"Team 7 vs. Kakashi." Kakashi-sensei said.
Sakura, who was reading a medical book leading on Naruto's lap immediately sat up. "Only two hours late, sensei!" She said cheerily.
Naruto, who was trying to do the chakra exercise which Sakura assigned to him- sticking a leaf on his forehead- immediately stood up and waggled his fingers accusingly. "You're LATE!"
Sasuke ignored this scene entirely and continued doing is katas.
It was a typical day of Team 7 really, the three of them met an 8am, starting with a light spar and waited for sensei. Normally, they would go to the missions desk and continue on with a mission.
"Us versus you, sensei?" Sakura asked warily. Although sensei was slouching with the very typical Icha Icha in hand, he had a mischievous glint in his eyes that made her feel uneasy.
Sensei curved his eyes into a smile. "It's like roleplay. You are missing-nins who stole the village secrets and I have to hunt you down."
Sasuke stopped his Katas. In fact, everyone stopped moving.
Naruto, the courageous brash Naruto hesitated. "So like, is it hide and seek?"
Sensei tossed a scroll on the ground. "You have to deliver this scroll which contains the village secrets to the main gates of Konoha. It's simple."
Oh no.
There was a reason why everyone hesitated because the one time the team played tickle tag – tag but you got tickled until you could escape if you got caught – Kakashi-sensei managed to hang all three of the up-side down and tickling feather until he decided it was boring. Which was two hours later.
They knew firsthand how evil he could be.
Sakura sneaked a glance at Naruto and Sasuke who was undoubtedly all thinking the same thing, their jaw set in determination.
"I'll give you fifteen minutes to discuss. You can go anywhere in Konoha. Don't worry, I'll find you." With that chilling remark, Sensei left.
Sakura took a big giant breath. "Let's hide."
Naruto nodded with great enthusiasm. "We'll hide and ambush Kakashi-sensei. He'll never see it coming! Great plan Sakura!" he remarked.
"I also agree with the dobe." Sasuke said.
It felt odd to hear Sasuke saying that he agreed with Naruto but it made her heart feel warm and fuzzy. After her breakdown? Sasuke was a lot more open with comments and conversation, engaging with the team and it felt wonderful.
Sakura closed her eyes in contemplation. "I think the best bet is for one of us to get caught on purpose, tell him the scroll is somewhere else, and ambush on that spot." She said.
"Beating Kakashi one-on-one is impossible and two-on-one is no different. Our best bet would be to not get discovered." Sasuke said, disagreeing.
Naruto bounced on his feet, impatient. "Then let's just go charging at him! We'll keep him distracted while one of us scurries to the gate!"
Sasuke sighed. "How is there different from Sakura's plan, dobe? Open your ears."
Two weeks ago, Naruto would've leapt up in indignation and argued but this Naruto just scratched his head. "Ehehe sorry Sakura! I'm just not good with all this planning."
"No, I can say Sensei wouldn't be expecting Naruto's plan and we'll have the element of surprise… but really, we can't beat him like this."
"Realistically, we can't beat him. That limits our options severely." Sasuke said. Sakura could see that it almost physically harmed him to admit his own deficiency but it was true, Team 7 couldn't take on a jonin.
Then, it struck her.
"Well, actually, there is a way."
"Fox! Formation A" Sakura called out sharply. Although they were in village where everything knew them, it was good practice to talk in codenames for practice.
Sakura leapt through the trees, wind rustling in her ears. Since she discovered that her chakra was her best quality, she had been working on enhancing her muscles with chakra for super human strength.
First thing to increase was her speed as she could do a short burst of high speed.
"INCOMING!" Naruto yelled from above. "Kage no Bunshin Jutsu!"
Sakura fixated her eyes on the sliver haired jonin almost leisurely hopping one branch to another. In her peripheral vision, she saw the orange blur go past as Naruto and his clones went bustling past.
"Shuriken no Jutsu: Eight Point Barrier!" Sakura said while throwing the 8 shuriken attached to a barrier. This was a simple barrier seal, broken when one moves to kunai too much and makes it unstable.
Just like clockwork, before the seal can be implemented, few Narutos slipped out. When the kunai embedded itself on the ground, a Naruto each stood next to the corner, making sure it didn't move from Sensei's fight.
Sakura watched as the barrier filled with smoke of Narutos disappearing and new Narutos being made.
She knew this seeming equilibrium wouldn't last long as sensei was clearly taking his time just doing taijutsu.
Now it was just a question of stalling until Sasuke came.
While the smoke obscured the vision in the limited space of the barrier, Sasuke put down an electricity barrier around the already made barrier. She covered the barrier with explosions tags, haphazardly throwing them on knowing she had no time.
