Not dead yet.

Chapter 3

Kakashi glared at his pink-haired partner with disdain. "Don't slow me down," he growled as they made their way to the far end of the fenced in training field. The area was thickly forested and Kakashi was sure even the girl he had as a partner could hide it significantly well. After all, he had to go after the flag before the two idiots prepared something.

Sakura scowled, resisting the urge to punch the brat. Remember, she told herself, sensei has to have at least one of his own eyes in the future. "I'm not planning on it," She growled, pushing the dark green Konoha flag into the ground with more force than necessary.

"Hn," Kakashi muttered back, sounding scarily like Sasuke. "You guard—I'm going to get the other flag."

"Wait—" Sakura protested, making to grab the silver-haired chunin, but he dodged.

"Set up some good traps," He called back.

The nerve! Sakura thought, fishing shuriken and wire out of her weapons pouch. "Might as well set up some traps," She muttered to herself. "Geez."

She was going to rant to Kakashi-sensei the next she saw him, because by Kami-sama he was a brat. Sensing a chakra presence nearby, Sakura looked behind her into the underbrush, "I can sense you Rin." She called out, smiling unwillingly. While the boy half of Kakashi-sensei's team could use some work, Sakura had a special fondness for the fellow medical nin.

"Oh darn!" Rin grinned sheepishly, "Hey Sasami!"

Hatake Kakashi was bored.

Sitting lazily on a tree branch, he looked down on the two girls, Icha-Icha preciously clutched tightly in his hand. Scratching his chin idly, Kakashi let out a yawn and compared the two.

When he had first been introduced to Team Seven, Kakashi had immediately associated Sasuke with himself, Naruto with Obito, and Sakura with Rin. Upon later introductions at the rooftop however, he had been forced to reevaluate his guess.

While Rin had been intelligent, she hadn't been at the top of the class like Sakura. She did, however, have much more practical skills, such as medical ninjutsu and a clear head through battle. While sensei had managed to finally get her with a cleverly hidden genjutsu, she hadn't collapsed at the mere sight of a bloodied teammate.

Other than their heritage of civilian families, medical ninjutsu, and unnecessary crushes on unappreciative people, Kakashi had failed to see further resemblance. In fact, after the first month of meeting Team Seven, it had disgusted him that he ever compared Rin to the weak and helpless Sakura.

But currently, as Kakashi watched Sakura set up traps while Rin watched, he understood how they were similar. While their skill sets varied, it was the underlying confidence and strength that made them match. While it hadn't taken long for Sakura to start blooming under Tsunade's tutelage (Kakashi still regretted not giving her the deserved attention he should've) and become the self-confident young woman she was today, Rin had only started to show it through the war.

Too bad her career had ended by Kakashi's hand.

Rubbing his right hand unconsciously, Kakashi grimaced and looked down upon the girl who had once loved him. I'll protect you this time Rin. For Obito and me.

And far off into the distance, explosive tags lit.

Kakashi smirked, glancing back.

Now that the girl was out the way, he could try finding the other team's flag. Knowing that Obito was on it, he knew that the flag couldn't be too difficult to find. And from what he had seen, Arashi was a weak one too.

Great job Minato-sensei—put all the idiots together; Kakashi allowed himself a small smile under his mask, makes it easier for me.

However, as soon as Kakashi ran into a clearing with fallen trees around, two explosive tags blew up in his face. Leaping back and shielding his face from splinters, the chunin spat out a curse. He hadn't sensed the tags and two large chakra presences suddenly appeared.

Kakashi berated his laziness. Both chakra amounts were ridiculously large—Arashi being an Uzumaki and Obito having the stores of an Uchiha. The true question though was if they actually knew how to use them.

"We knew you'd come around this way!" Obito shouted proudly, "Told you Arashi!" Arashi's laughter in response completely gave away their positions, and Kakashi wondered to himself (not for the first time) how the heck did they ever become shinobi.

The cool blade of a kunai slid easily into Kakashi's fingers and he crouched into a ready position. He frowned noticeably under his mask. Two idiots? Minato-sensei really needed to start challenging him more. Injured ankle or no, these fools would be nothing, Kakashi concluded.

"Hm, I'm not sure I really like that face of his, Arashi," Obito grinned mischievously.

Naruto grinned eagerly, "Oh no. It's rather bland. You know what his hair reminds me of?" He was secretly proud of Obito and his quickly planned prank—because if Uzumaki Naruto couldn't get past his sensei's reflexes in the present, he would just time travel back and do it to his sensei's past self.

"What?" Obito answered methodically, innocence shining on his face.

"A blank canvas," Arashi grinned, revealing wide canine-like teeth. Slapping his hands together into a messy seal (Kakashi reviewed the aforementioned question of his) and slamming chakra into his palms, he unleashed a tide of chakra-enhanced bright pink paint.

Obito and Arashi, while being slightly incompetent shinobi (especially in one silver haired chunin's mind) there was no doubt that they were geniuses in the sense of pranking. Despite being from different generations, both inspired a feeling of fear and well-hidden awe in the wake of their pranks.

Leaping away in time, Kakashi threw away his useless hot pink-stained kunai in disgust. Landing with speckles of paint, he commended himself on a rather good job on avoiding the wave of pink death.

"Um, don't count yourself lucky yet, Baka-shi," Obito smirked, placing his hand in the pink puddle, pouring chakra in. Shimmering chakra activated explosive tags that had been previously concealed under the ground sparked into existence. Carefully written seals were written on the papers in Arashi and Obito's messy handwritten.

Messy? Yes. Ineffective?

Ask Kakashi that.

A profanity was halfway out of Kakashi's masked lips when the tags exploded.

