Sakura fidgeted nervously as she waited for Kakashi's adjudication. Her teacher was looking over a neat little drawing that mapped out all the traps she had set around the house. Naruto's clones had helped her when she'd needed it, but mainly the boys had taken care of escorting Tazuna to the bridge while Sakura stayed behind, nursing Kakashi back to health and covertly booby-trapping the house.
As she was reflecting on this, Kakashi's fingers went to his chin thoughtfully. "Let me take a look at the actual traps."
Sakura nodded apprehensively and proceeded to help him to his feet. She'd have to tell Naruto to fetch some dead branches or something to be used as crutches, because supporting Kakashi's weight was really uncomfortable. Probably for him too since she was so short, but Sakura digressed. The point was that the long trip around the house and garden was extremely uncalled for – as was Kakashi's criticism:
"You can dodge this snare in four different ways," he admonished breezily. Recounting, Sakura found, was definitely a speciality of his. Never one to fall short though, he also excelled at pointing out that "the one tripwire is far too obvious" or "are you trying to kill our client?" And his personal favorite: "that wouldn't even trick a civilian, Sakura-chan."
Needles to say, Sakura was very, very chagrined.
Iruka-sensei had always complimented her skills with the wire. Always. Sure, Kakashi might be better, but he had two decades of experience on his belt, while Sakura was a freshly minted genin. What did he expect, honestly? If anything, her traps were advanced.
But Kakashi would have none of it (not that Sakura actually dared voice her true thoughts). He made her arm each and every single booby trap all over again, some even more than once. Meanwhile he comfortably lounged under the shade of a tree, giggling and reading Icha Icha.
Don't hurt yourself, now, thought Sakura spitefully.
It was extremely aggravating. And now even more so than usual, because – she would never admit it to anyone, but – she was hooked to that dumb book of his. Would Ai end up killing Junko? Sakura, who had been picturing Junko as an embellished version of adult-Sasuke, really hoped that she wouldn't. They loved each other, damnit! It wasn't fair! Why was love so terribly–
"Sakura-chan? The traps are waiting."
Right, so now it's offensive to make inanimate objects wait, but not your team.Dejectedly snapping back to reality, Sakura leveled Kakashi with her best glare. Privately she was embarrassed.
Not again, Sakura! she lamented. You've got to stop thinking about that stupid book! You're better than that garbage!
But her thoughts quickly took a darker turn: it was all Kakashi's fault. Of course. Because Hatake Kakashi was hard to please to the point of ridiculousness, her mind just had no choice but to wander. To add insult to injury, after what seemed like endless hours of fumbling with wires and kunai calculating weight relations, stringing sheaves together and dropping a deathfall trap onto her red, newly-manicured toenail, Kakashi was only mildly satisfied.
"Now that that's been taken care of," he said breezily, "find all the loopholes."
Excuse me? Inner Sakura stomped her foot. Those dead traps are perfectly deadly! Shanaro!
"Well?" Kakashi arched an eyebrow. "I'm waiting." He waved the plan around casually.
Well, I'd like to keep it that way for once. Cha!For at least two hours. Outer Sakura mentally added.
Exactly. He won't know what hit him! That's payback, Sensei!
In reality, Sakura was just staring at the map. Jokes aside, she had designed this so that no one could get in. What part of that didn't Sensei understand? As much as Sakura looked, she couldn't spot any sort of opening even in the garden. But Kakashi remained unmoved.
Finally, just to gauge his reaction, Sakura ventured:
"Ne, Sensei? At least give me a clue…?"
The hand holding his stupid book twitched. Besides that, there was no outward clue that Sakura had so much as spoken.
"Kakashi-sensei!… You aren't supposed to be ignoring me…"
There was an ambiguous little hum.
"Do you even get paid for your job?"
Nothing.
"That's it! I'm going to file a complaint when we get back." If we get back.
Sensei passed a page of Icha Icha.
"…believe it."
His head suddenly swiveled towards her like a rocket, wide-eyed. Sakura smirked triumphantly. Finally.
"I might feel inclined to make a donation if you get this right," Kakashi eventually conceded.
YES! Sakura innerly yelled. Is he gonna lend me Icha Icha? Finally, she'd know what happened to Junko!
"We have a deal, Sensei!"
Without even waiting for one of his belated ambiguous little hums, Sakura once again threw herself into her work. And indeed, after some vicious thinking and contemplating of tripwire timings and respecting angle inclinations after projectile detonation, she came to a complicated solution involving a lot of perfectly executed backflips.
