As for the timeline, you'll see that I'm trying to speed things up. I have many stuffings planned for this baby, but most fun starts after their Chuunin exam! So, until then, we're jumping through time. Like rabbits. Mmmm.
Have Your Cake And Eat It Too
Time glided by like water, and before none of them realised, a week had passed.
In that week, nothing important had occurred. If you count out the sparring session Kakashi forced Sakura—in front of her students, too, causing the kids to watch open-mouthed as their sensei cracked open the ground, and trees—into, saying it would help her students respect her—and it did. Now they were afraid of her. Sort of. But not quite.
Other than that, it was easy to not notice how time passed. Sai and Naruto were thrown into another long mission, Kakashi had to leave for his, and it seemed that every Jounin in the village was busy with something. Which of course, included Sakura, who was busy with training her team.
For some reason, they still had no name yet, as the team combined. Sakura wondered if she should call them 'team 7', but that hit too close to home, and as far as she could tell, none of them had foxes in their belly, or a clan to avenge. And if she remembered correctly—and she did—their assigned number had been the third. So.
Team 3.
Well that was a pretty, alliteration-filled name.
So the first week was spent in reasonable peace, with no teammates to drag Sakura out drinking, no Ino to sneak into her apartment with breakfast and demanding the infamous Haruno Milkshakes, and no Neji to get injured. Sakura alternated her day to training her kids, and visiting the hospital.
As the week ended, however, Sakura felt that more was needed to make her team work. Some sort of push. Some sort of gentle shove, maybe.
Not missions, they weren't ready for that. And Sakura did not want a repeat of her own first mission on these kids. Sasuke and Naruto had dealt pretty well with near-death back then, but it had taken Sakura a few hours of muffling hysterics into her pillow when she'd gotten home, before she had fully recovered. Judging by her kids, she reasoned they'd be the same as her.
First, she had some investigating of her own to do.
------
Akimichi Chouji was, to say the least, surprised when Sakura had turned up at his house, close to lunch.
"I have one of your relatives as a student," she said for a greeting. "I'll buy you lunch and you can tell me more about her bitchy mother."
Five minutes later, they sat at a comfy table in the only restaurant Konoha had—excluding the ramen stand—sharing a plate of meatballs.
"So, you got assigned a genin team? Shikamaru told me when I arrived," Chouji began. He could've told me you'd be on my case, too.
"Yeah, and they're okay kids, you know? Not too troublesome, not too high up on their pedestals. They have no special techniques, or bloodlines—as of now, but I plan to teach them—and they give me little trouble."
"So what's the problem, then?"
"Well, their goals in life seems so…I don't know. Small. I guess I'm used to all those 'avenge clan' and 'become Hokage' lines, that I get a bit disappointed when all they want is to 'be as best a ninja as they can'."
"At least they try," Chouji pointed, leaning back to observe his order of sushi with adoration.
"Trying won't get you living," Sakura groused, poking at one slice of raw fish. "I mean, back when I was young I tried, and all I did was try. It took one bitch grabbing my hair and a couple of freaks threatening my team-mates to get me off of trying and into doing."
"So you want to help them not repeat your mistakes."
"Something around that line, yes."
"Hmm, well," Chouji started, tapping his mouth with a chopstick. "It's usually good to learn from your own mistake. Think of how you were, when you were young. If Kakashi-san had told you to train, made you train as much as the guys, you'd have complained about how unfair it was. Instead he let you experience defeat, and that got you raving towards success."
"Hold up," Sakura interrupted, raising an eyebrow. "First, what's with all this Kakashi-sensei Defense Front? And second, how do you know all that about me?"
Chouji shrugged. "Shikamaru tells me what you tell him. Only with his own reasonings."
Sakura gripped her chopsticks. A mile from there, in the Hokage Tower, Shikamaru felt cold air wash over him like some sort of impeding doom.
"So, what relative of mine do you have?" Chouji asked quickly, before Sakura would steam some more.
"Ah. Right. Uhm, Akimichi Mara," she answered.
Chouji's face fell. "Oh."
"What? What, is she some sort of renegade? What's with the 'oh'?"
"No, it's just that…now I know why you called her mother a bitch," Chouji said, rubbing his neck. "Tell me all about it."
"Well, Mara says she was forced to join the ninja corps by her mother, because it would get her slim. I honestly think that woman—and I don't know her—is fucking stupid."
"She is. She's not from the Akimichi clan, Mara's father is. He was my father's cousin."
"Was?"
"He died in an ANBU mission two years ago. Mara was nine at that time. Her mother sort of…didn't take it well. She started thinking her husband had died because of the Akimichi bloodline. She went on a frenzy about how important it was to be slim in order to be a ninja—not that she knows, she's not really one anyway—and Mara took the burnt of it."
"So now her mother is trying to get Mara to be slim," Sakura muttered. "Is she stupid? How will the girl use your techniques if she's slim?"
"Ah, well, I wouldn't know. From what I've heard, losing her father—and relatively losing her mother, too—has made Mara into something of an apathetic person. She doesn't put much interest in becoming a ninja, because that's her mother's dream. By forcing her to become one, just to be slim, that woman has sucked out all the fun in it."
"What a bitch. Tch. Well, I'll take care of it," Sakura said, nodding fiercly.
"Sakura, it's not that I don't appreciate your help towards Mara-chan, but…please don't get into a personal war with the Akimichi clan. They'd eat you alive," he said.
"I have more tact than that. I'm not going to fight the mother. Not yet, anyway."
