CHAPTER TWO:

Only a short time later, Sakura found herself traversing the many paths in the temple's meditation garden alongside Naruto and Sasuke.

The meditation garden made up an entire level of the Jedi temple. It was built by the very first Hokage many generations ago, as a place where the masters could come and be one with the force. As such, apprentices were rarely allowed in the garden, but at the behest of their new master; according to the guard droid outside, the three of them were allowed in just this one time, or at least until they were knighted.

"It's too quiet in here," Naruto muttered out of frustration, steppng over a fern that had spread out on the garden path.

"That's the point," Sakura sighed. "Why do you think it's called the meditation garden?,"

The three came into a clearing about two thirds of the way through the garden. In the middle sat a man on a rug, laying back on one elbow and reading from a datapad. He didn't look like other Jedi masters. Where most masters were regal and refined, this man was laidback and aloof. His tunic was a slightly faded navy blue; like many Jedi, but crinkled, as if it had been slept in. His hair was wild and unkempt, a wave of white spikes.

"Hello?," Sakura said as the three aprentices approached the rug.

"Hmm" He kept his eyes on the datapad.

"Master Kakashi?,"

He looked up, revealing an incredibly thin face covered by a dark bandanna. Over one eye was a patch. "Sakura Haruno," Sakura nodded and the Jedi smiled beneath his bandanna. "You're late." He deactivated his datapad and stood up.

Sakura, Sasuke and Naruto each bowed to Kakashi as he looked them over. "Congratulations," he said. "You are Jedi now."

Naruto smiled a large, toothy grin. Sasuke smirked and looked to Sakura, who gave her own soft smile.

"Now, usually, for this part of the initiation, you would travel to the forge just off the temple's grounds, but I've found that the whirring gears and other nuisances take the focus off what it's important," He held his hand out and used the Force to draw a satchel on the rug to his hand. "So we'll do your final test here."

"Final test?," Sakura asked, confused. "I thought we'd already passed the trials?"

"Yes, but that was the official Jedi trial. This is my own personal trial, to see if you're worthy of being my apprentices."

Naruto's large grin turned into a look of confusion. "We're not your apprentices?"

"Not yet. But you will be if the two of you pass my test."

"Two of us?," Sasuke cut in. "There's three of us here."

"I know, Sasuke," Kakashi looked at him with tired eyes. "But I don't accept three apprentices, only two. The three of you are going to earn your place."

The three of them gave each other stunned looks.

"Now, do you have your training sabers?"

They nodded.

"Good. I have here two Pontite saber crystals." Master Kakashi showed them two clear gems, each about three inches long and pointed at both ends. He then tapped his lightsaber hilt that hung on his right hip. "Each of you are going to try to take a crystal from me, by any means necessary."

The Jedi turned away from them and walked thirty or so paces. "If you have to kill me, do so. But you'll never be my apprentice if you don't take one." He held his hand out, palm up. The crystals shined in the artificial daylight of the garden.

Sakura took one more glance at Naruto and Sasuke, then they pulled their own sabers from their utility belts.

Sasuke moved first, igniting his blue saber and streaking towards master Kakashi. He swang widely at the jedi, who simply ducked out of the path and looked at Sasuke non-chalantly. "Very good, but you place far too much effort in the swing and not the placement of the strike."

Sasuke ground his teeth and struck again, spinning on his heels and aiming to take Kakashi through the torso. The jedi rolled with Sasuke and the saber blade grazed past his stomach. Sasuke kept spinning and this timed aimed to decapitate the Jedi master, but Kakashi leant back further than what Sakura woulud have thought possible, and the blade glided through empty air.

"Not good enough," Kakashi rolled away and pushed an open palm in Sasuke's direction, who was off balance. A rush of force energy caught Sasuke and lifted him into the air, landing twenty or so feet away. "Next?," the master asked Sakura and Naruto, holding out his palm again.

The two looked at each other, then to sasuke, who was still dazed in heap fifty feet away. "Let's do it together," she muttered to Naruto, who nodded. She ignited her own blade, blue like Sasuke's, and Naruto ignited a green one. "Now," they leapt away, splitting up and circling Kakashi.

Naruto jumped up and came down with a powerful slash, and Sakura leapt at Kakashi from behind, aiming the point of her blade at the Jedi master's back. For a moment, she thought she was going to get him, but a sudden flash of sense through the force made her stop mid jump, only a few steps from Kakashi, as strayed right out of their path. Naruto came down and dug his blade into the ground. Sakura stepped back just in time to avoid being hewn in two.

"Not bad Sakura," the master acknowledged her. "You utilised the force to guide your actions. As it should be." She almost smiled in thanks, but stopped when another flash told her something.

"Why haven't you drawn your lightsaber?"

Kakashi tapped the hilt and smiled beneath his bandanna. "I haven't needed too-" he was cut off by another attempt from Sasuke, a series of wild strikes that Kakashi dodged with ease. Another burst of force energy sent Sasuke roll back to Sakura and Naruto.

