Determination
"Road trip, YEAHHHHH!" was the first thing Sakura heard that morning. The second was a loud 'THUD.'
She scrambled out of her bag and saw Sasuke grimacing over an unconscious Naruto.
"I liked him better asleep, and he woke me up for my watch by farting in my face," he explained darkly, and Sakura hid an amused grin.
"As soon as Naruto wakes up again, we'll sit down, go over the mission plan and details our client has provided, and then head to the gate to meet him," Kakashi said, as Sasuke covered the traces of the firepit they had dug last night.
Sakura nodded, rolling up her bag. "Alright sensei."
"This'll be the first time I've ever been out of the village!" Naruto exclaimed, dancing as the team and Tazuna left the desk at the village gates. It was Sakura's first time out of the village too, though she didn't proclaim it to the world like Naruto.
She also suspected this was one of the first times Sasuke had left the village himself. He was less tense than he normally was, and looked around with a more curious expression than his usual calculating gaze. Even Sakura felt freer than she had in a long time.
Their client, however, looked as unimpressed as ever and glanced at Kakashi-sensei incredulously at Naruto's remark.
"I'm supposed to trust these brats with my life?"
Kakashi sighed and snapped his book shut. "I'm a jounin, and I'll be along too," he reassured the man. "We shouldn't meet any other ninja anyways, just minor civilian bandits, so you'll be safe."
"Hmph," Tazuna grunted uneasily to himself, and took a long swig out of the sake bottle he was holding. Sakura saw Sasuke glance over at the bridge builder, and then to her. She nodded once, and then signed watch and wait. An uneasy reaction from a civilian to a statement was suspicious.
"Encouraging," Tazuna muttered, after wiping his mouth.
"Hey!" Naruto shouted, and marched over to stand in the old man's face. Or rather, glare up at his face. Sakura really wished he wouldn't, but the chances of getting Naruto to stand down were about as good as trying to win a spar with her uncle.
"You don't get to disrespect ninja," Naruto said defiantly. "Especially not one who's going to be the future Hokage, like me!" he crossed his arms in the new dark blue jacket he wore. (Sakura suspected that his old orange one had gotten far too mauled to wear)
Tazuna snorted. "And what are you going to do about it, brat?" he challenged. "You don't have the guts or the strength to be the next Hokage, and even if you were I still wouldn't respect you."
Naruto ground his teeth together. "You are DEAD!" he exploded and lunged towards Tazuna. Sakura gasped, but Kakashi was already there, pulling him back.
"I said no, Naruto," Kakashi shook him by his jacket.
Naruto jerked away from him in a huff, glaring at Tazuna. "You'd better remember my name, old man," Naruto threatened, pointing an accusatory finger at him. "It's Uzumaki Naruto, and I will be the Hokage one day, and you'll wish you'd respected me then!"
He stomped off and took the point of the group's formation, not waiting to see if they followed him. Sakura sighed, walking at the right of Tazuna. Sasuke fell in step to his left, and Kakashi brought up the rear.
Two days away from Konoha, Sakura woke up in the middle of the night with pain in her midsection so bad she could hardly think straight. She rolled over into a hunched kneeling position and gasped, trying not to let whimpers escape her mouth. It was all she could focus on through the dizzying pain and nausea.
"Sakura, what's wrong? Are you hurt?" Sasuke's quiet whisper next to her ear made her jump, which only made the pain worse. She shook her head dumbly and tried to catch her breath in order to reply.
"Not an enemy, it's normal. Keep watch," she whispered in response, twisting the chain around her wrist tighter.
Sakura saw him lean back stiffly, watching their surroundings once more. Shame built a red-hot fire in her cheeks, and she clenched her fists. Why, of all people, did this have to happen in front of Sasuke?!
Well, she thought with a shaky grin, Naruto probably would've made a much bigger deal about it, and that definitely would've been worse.
