura laughed about), how nice the owner of Ichiraku's was, and how he'd managed to find a scroll which actually contained writing about something useful for once.

Sakura listened to all this, instead of ignoring him or hitting him for being stupid as she usually would. There was just something odd about today, perhaps. It certainly felt like it. After she was done (Naruto had finished his in under a minute, and ordered another bowl to occupy himself while she ate hers) Sakura smiled and thanked him for the meal, wandering off once again.

She met Sasuke near one of the training grounds, taking a break from his training to sit in a tree. He "Hn"ed at her in greeting. Sakura just smiled back. It wasn't as if he'd answer anything she said anyway – at least, not in Japanese. Uchiha-speak was his native language, and the one he spoke most often. It consisted almost entirely of grunts and glares, with a few insults tossed in, and she didn't feel up to translating today. She waved as she walked off.

Sakura met Kakashi staring at the memorial stone. She didn't know who he was mourning, and didn't want to disturb him to find out. Not today. Instead, she sat down next to him.

After a while, she spoke.

"Kakashi-sensei?"

"Aa." A simple noise of acknowledgment that he was at least half-listening to her. Fair enough.

"I think people have weather."

"Sou ka?" He was still gazing at the memorial stone, at that one name she couldn't pick out from the others.

"Really. Sometimes they're sunny and happy, sometimes they're storming and broody. Of course, some people have a higher tendency than others for some kinds of weather." Sakura changed position, stretching out on the grass. This would probably kill her clothes, but, as before, the calm feeling made her not care.

Kakashi snorted lightly, finally tearing his gaze from the memorial stone. "Naruto is definitely one of the sunny ones. The kid's a happy, loudmouthed brat."

Sakura blew a nearby bug away from her face. "No, he's more the drizzling type. Sunny on the outside, drearily raining and misting inside."

Kakashi shrugged. "Maybe. What about Sasuke?"

The ant came climbing right back, and she blew at it again. "A mild thunderstorm. Annoying, but not terribly life-threatening."

"He'd glare at you if you told him that." Kakashi redirected his gaze from the distant horizon and aimed it at her. Sakura just shrugged internally. Feeling at peace was weird; it made you do and feel weird things.

"He glares at everyone anyway." Sakura carefully uprooted a grass stem and began to tie it in knots. "Now that's I've gone over the two absent members of our team, it's only fair I do the rest."

"Aa?" There was that noise again. He was still staring at her.

"Like I said, some people are like sunny days and some people are like rainy ones." Sakura crossed her arms in front of her and leaned on them, turning her head slightly to see Kakashi better. She pointed her stem of grass at him lazily. "You, Kakashi-sensei, are a day of clouds."

He leaned his chin on his interlaced hands, elbows on his knees. "Clouds, eh? I like clouds."

"It shows." Sakura contentedly pulled up another stem of grass.

The next day, the aura of calm was gone. Kakashi-sensei was two hours late (again), and Sakura glared at him in an almost Sasuke-like manner. She even yelled at him later for being a horrible teacher. He stopped, staring directly at her.

"You know what, you're right."

Sakura yelled at him a bit more, until he apologized and promised to teach Naruto and her a few ninjutsu. She even managed to wrangle a taijutsu session for the late afternoon. Sakura resolved to set her sights higher. Maybe she'd even be able to make Sasuke turn off his Sharingan for an entire week—Naruto's few (thus far) techniques usually took way too much chakra and stamina for him to copy, but if Kakashi-sensei actually taught her anything Sasuke hadn't already learned he'd certainly copy it straight off. She needed something to herself for once.

Come to that, Naruto did too. The previous day, while invaded by that strange essence of calm, she'd noticed how many people glared at him. Thinking back, Sakura realized that even in the Academy he hadn't really had anyone who was actually his friend. The only person who could really count as such – apart from old man Ichiraku and his daughter – had been Iruka-sensei. Perhaps Naruto was even less cheerful and happy-go-lucky than she'd thought. And the only really effective jutsu he knew was that weird Kage Bunshin, that she doubted anyone else could do resulting in nearly as much, number-wise. She made a mental note to take something for a sore throat and yell at Kakashi-sensei later about it.