When she was a third of a way done covering the barrier with explosion tags, she heard Sensei shot out, "Water Release: Water Dragon Bullet Technique!"
Immediately, all the clones dispersed, and the barrier collapsed, causing the explosion tags to go off, setting up the electricity.
Sakura, who was standing close in order to stick the tags on felt few sparks of the electricity hit her on the arms in a painful manner.
"Earth Release: Earth-style wall!" As dirt wall rose up, Sensei slipped underneath to hide from the massive impact.
Sakura glanced at Naruto who was sitting on the tree opposite her. Although she planned to put only his clones inside the barrier, she didn't expect for sensei to demolish them so soon.
"Time to fight, Otter?" Naruto questioned.
Sakura nodded.
From there, Sakura knew they had less than ten minutes. Even if sensei took things easy, there was no way the two of them could last more than ten minutes.
When Naruto spammed the many clones and create an opening, Sakura used her chakra enhancement to burst in high speed and enhanced strength creating pressure on him.
"Genjutsu: Discombobulation!" Doing a quick ox sign, Sakura attempted to cast at Kakashi sensei.
The Genjutsu was supposed to make the person dizzy as if they've had a concussion but Kakashi-sensei merely closed his eyes and continued fighting with Naruto.
He didn't even bother breaking it!
Sakura felt a tiny bit insulted.
And when Sakura got mad, she got real mad.
"Sharanno!" She yelled, moving into the more center of the fight.
Instead of using her strength on short bursts, she applied her chakra everywhere.
Now she moved quickly and threw deadly punches. It wasn't much but it was enough to make time for the Narutos to regroup and attack a different way.
"Doton: Iwa Tounyuu no Jutsu (Earth Release: Rock Throw Technique)!" Sakura was pretty nervous about this because it was her first time using it actual combat.
The handful of dirt in her hands immediately solidified into a rock. With enhanced chakra, she threw it at sensei, tagging kunai tags around it hoping it'll be hard to dodge.
"Kawarimi" Sensei almost lazely drawled, body replacing himself and leaving behind a –
Shit
"Fox!" She called out and Naruto immediately jumped back in time for the log Kakashi-sensei used to replaced with to explode in million pieces.
The wood chips rained and pelted on them. Time to regroup. She thought desperately moving towards Naruto.
Kakashi sensei pulled out his book, "If your plan is for Sasuke to deliver the scroll while you distract me, I'm going to have to teach you a lesson on clones."
"Every funny sensei, we have the clone expert on our team." Sakura retorted.
Naruto seemed to gather all his energy in that short second and burst to Kakashi-sensei with a quick "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
Sakura could feel sensei being disappointed at lack of strategy and attack and disappointed sensei meant bored sensei. And that, meant torture.
She dropped a low kick combined with an upper cut. Already used to not being able to hit him, she added a kunai to the mix.
She could honestly say that the two-on-one lasted exactly 55 seconds.
"My cute students, I think we need to have a lesson on-"
"THE BRIGHT LIGHT OF YOUTH BURNS BRIGHT!" A loud voice interjected.
And sensei disappeared in smoke.
Victory!
"I brought him." Sasuke said standing next to a very green clothed person.
Naruto immediately rose to the bait. "How is he going to help? He's just a bushy-brow. You're late Teme!"
Sakura sighed. "Hello, we are Team 7. Did Sasuke-kun tell you about our mission?" Although asking politely, she couldn't help but to look away due to the shining light? The extravagant energy? The person was emitting. The green spandex was a bold impression but his personally seemed to be bolder.
"Yosh! I'm Maito Gai, Sensei of Team Gai. Your youthful teammate recruited me to help you guys defeat my rival! Kakashi!"
There was perhaps too many information in that sentence.
"Yosh! Let's work together and defeat the evil-sensei!" Naruto almost yelled in return.
The testosterone was suffocating. Sakura glanced at Sasuke who rolled his eyes in return.
"We're the traitors, remember?" Sasuke chided.
Naruto was far beyond roleplay now he was invested in beating sensei. "We'll tickle sensei for two hours when we capture him! Just like he did to us!"
Sakura cleared her throat sensing that the situation was wildly spiraling out of control. "Okay, Gai-sensei. Our mission is to deliver these scrolls to the main gate. Would you be able to help us?"
To her horror, he seem to almost tear up. "It is my greatest honour to help the youthful students of Kakashi! I will beat you my rival!" He said while pumping his fists to the air.
"Plan." Sasuke said, glancing at Sakura.
He's relying on me to come up with a plan? Sakura almost squealed in happiness. Her little project of 'make team 7 an actual team' seemed to be coming into fruition.
Sakura smiled sneakily. She knew exactly what to do.