Chouji sighed, wondering if he had unknowingly unleashed war upon his clan. He just hoped he wouldn't have to fight Sakura in the honour of the clan, because the woman packed a mean punch.
------
The next day, Sakura showed them how to channel chakra into their feet, and made them walk up a tree.
Hana caught on quicker than the rest, and soon she was sitting on a branch almost at the same level as Sakura. From below Jiro grumbled something about how it wasn't fair, since Hana had long legs. His protests were interrupted by a hit to his shoulder—courtesy of Mara—and a well spoken 'stop complaining and just do it'.
Five minutes later the remaining students had managed to manipulate chakra well enough for them to reach a high branch.
"Right, we're taking a lunch break," Sakura shouted, jumping down from the tree. "You can go home and eat, I'll meet you bunch here at…five. We're having our first mission."
The kids grinned at each other in anticipation, and were soon off. Hana and Jiro walked in one direction, and Mara set off to her house. Sakura caught up with her.
"Hey, you like potatoes, right?" she asked, stepping to a walk near the girl.
"Eh? Um…yes, sensei," the girl answered.
"Well, Ichiraku's created this new beef-and-potato ramen this morning. Wanna go? My treat," Sakura said, smiling.
"Um…but…well…"
"Come on, what have you got to lose, kid? A quiet lunch at your home? Or an awesome lunch—for free, might I add—with your scary sensei?"
"You're not scary, Haruno-sensei," Mara said, as they started walking towards Ichiraku's ramen stand.
Ten minutes and a bowl of ramen for each later, Sakura began setting her plan in motion. "I talked to a relative of yours the other day. Chouji?"
"What about Chouji-kun?" Mara asked, looking up from her bowl.
"I asked him to tell me about your family, since I was wondering…and it's good to know your students."
"I see," the girl answered, deflating slowly.
"Don't get sad, Mara-chan. Listen, your mother probably suffered a lot from the loss, and I know you have too. I'm not going to ask you to be a ninja if you don't want to. You're always free to quit. But, if you do want to continue, I'll tell you this. I'm not going to help you get slim. Being a ninja won't get you to be slim and popular. It's a gritty job, and if you're in it for the looks chances are you'll loose your mind, and maybe your life. Your mother might not know it, but it's true. And I'm not going to get into a fight with her as of now, but I'll ask you to think about what you want, not what she wants, honey. If you want to be the greatest ninja you can be, then hell have me if I don't help you be one. But if you like to eat, eat all you want. The Akimichi clan has always been chubby, and look at Chouji—he's an awesome ninja, very powerful. If you want to follow an example, follow his."
"S-sensei," the girl whispered, tears gathering in her eyes.
Sakura's heart went out to her, and she pulled the girl in for a hug. "Listen, Mara-chan. Do you want to be a ninja?"
"Y-yes…"
"And do you want to be a ninja, not to become slim, but to honour your father, or because you know you can become great?"
"Yeah. I wanna be good, and I want 'tou-san to be proud, but…"
"You also like to eat," Sakura concluded.
"Yes! I mean, I don't know why she doesn't get it, but it's in our nature. We have a healthy appetite!" the girl explained.
"I know," Sakura nodded. "Well then, it's settled. From now on, when you come to my training, don't come thinking about how soon you'll lose weight, but thinking about how soon you'll improve your fighting skills, okay?"
"Yes, sensei," the girl said, smiling slightly.
"That being settled, do you want seconds?" Sakura grinned.
"Yes, please," Mara said, nodding eagerly.
------
Lunch was over, and Sakura gathered Team 3 around her for mission details.
"Now that you're all fed and such, your mission is to get Ota-san back to his home. But first you have to find him. I have a picture of him, wait…ah, here," she said, displaying a picture.
"Sensei, all that's there is an old lady and a black cat," Jiro pointed out.
"The black cat is Ota-san. He's ran away from his home, and you have to retrieve him."
"Cat-huning?" Jiro whined. "That's so…lame, though."
"Hey, it's a newbie mission that everyone gets. Ota-san is like the…initiator in ninja-ness," Sakura scolded him, then shoved the mission scroll and picture at the boy. "Stop being a brat and get to it. Come on, time's wasting!" she snapped.
Jiro turned around with an unsatisfied grumble, slutching the scroll in his hand. Hana was near him, whispering something about 'I think it's a cute mission', and Mara stayed behind, looking at Sakura.
"What?" the woman snapped.
"Thank you for everything, sensei," the girl said, bowing politely.
"It was nothing, now shoo," Sakura said, smiling slightly as she shoed the girl away. "Ota-san's owner gives cookies to those who retrieve him, and her cookies are awesome."
------
"I'm a weak, weak sensei," Sakura moaned, curled up on the grass. "I don't teach them discipline, I take them out for lunch. What the hell is wrong with me?"
Sai didn't pause in his painting, not even looked at her as she whined. He'd returned from his mission just that morning, and Sakura had managed to find him at the top of a hill where he usually went to paint. On a good day, he would tell her to leave, because she was interfering with all the beauty, but today it was obviously not a good day.
"Yeah, they finish their missions so damn quick thanks to their teamwork, but I always have the impression that I have no influence over that. And whenever I try to be strict, they do something like grin, and I'm all melting, Sai," Sakura whined.
"Perhaps," Sai observed, pausing in his activity, "your maternal instinct is showing up."
"Hmm…nah, I don't think I have one," Sakura said, looking at the painting over his shoulder.
"I have been told that ugly women often compensate their loneliness by growing cats—or kids, in your case," the man observed calmly.
That evening, Sakura gave Sai her very own welcome-home gift, by smashing his face into his painting. Twice.