As they were walking to the Hokage's office for their new C-rank, a thought struck Sakura.

"Ne, Kakashi-sensei?" He looked at her with a bored expression.

"What?"

"How many times did you have to catch runaway cats when you were a genin?"

Kakashi thought for a while, tapping the side of his face through his mask. "...Two hundred and forty-three! Of course, most of those were repeats..." He shuddered. "Why do they allow cats in Konoha anyway? I'm pretty sure even our dear Sarutobi-sama was scratched by many of them."

Sasuke nearly 'Hn'd as usual, but instead replied. "You know, I think you've got something there. Why?"

Naruto shrugged. "Even with all the time I've spent in the old man's office, I've never found out. Let's go look!" He broke into a jog, making them all hurry to the Sandaime's office.

Of course, even Kakashi-sensei couldn't get the Hokage to tell them why cats were still allowed in Konohagakure. He just cleared his throat, glanced from side to side a few times, then started talking very loudly about the details of their mission. Sakura, to be honest, hadn't paid much attention. She'd be getting the condensed version from Kakashi-sensei later after their taijutsu session, so she didn't need to listen. Of course, she usually did anyway, but something was niggling at the back of her mind. She just couldn't think what...

Sakura could have sworn she heard Naruto mutter about "searching the old man's office later". Well, if he did manage to find out the reason everyone'd always had so many D-ranks involving cats, she'd be just a little bit happier. Maybe that was what was bothering her. Shrugging, she waved goodbye to everyone and went home.

The next morning, Sakura awoke with a phrase echoing in her mind. Look inside... Look inside? From the intonation it was fairly clear that it meant 'look inside yourself'. But what, exactly, was she supposed to be looking for?

With an annoyed sigh, she hauled her lazy ass out of bed and into the shower. Glancing at the clock, she saw that it was eight or so. Roughly when Kakashi-sensei had promised to meet them for some real training. Sakura shrugged as she scrubbed at her hair. She was beginning to give up on Kakashi ever being on time. After a leisurely breakfast, she set out into the cloudy day.

As she reached the bridge that had become their regular meeting place, Sakura was surprised to see that she wasn't the first one there. Kakashi-sensei was already lounging against the rail, flipping through one of his Icha Icha books. Honestly, she should just burn them all...

Instead of following her urge of taking a lighter to the book in his hand, she mimicked him. Lounging against the opposite side of the bridge in exactly the same manner, she pulled out a book on chakra theory she'd bugged (okay, shouted) him into letting her borrow the day before. It really was quite interesting. Apparently, chakra was very much like physical muscles. Boys naturally had more than girls, but couldn't control it as well. The author compared this tendency to the fact that girls seemed to be more flexible, while boys were stronger. She – Sakura assumed it was a she – advised not only stretching what you had as was usual for kunoichi, but actively trying to gain more.

The downside, of course, was that it required a lot of hard work. Something which Sakura most definitely did not desire to do. She'd seen – who was it? Maito Gai? – and his team training once. Both the sensei and his mini-me had been shouting something about youth, while the other two members of the team just grimaced and kept grimly walking on their hands. Sakura shuddered. Even if we did end up with a horrible teacher who's absolutely no good for us, let me say selfishly that I'm very, very happy we didn't end up with someone like THAT. What he does might be healthy and build muscles, but there's no way in hell I'd survive with someone like that for a jounin-sensei. I'd rather be a missing-nin, thank you.

...Although, I wonder, do you count as a nukenin if you haven't even passed the survival test from your jounin-sensei?

Her mind was occupied by these entertaining thoughts as Naruto, then Sasuke arrived within her line of sight over the edges of her book. Which, she saw as she flipped it shut to tuck inside the pocket of her new shorts, was written by a... Tsunade? No last name? Huh. That was weird.