Cha! That Baka-sensei…! He's good, but I'm up for the challenge, shanaro! Sakura cracked her knuckles innerly as she finished a rather winded explanation on trap-dodging.
"Sakura." Kakashi uttered slowly.
If that's not an awestruck face, I don't know what is, she thought, pleased with herself. Can you see me now, Sasuke-kun? I bet Ino-pig wouldn't be able to figure it out.
"Sakura." Kakashi repeated. "That part with all the somersaulting…"
"Yes, Sensei?" That had been the most tricky, but of course Sakura had got it right in the end.
"What's keeping me from swapping places with the deadfall?"
What.
You can't be serious.
"Ah, yes, of course I knew that, Sensei! I just thought you didn't want me to use kawarimi is all!"
"Well, I don't doubt Zabuza would appreciate your consideration, but…" There was an awkward silence, "redo it."
TWISTED
Sakura worked well into the night, until her arms trembled from stretching them so much and her fingers were cut open with wire and scrapes. Her indisposed right hand didn't make things any easier either.
Under any other circumstances, she wouldn't have bothered more than ten minutes with all the work, but fear does incredible things for one's motivation. After Kakashi had pointed out the flaw in her planning, Sakura had started seeing errors herself – she couldn't stop seeing them. She felt so exposed… it was terrifying.
The thought of going to bed without the house heavily warded bothered her immensely, even after Kakashi pointed out to Sasuke-kun and Naruto that Zabuza would likely be out of commission for a while.
After horrible hours of working against the clock and fretting all the while, Sakura felt like she hadn't accomplished much of anything with the new traps. Tazuna would eventually need to leave the house after all, and she was afraid that Naruto would somehow manage to detonate the explosive tags in their faces if she went overkill.
Even working as hard as she was, there were still seven ways to get in.
That night, Sakura didn't sleep. (Again.)
TWISTED
She was restless; constantly getting up to the loo or to fetch water. At about one in the morning, her dazed gaze fixed on a picture frame of Kaiza, the deceased hero of Wave country, hugging Inari, the boy he had saved (and whose pessimistic remarks about their impending demise more often than not made Sakura want to strangle him).
"You should be in bed."
Sakura whirled around, a kunai already–
"Sensei!" she screeched half-relieved, half-mad at his nerve.
Déjà vu anyone? Inner Sakura commented.
Kakashi apparently didn't feel guiltily for nearly making her flip out twice in a row.
"–after all, a girl your age needs her beauty sleep, ne?" He said so in such a completely blasé tone that suggested he really didn't care, as he shooed her towards her room. Then he saw the wire clutched in her hand. "Setting traps inside the house won't deter Zabuza from entering, Sakura. You need to stop obsessing."
Sakura wrinkled her nose, her eyes suddenly watery. Sasuke-kun, who had fought Zabuza so bravely, was sleeping soundly and peacefully. Sakura loved that innate calmness about him – but this time it wasn't just him: even Naruto was snoring mindlessly right next door. And Sakura hadn't even fought Zabuza like they had – she'd only been at blade point once, she hadn't even gotten a scratch on her – but she was terrified to the point of wanting to quit.
"There's a reason why I stole your book, you know?" she settled for saying. Smooth! Inner Sakura cheered. Now Sensei would take pity on her nightmares and give her the book.
But there was just silence.
"Can you give it to me?"
"No."
"But Sensei! I really wanted to know what happened to Junko and Ai!"
Kakashi's one visible eye blinked owlishly. Obviously he had yet to wrap his mind around the idea that his student shared the same (terrible) taste in literature as him.
"Do you want the long version or the short version?"
"Wha–"
"Long story short: they have sex, Ai tries to kill Junko but he's prepared, ergo it doesn't happen and she escapes. Mainly it's so the author can milk more money out of a sequel."
Sakura's mouth dropped open.
First she flushed out of embarrassment, but quickly it melted into scorching fury. Anyone who'd heard a lion growl would no doubt find it cute in comparison to what followed:
"I HATE YOUR GUTS SO MUCH I'M GONNA GET YOU ARRESTED LIKE FOREVER YOU SPOILER DEMON-SENSEI!"
"In my defense, you asked for it."
"As if! I was just trying to glean how unprofessional you could get!" screamed Sakura shrilly. Her voice got high pitched when she lied. "And for the record: it's very unprofessional! I'm not even interested in this lowly literature! Hmp."
"Right. If you keep this up you'll wake–"
Sakura didn't want to hear it: "Sensei, I'm interested in something to keep me busy at night, not two sentences!" "
"Ah… in that case…" Kakashi suddenly seemed a little too happy to deliver. "I did say I'd make a donation, didn't I?" He reached into his seemingly bottomless pockets.
