Kakashi was, in Sakura's opinion, an oddball of a teacher. Instead of giving her a target to throw shuriken at, or at the very least a quick rundown of what she was doing wrong, he made her do sit-ups and push-ups until her arms trembled with exertion. She had lasted half an hour doing push-ups and still Kakashi looked thoroughly dissatisfied.

"Your form is wrong," he informed her.

There's a fricking form for doing this?

"Your nose needs to touch the ground with each push up. Your arms are spread too wide open," Kakashi droned.

Sakura followed his orders.

"Yes, that's better. Also, squeeze your buttocks together.

"Sensei!" She screeched. "You're a horrible teacher! Pervert! Pervert! Pervert!"

"Don't look for excuses to stop," by the looks of it, Kakashi was completely unruffled. "And your buttocks are just another part of your body, Sakura-chan. I would be a neglectful teacher if I withheld critical advice from you."

A neglectful teacher? Is this a joke?

Sniffing, Sakura resumed her push-ups. She would have kept screaming had she been able to. As it was, she had trouble breathing. So she squeezed her butt, flexed her arms, and gritted her teeth.

TWISTED

After eight and a half minutes, Sakura was forced to painfully swallow her words.

"This… isn't… for me…" she wheezed out.

"If you feel like you can't continue, then channel chakra into your arm muscles," Kakashi advised from somewhere in the rightmost treetop.

Scowling at him but still compliant, Sakura got down to work. She hadn't been expecting that something as simple as channeling chakra could be so tricky. It took a lot of concentration just to keep up – and to bat, her arms were now tingling and itching impossibly, and after a few minutes in which they started throbbing a little, Sakura was too distraught to keep going.

"What is this, Sensei?" she fretted. "It feels like my muscles are being torn apart and then sewn back together! I don't like it!"

Suddenly, Kakashi was right next to her! Sakura gasped.

That's his sharingan!

"Looks like you're doing it right… Sakura-chan."

Hah?

What's his deal? Inner growled defensively. Oddball.

Out-loud, she asked: "Wh-what do you mean, Sensei?"

"Maa… basically, you're speeding up muscle growth in your arms. I didn't think you'd succeed."

Real smooth, that one. Your trust in me is so touching.

But then, by 'you', was he perhaps referring to team seven as a whole?

"What?" Sakura whispered. "You mean…! Sasuke-kun wouldn't be able to do this?"

"I don't think so, no," Kakashi said idly. "The few who could do it usually have no need for that trick anymore."

"But… why? I don't understand."

Kakashi re-opened his book. "Simply put, it requires a lot of chakra control," he uttered. "You seem to have an intuitive understanding over it, Sakura-chan, but this is not the norm. The exercise I am having your teammates perform is based on stimulating that."

I am… talented? Like, really talented? Is that what he's saying?

Sakura gulped. Suddenly, there was a knot in her stomach. "I still don't understand though." She paused to gather her thoughts. "Iruka-sensei said that we all channeled chakra into our muscles, even if unconsciously."

"But you didn't do it unconsciously now, did you?"

Sakura shook her head, looking at her unconcerned teacher cautiously.

"Your teammates are having a hard time channeling even amounts of chakra to the soles of their feet," he told her idly, "which doesn't even involve infiltrating tissue or muscle groups. Sakura-chan, do you know how muscle growth works?"

Somewhat startled at her alarming lack of knowledge on the topic, Sakura shook her head, wondering why she'd never thought to check before.

Kakashi gave a tired sigh.

"Inconvenient, but not unexpected," he muttered to himself.

TWISTED

We heard that, jerk.

"After your workout just now," Kakashi began methodically, "your body repairs or replaces damaged muscle fibers through a cellular process where it fuses them together to form new ones." He scanned her utterly blank face. "You following?"

Sakura gave him an offended look.

The bland poker face was a trait she couldn't correct no matter what. She always stared at the back of people's heads creepily during exams without even noticing. Then they shivered and gave her the stink eye. It was so not cool.

Instead of explaining all this (because really, Kakashi didn't care either way), Sakura rearranged her face from creepy to cute in less than a second, and chirped: "Yes, Sensei!"

Kakashi didn't ask any questions.

"These repaired fibers increase in thickness and number, giving way to muscle growth." he instead drawled. "By channeling your chakra deep into your muscles, you are stimulating your cells to work quicker than they would normally." He frowned thoughtfully. "Ma… at least, that's the gist of it."

Amazing!

"Chakra can really do that, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Why, Sakura-chan, you aren't surprised about the earthquakes and a little bit of muscle baffles you?"

Sakura shrugged helplessly, grinning a little. "But Sensei! Doesn't that mean that you could also accelerate blood clotting, in order to close wounds during combat?"

Kakashi rubbed his neck.

"That's not really my field of expertise, Sakura-chan." he said, shrugging. "Though medics can do that, yes."

Suddenly struck by an idea, Sakura channeled chakra into her right hand, hoping that the injury would close. It only tingled unpleasantly and spat out a little bit of blood.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you." Kakashi cautioned, looking at it briefly. "Unlike your muscles, you don't really know where your separate cells are, so you could end up mutating the wrong one and dying from cancer."

Sakura nearly chocked out of shock, hiding her right hand and wiping it against her dress viciously.

Kakashi scratched his head idly. "Now, it wouldn't be good for your muscles to over-heal, so we will give them an hour of rest." Sakura was already mid inner-dance when he added: "show me what you know about genjutsu."

She halted. She knew a lot of things about genjutsu, but Kakashi wanted her to demonstrate something.

After a pause, she performed kai, the release technique. Kakashi gave his signature long-shuddering sigh.