A few moments later, a flask appeared in her vision. She gratefully accepted it, and when enough of the pain and nausea has passed she took a careful sip. The water was sweetened with honey and ginger, and Sakura looked at Sasuke in surprise.
"Thanks," she said softly and held it back out to him. Sasuke just shook his head.
"Keep it till we refill tomorrow, I've got another one," he whispered back. Sakura sat up, leaning against the tree, and took another sip. A few minutes later, nearly all the nausea was gone.
"I'll finish your watch since I'm already up," she told Sasuke, but she could feel his eyes pierce straight through the darkness, studying her.
"Go back to sleep Sakura," he said. "You need to be at your best tomorrow."
"But-"
"Stop distracting me," Sasuke gruffly cut her off, shifting to find a better position for the watch. Sakura felt a tiny smile creep onto her face, and after taking another long drink from Sasuke's flask, she carefully laid back down onto her sleeping roll and closed her eyes.
The morning light broke through fog as the team got ready for the day's travel. As they were waiting for Tazuna to finish breakfast, Kakashi-sensei pulled Sakura aside.
"Are you mission capable, Sakura?" he asked her seriously. Sakura turned white and nodded emphatically.
"Ye-yes Kakashi-sensei. Why…?"
"That seal hurt you this morning. I need to make sure it won't compromise the mission."
Sakura drew a shaky breath. "I can fight through it if I need to," she replied. "I've had to before."
Kakashi-sensei nodded. "I've seen you train in pain before, but I need to check the stability of the seal, to make sure it won't react badly to something."
Sakura nodded, and the jounin pulled up the band covering his Sharingan eye. It swirled red, and Kakashi-sensei touched the seal through her tunic with a finger glowing in blue chakra. Sakura shivered, feeling the seal expand to its full size and glow green through her clothes.
"It looks as if it's failed before, and been rewritten," he said, his eyes widening in surprise.
"That happened when I was pretty young," Sakura admitted.
Kakashi-sensei studied the seal for a while longer, and then straightened up and covered his Sharingan once more. He ruffled Sakura's hair wordlessly and walked back to camp.
Sakura followed her sensei, frowning. She felt a little uneasy but took another drink of the honey-ginger water Sasuke had given her to settle her stomach.
Kakashi was furious.
The seal looked as if it had been written to continuously store a person's chakra as it was created, leaving just enough to keep its host alive. The fact that Sakura could actually use her chakra and small jutsu was a huge testament to her incredibly precise control and conservation, which she probably had to learn in order to stay alive.
Most likely, what was painful for Sakura was when the seal encountered large amounts of excess chakra that wasn't hers and took it in as well as her own. The seal was stable, but the excess chakra was pulled roughly through her deformed system, hurting her until it was done. Which basically meant that every time Naruto sneezed, Sakura was in pain.
It was also far more complex than anything he'd ever dealt with, and nothing like any of Konoha's medical or training seals. After the initial failure, multiple safeguards, concealments, and fall-back seals had been written over it.
The newer writing contained only one thing besides the extra safeguards; the ability to account for incredibly fast-growing rates of chakra being produced. This meant the first time it had failed, Sakura was already producing far more than the average amount of chakra, to make up for constantly losing so much.
That seal was a ticking time bomb, rivaled only by the Kyuubi inside Naruto, and Sakura would likely never be able to live without it.
Kakashi was going to have little heart-to-heart with her uncle when they finished this mission.
Halfway through the day, Sakura was enjoying the bright sunlight when she heard raindrops behind the group. She frowned and turned to look behind her, and what she saw made her reach for a kunai and throw it immediately towards the foreign ninja rising from a puddle behind the group.
"Two ninja, 6 o'clock!" she called out, as the two ninja dodged her kunai and disappeared into the woods on either side of them. "Now on either side, in the forest!"
Sasuke immediately took a defensive position, but Sakura saw Naruto panic. Two chains appeared like lightning from either side of the road and wrapped around Kakashi-sensei. They pulled, and sliced Sakura's sensei to shreds right in front of them.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Naruto screamed.