Sakura and Rin sat in the shade, Sakura keeping a close eye on the flag in the clearing. Surrounded by tripwire, shuriken, and some spare explosive tags, she was pretty sure it was safe, but with shinobi—even genin—better safe than sorry.

"Eh? You've met Tsuande-sh-sama?" Sakura stopped herself from saying shishou at the end of her master's name. In this timeline she had yet to meet her and secretly she hoped to meet the woman—it would be amusing to show her how much Sakura knew with seemingly no training.

Rin looked delighted, "You've heard of her?"

"Oh, um yeah, Urushi-sensei has told us about the Sannin before!" Sakura explained herself quickly.

"Oh, well, occasionally when she dropped by a bit she would give a lecture or two to the medics," Rin's face was filled with awe. "She's so amazing—did you know that she was the one who demanded a medic nin be placed on each team?"

Of course she knew. Tsunade was her shishou, after all.

But for conversational sake, Sakura plastered an interested grin on her face, "Really?"

"Yeah, Arashi and Urushi-sensei are lucky to have you!" Rin said softly, in her shy voice she sighed, "I wish I was as good as you were. I can tell you're an amazing medic…" her voice trailed off.

Seeing no response from Sakura, Rin confided softly, "Last week . . . on one of the side battle stations, our team was sent and I . . . I couldn't save this chunin, and—" Rin's tearing voice was cut off by Sakura's reply.

"Rin—there's always a first time, and it will happen." Embracing the shaking girl, Sakura reassured her gently, confidence lacing her voice in the way she had learned from Tsunade.

"The thing about us medics is that we have to be strong. Sure it may seem we're only needed when someone's hurt—but that's not it. We're the pillars of a team. And you have to stay strong, because without us our teams are nothing Rin."

Rin's eyes widened. As clichéd as it sounded, she had never thought of that before, being with the unreachable child-prodigy Kakashi and, in his own way, genius trickster Obito (who was, to boot, an Uchiha), Rin had often found herself feeling out of her depth. Because Rin was just Rin.

Nohara Rin, child of a civilian family, who had joined the Shinobi Academy on whim of her whining ex-friends (who had dropped out at soon as taijutsu had been mentioned). She had never thought of herself as anything but average. Even being a medic had mostly been because of the necessity the war had imposed. And compared to those like Tsunade, she was clearly still a novice.

"Without… us," She repeated uncertainly.

"Yes, without us. Because do you know what happens to idiots like Arashi and Obito without us?" Despite the idiot being said in affectionate terms, Sasami's next words were grimmer, "They die. Even people like Kakashi aren't invincible." Warmth spread inside Sakura as she warmed up to her spontaneous inspirational speech.

Something had been empty inside Sakura for a while. By no way was she not trying her hardest in her career, nor was it to say that she was depressed, but something had definitely been missing. Having perplexed civilian parents didn't help, nor did Ino's tiny insults that added up. Perhaps it had been caused by Sasuke's defection, or maybe even just being compared to the sheer willpower of Naruto.

But looking at Rin's innocent face looking at awe at her, Sakura felt that something inside her shrink.

"They need us, Rin." Sakura felt a smile slide onto her face, both for Rin and herself. And suddenly she realized that the confidence behind the words spewing from her was not from Tsunade, but herself.

"Yeah," Rin grinned back hesitantly, "I suppose they do."

Minato stared at the five teenagers assembled in front of him and sighed with an unusual amount of disappointment for the sunshine-haired bundle of joy that was the Yellow Flash (at least by how others saw him). "You guys realize that no one got a flag?"

Kakashi, drenched in pink despite multiple water-dousing jutsus (courtesy of Minato), frowned and picked out a flake of dried paint from his slicked-down hair.

Sasami sent a dark stare towards the Hatake.

Noticing a possible upcoming threat, Minato hurried on, "So, can you guys tell me what you did wrong?"

"Eh? Wrong! We worked together~(da)ttebayo!" Arashi shouted in disbelief, sounding exactly like Kushina. Minato shuddered should Arashi ever meet Kushina. From what he could tell, the two loved ramen more than him.

"Ah, yes, you did," Minato conceded, "And surprisingly well. However, you didn't follow the objective and instead just attacked Kakashi."

Obito muttered something that sounded dangerously like 'the little punk deserved it.'

"Sasami and Rin, you shouldn't have just been talking, though I understand Kakashi didn't really give you another option," The blonde gave Kakashi the evil glare that assured a talk later. The pink-stained chunin groaned once more, both at this and his atrocious appearance. Even his beloved mask was covered.

"Since no one actually won and everyone technically lost. . . Urushi! Why don't you pay?"

Kakashi snapped to attention, having been daydreaming after hearing Sakura and Rin's conversation. "Hm?"

"Hey! Urushi-sensei! You're buying lunch right?" Arashi shouted obnoxiously loud, glee evident in his voice.

Kakashi suddenly regretted not paying attention. Because now he would be paying in money. Deep inside his pocket, Kakashi's dark leathery wallet sobbed metaphorical tears.

A/N: Yes, I know. That ending was incredibly cheesy and I have not updated in some seven months . . . yeah, sorry about that.

However! GOOD NEWS! I've got a beta now to (hopefully) whip my procrastinating butt into writing faster! So thank you so much Rika24 for answering my (let's be honest here) plea for a beta! (hey you guys should be thanking her)

Secondly, I'd just like to thank you guys to consistently following this rather cliched story (really, timetravel and team 7- you guys are too much). I'm sorry if I don't always update this too fast, yet I do so for Akatsuki Brothers- this is just because Akatsuki Brothers is slightly more original and I'm fairly interested in how that goes.

Anyways, thanks for dropping by guys,

-Sumei1