He thinks no one sees it, but we do, Inner remarked bitingly. You're so rude, Baka-sensei!

Unaware of her deprecation, Kakashi asked the question Sakura least wanted to hear:

"You don't know how to cast them?"

"No one taught me, Sensei." Sakura stressed venomously. Or rather, Inner did.

Sighing dramatically, Kakashi removed his hands from the crutches and curled his fingers into Monkey, then reverse Ram, then Rat, then Tiger. Suddenly, the ground they were standing on disappeared, making Sakura feel slightly dizzy – even though she knew it was still there.

"I have to check on those two for a while," Kakashi then announced lackadaisically, retrieving his crutches from the (nonexistent) ground. "Master this while I'm gone."

And without preamble, he moseyed down the path, Icha Icha firmly in hand.

Hmp. You'll see how well we do, jerk.

"Kay!" Sakura yelled, effectively escaping his illusion.

Take that, Kakashi-sensei! Inner Sakura bellowed, vindicated.

Now to get to the jutsu.

After the initial hype, Sakura tried to recall the hand-signs. She'd take care of this quickly so that she could go home and shower before Sasuke-kun returned. Kaguya forbid he see Sakura in that sweaty, smelly state. (Kaguya also curse Kakashi.)

But to her utmost astonishment, after channeling chakra to her fingers and walking them through the hand-sign sequence, nothing happened. Absolutely nothing.

Sakura was flabbergasted.

Monkey, reverse Ram, Ox, Tiger.

The sequence was right, she was sure. But why was nothing happening? She certainly didn't expect to get it right on the first try, but shouldn't there be some kind of reaction?

Sakura tried again, this time picturing a pit in her mind's eye. The results were at least, well, there, but still laughable. There was a patch of earth where there should have been grass, but it was completely in 2D. It didn't look like a hole at all. She supposed that the hole would look different depending on perspective, but knowing the problem didn't provide much of an answer.

Suddenly, Sakura remembered all those extra credit models she had carved for Iruka-sensei, and at once she had the solution. She undid the illusion and did her best to imagine the hole in a rotating perspective.

This'll cut it! Inner Sakura stated hopefully.

Cut was an understandment.

The end result was a square. Sakura's eyebrow twitched. It was obvious now. She had only imagined it from four different viewpoints at the same time, as opposed to a gazillion, so she got a freaking square.

Annoyed, she undid the illusion and tried again. And again. She was beginning to regret dispelling Sensei's – it would've at least given her something to go off on. After what felt like hours, there was a round circle – not a square nor an icosahedron, a circle, in the middle of the clearing. But then again, Sakura realized that no pit was a perfect circle, and that the bottom should look darker than the top. And, and, and… Gritting her teeth, she tried one last time. And another. And another last time. And then some.

"Hm… why does that pit have perfectly straight walls?"

Sakura nearly jumped out of her skin at the appearance of her teacher – whom she was beginning to hate with a vengeance.

"I'm working on it, Sensei." she grouched venomously. Inner had been strangely absent during the whole debacle, but now she was making up for lost time.

"Ma, ma… Sakura-chan, don't give me that look." Kakashi tampered, flicking a leaf into the pit.

It vanished as soon as it approached the genjutsu. Sakura frowned, completely annoyed. So now she had to adapt it to admit changes in the environment?

That's so much bull! Inner exclaimed. I'll gut whoever decided I am a genjutsu type!

"Tell me, Sakura-chan, how did you make this cylindrical hole appear?" Kakashi queried.

Sakura would've rolled her eyes at him but settled for an explanation.

"…So you redo the genjutsu each time?" Kakashi checked after she was done, sounding baffled.

"Yeah…?"

Kakashi twirled his left crutch around, looking vaguely disbelieving.

"…that's what the Tiger seal is for." He scratched his cheek, his eye crinkling. "If you return to it, you can freely make modifications to your genjutsu."

Outer Sakura gaped in disbelief.

Inner Sakura outright howled.

That old sly-boots! she shrieked. Any more crucial information you're withholding from us?!

Sakura voiced this complaint slightly more politely.

Kakashi shrugged.

"Genjutsu's different for everyone. You do whatever floats your boat, Sakura." He scratched his head. "Though I've heard that genjutsu masters sometimes add sketches and other annotations to their genjutsu while it's still in development. You could try, I guess."

Sakura pursed her lips. She hadn't forgotten the horrible illusion he'd put her through in her genin test.

"How do you do it?" she insisted.

"Hoe?" Kakashi's tone was faintly amused. "I have the sharingan, Sakura-chan."

Just the mention of it brought a shudder to Sakura's knees, so she quickly dropped the topic.

"A sketch? How?"

Kakashi seemed to be thinking for a moment.

"Don't tell this to Kurenai-san," he said, his eye crinkling mirthfully, "but I once copied this from her."

Sakura didn't know who Kurenai-san was, but her nerves were already tensing in anticipation. She watched with baited breath as Kakashi performed the Tiger seal, then Monkey and then Rat, remaining in that position. Suddenly, a thin, blue line appeared in the air, then another, and another until a kanji came to be.

'SHINOBI', it read.

A pearl of laughter escaped Sakura.

"That's so cool!" she chirped, Inner Sakura fully agreeing for once. Kakashi's responding smile seemed a tad more genuine than usual.

"I thought so too," he agreed merrily. "I'm sure Kurenai would understand."

By the way his eye shone, Sakura was rather inclined to believe otherwise.

TWISTED

I'm back, folks.

I guess this chapter wasn't that eventful – but really, character growth is all about learning new things, and since this tale is all about character growth, learning things was bound to happen.

As always, reviews are awesome. Stay tuned!