Sakura took a shuddering breath and flexed her left arm against her own chain. Sakura had to believe the jounin would never die that easily, but if Kakashi-sensei was dead, then it was up to them.
The group was left in silence for a few seconds, and then a cold chuckle echoed across the road.
"Well that was easy," two voices commented at once. Sakura signed quickly to Sasuke when it was apparent that Naruto wasn't going to be good for much in this fight.
Focus on the enemy and Naruto, I'll defend the client and get away.
Sasuke nodded and pulled out a shuriken and kunai. Go when I'm fighting.
Two ninja appeared on either side of Naruto, and the snake-like chains appeared once more, closing around him. One managed to cut Naruto's hand before Sasuke threw his kunai and shuriken, pinning the chains to trees on either side of the road.
Sakura tugged on Tazuna's pack, pulling him down the road and keeping herself in between him and the enemy.
The two shinobi growled in anger at the same time, and abruptly released their chains. One struck at Sasuke, and the other raced towards Sakura. She tracked his movements, saw him tense to jump behind her towards Tazuna, and launched herself up into the air to meet him.
Kunai clashed against armor. Sakura managed to dodge the spikes her enemy held, and kick the ninja's midsection before either of them landed. He doubled over, and she rushed in.
Somehow, the enemy seemed slow. Slower than Kakashi, Shin, or even Sasuke. Her target was easy to reach.
The muscle and tendons in the ninja's left leg peeled away from bone, and as the ninja screamed Sakura turned to disable his dominant arm. The man jumped back from her, trailing blood and launching himself away with his last working limbs. Sakura threw a kunai that embedded itself in the ninja's hip but stayed with Tazuna. Following an enemy wasn't worth leaving their client unprotected.
Suddenly, there were two loud 'cracks,' and the two enemy ninja hung limply in Kakashi-sensei's arms.
Sakura let out a breath of relief and finally looked over to see Sasuke do the same. Naruto was still shaking but seemed to be doing a little better than he had before.
"Naruto, hold as still as you can. We'll have to open up your wound again, blood flow should push out any of the poison still in your system." Kakashi turned to Tazuna, and his voice became very, very cold. "Why were they targeting you?" he asked. "Protecting you from simple road bandits and thugs would be within the scope of this mission, but to have Kirigakure shinobi after you would turn this mission into a B or an A rank."
Tazuna looked uncomfortable. "I- we…"
Kakashi-sensei loomed over the old man. "This mission is progressing to a state that, in order to continue on, we'll have to request backup while we wait for Naruto to recover."
Sakura silently went over to Naruto and took out a bandage from her pack while Kakashi-sensei interrogated their client. She gently pulled his jacket off and tied the bandage tightly around the upper part of his arm, cutting off the blood flow back to his heart. Naruto's haunted expression worried her.
Sasuke didn't appear nearly so concerned, and just smirked at him.
"Are you okay, you big chicken?" he asked mockingly. Naruto blinked, and his expression morphed into angry indignation.
He growled, yanking out a kunai and plunging it into the wound on his hand. Everyone in the group turned to stare at him as blood poured down his arm.
"By this kunai and the blood I've shed," Naruto swore, "I will do my duty as a Konoha shinobi. Uzumaki Naruto, reporting as mission capable, Kakashi-sensei!" he saluted dramatically, determination etched across every line of his face.
Sakura giggled, unwinding the bandage that had been cutting off circulation to his arm and rewinding it around Naruto's hand. She frowned for a moment when it appeared as if Naruto's hand was already healing itself.
Kakashi-sensei blinked, then let out a long-suffering sigh. "Just don't bleed to death now, please."
Naruto looked confused, as if he hadn't known that was possible, and a moment later a new expression of terror crossed his face.
"EHHHHHH?"
Sakura giggled harder.