Sakura leant down to help Sasuke to his feet, but he shook off her aid. "Let's try it together," she said to him. Sasuke sighed, which she took as a yes, and then she gave Naruto a look. "Any ideas?"

Naruto looked around, then grinned. "Let's bring those rocks down on him," he gestured to a small artificial rock face built into one of the meditation pool's waterfalls.

"You do that," Sasuke said curtly, sprinting back towards Kakashi and beginning to swipe and poke at the Jedi with his practice saber.

"Teme," Naruto muttered.

"Move quick, while Sasuke's got him distracted!" Sakura cried. The sprinted as fast as they could towards the waterfall, reaching out and visualising a gigantic hand gripping the artificial rock and pulling it from it's place. Behind them, Sakura could hear the sounds of Sasuke's lightsaber swinging violently at their master, and getting continously more frustrated with each failed blow.

After a few moments, the two young jedi fell in synch, and the artificial rocks began to shake, until they fell from their place in a cascade of stone and dust onto Kakashi. "SASUKE, MOVE!" Sakura yelled. The dark haired apprentice leapt backwards just in time, as the boulders landed, a gust of thick dust clouding where the stones lay.

"Are you alright?" the girl asked as she and Naruto approached Sasuke, who deactivated his training blade as she spoke.

"Fine." he said, stoic towards the situation.

"Let's get the crystals," Naruto said, walking in front of the other two towards the spreading dust cloud.

"Do you think he's alright?" Sakura asked, searching the force for signs of the Jedi. There weren't any. That made her nervous.

"I'm fine Sakura..." the three stopped in their tracks as a series of the large rocks came flying out at them. They only just managed to duck them.

Kakashi walked out of the dust cloud, his dark navy tunic stained with dirt. "Very, good. You pass." he smiled, wiping a particularly thick dust stained from his right shoulder.

"Who passed?," Naruto said. "How'd you survive that?"

Kakashi just smiled form beneath his bandanna. "I survived because I'm a far older, far smarter, Jedi than the three of you, even put together." he walked back to his rug and reached into his satchel again, retrieving another Pontite crystal. "And, all three of you passed.
Very well done."

"You said only two of us would be your apprentices," Sasuke said, annoyed. "What was the point of trialing us again if you were only going to keep us all anyway?"

"Because Sasuke, the three of you needed to learn the most important skill that Jedi strike teams need. Teamwork. I thought it would have taken longer,what with the animosity between the two of you," he gestured to Sasuke, then Naruto. "But you did it quickly, well done." he held out his hand to each of them. "Take one." they each took a Pontite crystal then sat on the rug with Kakashi. "What that trial also told me is what path each of you would best fit."

Sakura looked at her crystal,it seemed to glow from it's very center with force energy.

"Naruto, you came up with the plan to take me out without just throwing random strikes at me. The path that suits you is the Jedi Sentinel,"
Kakashi took Naruto's hand in his own and closed it, the crystal clutched between both their hands. "Close you eyes and focus all of the Force energy you can on the crystal," Kakashi let Naruto's hand go, but the boy kept his hand clenched.

"Sasuke," Kakashi closed Sasuke's crystal holding hand in his own. "You struck first, with skill, even though it was a little wild. Your straitgh forwardness tells me the path best suited to you is that of the Jedi Guardian," Sasuke closed his eyes and focused on his crystal just like Naruto.

"And Sakura. You guided your actions entirely with the Force, a trait very few Jedi can do at your age. The path laid out for you, is the Jedi Consular." Sakura closed her fist and focused on her crystal, visualising it in her mind. After a few moments of blackness, a pale emerald hue came to her, growing and growing until it enveloped her entire mind. "Take out you sabers," she heard Kakashi say. She did so, lifting it up. "Focus on your crystal and your saber hilt becomming one..."

Sakura felt like she was floating. Her hand opened against her will and she felt the crystal lift away. Clicking and clacking noises very faintly rung out in her mind, until a flash of green light made her open her eyes. On the rug in front of her, her lightsaber and the blue crystal that once filled it lay, as if it had never moved.

"Congratulations," Kakashi stood up. "Take up your sabers and show them to me." She took a quick peek at Sasuke, who gripped his black metallic hilt tightley, then Naruto, whose silver hilt was twirling in his fingers. Sakura picked her hilt up carefully, then stood alongside her comrades. "Activate it." She did so, and instead of the blue blade she was so used to, a shimmering green blade erupted from the hilt.

Sasuke's blade was still blue, but Naruto's was now yellow. "You've done well," Kakashi smiled beneath his bandanna. "I am honoured to welcome you too the Jedi order."

The three smiled to each other; well, Sakura and Naruto did. Sasuke smirked. Then turned back when their new master spoke again. "Sakura," he took his saber hilt from his belt. "You wondered why I didn't use my saber?" he tossed the hilt to her.

It was oddly light. She pondered why for a moment, then gasped. "There's no power pack in it! You couldn't have used it if you wanted too!"

Kakashi chuckled. "There's your first lesson," he reached out and took his hilt back. "A jedi's best weapon is never his lightsaber."