Oh well, no weirder than Maito Gai. Inwardly Sakura shuddered. The mere sight of that guy had probably scarred her for life. But, come to think of it, did the other girl (JuuJuu? TenTen? Something like that) on his team have a last name?

She had to pull herself out of these thoughts again as Kakashi-sensei announced in a loud and happy (almost certainly false) voice, "Ohayou, my students! It is a pleasure to be with you on this fine morning." Reflexively, they all glanced upwards to the cloud-coated sky. Right. "Sasuke, you continue practicing what I taught you last time. Naruto, Sakura, I have something new for you today."

Sasuke "Hn"d again, and brooded off to a nearby stand of trees. Sakura shrugged, and followed Kakashi (who was being trailed by Naruto) to the bank of a nearby stream. Kakashi gave one of his little eye-smiles and grabbed a creeping vine from one of the nearby trees. He handed it to Naruto.

"Here. Try and put enough chakra into this so it stays stiff and straight. If you manage to blow it up there are more on the other trees." Kakashi eye-smiled again. Sakura wondered how he did that.

"And you, Sakura...well, try the same thing with this." He handed her a much shorter stalk of tall grass. While Naruto kept trying to get his chakra output down to less than a thousand watts (or whatever the technical measurement for chakra was), Kakashi-sensei coached her on figuring out how to get enough chakra into the grass stalk. When Sakura was done, she felt tired enough to take a long nap (in the morning no less) and mentioned this to Kakashi. Politely, of course. Really. No glaring at all.

He smiled that damned eye-smile at her again. "That would be because you barely have enough chakra to walk on water. Lots of practice, even with something like this that requires mostly control of what chakra you have, is very tiring." He paused. "Therefor..."

Kakashi flung out his arm in a grand gesture. "Ten laps on the stream! On your hands! And don't forget, there are fish in here that like to eat nice tasty Human Nibbles™. So remember to add extra layers to keep from getting your hands wet!

"On next thought..." he mused as Sakura sighed and began the horribly Gai-like task, "Maybe I should have made her do this at the hot springs. She'd learn fast enough to not get burned then. Ah, too troublesome..."

Sakura wanted very badly to look up and inform Kakashi-sensei of his very strong resemblance to the lazy pineapple-head Shikamaru, but even the thought of doing that nearly destabilized her chakra flow, so she concentrated again on making her slow way up and down the stream. At the final end of the torturous ten laps, she hand-walked the few steps to the bank and gracefully fell over, head and shoulders dangling above the water while the rest of her lay exhaustedly on the grass. And weeds. And Kakashi's feet, she noticed. Ouch...for him. All the blood flow was still in her head and arms, so she didn't really feel it that much.

Besides, she had no doubt she was heavier than his shoes were uncomfortable.

After a few minutes, she rolled off Kakashi's feet and farther onto dry land. Ouch. Her arms ached. But, on the plus side, when she glanced at them Sakura saw that the palms of her hands were completely dry.

A/N: Yes, I know that Sakura is terribly OOC. I'm sorry. Part of why is probably the fact that fangirl!Sakura annoys me beyond belief. As for her not-really-there crush on Sasuke--I'm taking my cue there from the author of (I believe; it's been a while since I read it) 'Black Sheep'. This chapter is kinda short for me, but this seemed like the best place to break off.

Oh, and I'll be totally messing up the general theories of chakra, chakra manipulation, and the like. I never finished reading the Chuunin Exams arc, so everything mentioned after that I know only from fanfiction. My definition of Genjutsu is also horribly screwed up. Just thought I should mention that. But I completely adore this fandom, and Sakura is hugely fun to write, so I hope I'm not stomping on too many canon-sticklers' toes.

Now, how about a review so I can know you actually read this instead of clicking by mistake and immediently hitting the back button?