But he didn't give her Icha Icha. Instead, he delivered a condescing headpat (what am I, a dog?) and then handed her some dumb-looking scroll.
"What's this?" Sakura sputtered.
"Did you have anything in particular in mind earlier? That scroll will help you sleep."
The old sly-boots!
Judging by Kakashi's deadpan, Sakura's defensive claims were just that to him: claims. Giving her a condescing wave, he did an around-about and ambled down the hall.
Sakura frowned at the scroll he had given her, shouted an insincere thank you, and stomped back to her room.
Once again she was alone with her thoughts.
It was dated twelve years ago. Browsing through it, Sakura realized that the scroll covered genjutsu theory.
Now I get what he meant. It went on and on about genjutsu spotting and conceptualism, right to the most nitpicky of details.
It was the ultimate lullaby.
That night, Sakura finally managed to fall asleep. She would wonder later whether the nightmares were worth it.
Don't be stupid, Inner Sakura growled at the breakfast table. Our hair was getting greasy and our skin paler from lack of sleep. I'll bet Sasuke-kun would be disgusted if he saw beneath all the makeup!
Sakura nodded to herself numbly as she slurped on the miso soup. Meanwhile, Kakashi declared that they should start training to prepare for Zabuza's return.
Cha! When do we start?She eagerly got up.
"Ah… Sakura-chan?" Kakashi stopped her as she made to follow them. "You should stay at home. Your foot is still injured."
Disappointed, Sakura only nodded. She'd been hoping to see Sasuke-kun take his shirt off, but apparently that was too much to ask for. Instead, she got to help with the dishes and cleaning, all the while listening to Inari complain about their lost cause. Like she wanted to hear about the metaphorical noose which seemed to continuously loom about her head. Stupid kid.
TWSITED
After two hours, Sensei came back.
"Sakura," he drawled. "I took the liberty of testing your traps. They are…" Sakura's eyes widened in anticipation, "marginally better."
"Huh?"
What do you mean, marginally? That absolute jerk–!
"What do you use shuriken for?" Kakashi quizzed suddenly.
"They are useful tools to distract the enemy or administer non-fatal injuries." Sakura supplied somewhat reluctantly. "Many ninja like to use them for training because they are difficult to dodge but easy to heal from. Additionally, shuriken are often used to plant fake evidence in assassination missions."
"Very good" Sensei said, "but that's not it."
What. Is. His. Problem. That was a freaking compilation of three different textbooks! SHA-NA-RO! Inner Sakura toppled metaphorical rocks over her head.
"W-why not, Sensei?"
Kakashi looked at her searchingly. "Shuriken are ideal for detonating traps from a distance."
Sakura's eyes widened. As in, to cut the wire with a single shuriken? But that was imposible!
"Your traps all lack a remote-control method." Kakashi elaborated. "Kunai are too big for a simple tripwire, Sakura-chan. You need to rig them differently."
"But Sensei! No one has an aim that insane!" Sakura protested. "Not with shuriken!"
"As it happens, I do."
And then he demonstrated by setting off all the traps in the clearing without moving from the spot, just with shuriken.
But that would mean… Sakura thought with panic, that Zabuza could do the same! Was there even a possible trap that could not be avoided?!
She said as much to Kakashi, who simply shrugged. "I told you, didn't I? Look underneath the underneath."
"Ah! I get it, Sensei!" Sakura exclaimed, puffing out her chest. And for the first time, she really did. "Traps aren't just the complexity of the mechanism, but your own readiness to spot them!"
Kakashi patted her on the head.
"I'm glad you agree. That'll make things easier."
Errr… wait. I think he's misunderstanding something…Sakura thought awkwardly.
"Sensei, my aim isn't that great…"
Kakashi closed his book with a smile.
"Not if I can help it."
TWISTED
There you have the next chapter! :)
Instead of protecting Tazuna in the mornings or learning tree-climbing, Sakura is stuck hovering over Kakashi like a helicopter parent and arming traps pointlessly. Nice, right? I mean, she was always pretty useless.
…just kidding. It'll pay off, you'll see. Her attitude isn't exactly exemplary now, but, there'd be no point to this story if it were right from the get-go. Sakura has a long way to go. Spoiler alert: we'll be getting some real action in chapter six, by the way, so hold on tight! – and review, if you can spare a minute. Even a simple "good work" or "last chapter was better" would help me a lot. Anyways, see you next Friday!
