The first lesson was unlike any lesson Sakura had ever experienced, nor like anything she'd imagined.
She'd tossed and turned the entire night, then spent the grey hours of early morning sharpening her weapons until the sun finally peeked through the clouds and announced it was a reasonable enough hour for her to leave the house without making her parents worry. There wasn't much she could do about the bags hanging under her eyes, but she'd trimmed her nails and gathered her hair up in a tight bun. She looked clean, but not pretty, and that would have to suffice.
Sakura knew she would reek of desperation if she went so early in the morning to the Tower to camp for Tsunade-sama's arrival. So she'd gone to the genin training grounds, making a detour around a certain red bridge, and ran a few laps. That was how she'd found Lee.
Gone were the somber expression and the black uniform given to all shinobi for a single, morbid purpose. Lee, because he was Lee and no other, was walking on his hands and shifted to balance all his weight on his left so he could wave at her with his right and flash an unnaturally bright smile at her. He accomplished all this without so much as batting an eyelid.
And because he greeted her so normally with all the absurd acrobatics one could expect from Gai's protege, Sakura couldn't help but let the tension drain from her brittle shoulders. Lee's face was honest. It held no pity, no concern. For the first time since that day Kakashi-sensei had returned to the village with nothing but a blank expression and a body scroll, Sakura felt allowed to talk about something other—something that wasn't Uchiha or Team 7 or Naruto related.
Something like the random thought that if Lee were an animal, he would have been one of those bright green lizards she saw waddling frantically over water like they had urgent business to attend to. Something like how the dentists of Konoha needed to rework their marketing campaigns to display the model of perfect dental health before her. Something like how she would never admit that Lee's hair shined with a luster that she'd always envied.
Normalcy. That was what she wanted.
So Sakura waved back with an awkward smile and was almost delighted when Lee blew her a sloppy wet kiss that she dodged as normal.
"Just what I expected from such a vibrant flower of springtime, Sakura-chan!" Lee said. "Your movements are lively as always!"
"Thank you," Sakura said, her tongue feeling clumsy from days of disuse. And because it felt strange to be complimented without reciprocating, she added, "You're so... athletic."
She frowned as soon as the words left her mouth, knowing she sounded sarcastic and wishing she could step back and let a noisy blond do all the talking. She'd never been confident and witty like Ino, or effortlessly cool like Sasuke, or capable of pure endless chatter unfiltered by self-consciousness like Naruto—
Don't, she warned herself.
But she was saved from having to elaborate when Lee's face puckered up dramatically and he pledged one hundred laps around the village to prove that his athleticism was indeed worthy of her acknowledgements. Lee was easy, she realized, watching him go. He was one of the few people she knew who didn't expect explanations.
This was how Sakura had imagined it: Tsunade-sama would take her to a training ground and turn it into a canyon. And Sakura too would be utterly transformed—from a teenage girl to a pile of pink pulp.
What Sakura got instead was the cute cafe across the street from the Tower. It was the fashionable sort of establishment frequented by young couples who justified the cost because of the elegant windows lined with rows of succulents in quirky animal-shaped pots, the string lights hanging from the wooden rafters, the chalkboard menu decorated with loopy handwriting announcing fanciful items like Orange Delight and Mango Tango
Once upon a time, she might have come to such a place with Sasuke on a brunch date.
Sakura blinked and scoured the thought from her brain, focusing her attention on Tsunade-sama who wasted no time pulling a silver flask out of her robes and pouring the contents into the pitcher of Orange Delight that had materialized on the table.
Her fearless leader drained a glass in one shot. And then another, smacking her lips, before settling back in her seat with the expression of a satisfied cat. "Cute place, isn't it," Tsunade-sama said. "The orange juice is fresh—not that piss-flavored garbage that's made in a bottle."
Sakura nodded, wondering if this was part of the lesson. Perhaps Tsunade-sama was speaking in metaphors and the freshly squeezed orange juice symbolized the merit of not taking any shortcuts in one's training.
"You're probably wondering why I brought you here."
Sakura nodded again.
"No particular reason," Tsunade-sama remarked. "Just, this building used to be Orochimaru's lab. See that door over there?" she asked, gesturing vaguely at a spot behind Sakura's head. "That used to lead to a secret room where he kept all his pets."
Suddenly, the cafe didn't feel so warm and cozy anymore. Sakura turned to follow the line of Tsunade-sama's finger and scrutinized a perfectly normal looking door that certainly didn't appear to be housing any of those gigantic snakes that had been so delighted to make her acquaintance during the exams. But then again, Orochimaru himself had come across as a perfectly normal looking person before shedding his own skin off. So much for ordinary things.
She looked at her surroundings more critically, eyes catching on a suspicious discoloration on the floor and began to wonder what unfortunate creature had been murdered there. She felt oddly betrayed.
"They really turned this place around," Tsunade-sama continued. "Used to be you couldn't come within five kilometers of this place without being turned off by the smell. Good for them though. This is prime real estate and must've been dirt cheap with how squeamish people get about the littlest things." She paused to take another drink. "Anyway, I brought you here because I thought you'd be more comfortable."
Comfort had indeed been a friendly reality before Tsunade-sama had revealed the grizzly truth of the place—not that Sakura said as much. But now, Sakura felt compelled to keep her limbs glued to her body to minimize contact with whatever was left festering in the building after Orochimaru's occupation.
"I want you to diagnose yourself."
At that, Sakura paused. "I'm not ill," she ventured timidly. She certainly hadn't felt ill this morning, but a lot had happened since then.
"No. I didn't say you were," Tsunade-sama replied. "I want you, Sakura, to diagnose your weaknesses. Be thorough."
"Oh," Sakura said dumbly. She looked down at her hands folded politely on the table, her eyes tracing the slim, uncalloused fingers that culminated in clean white fingernails. Her mother often took Sakura's hands and examined them with admiration, remarking on her delicate pianist fingers. It was a shame, her mother had said once, that Sakura had chosen to pursue a career that wasn't kind to girls with pretty hands.
Another pitcher of Orange Delight was delivered and Tsunade-sama fixed her with a hawk-eyed stare over the silver flask that was making a second appearance. "I'm a busy woman, Sakura. I haven't got all day."
"I—" Sakura cleared her throat and thought of how woefully underprepared she'd been compared to the rest of the participants in the Chuunin Exams. "My chakra levels are low and subpar at best," she began. "I have poor stamina. I'm slow at hand signs—I'm slow in general. My taijutsu is sloppy. My accuracy could use some work. I don't know any jutsu other than the academy standards…"
She trailed off, feeling a stab of resentment. No one had ever taught her a special, signature jutsu. Everyone else had a signature clan jutsu, or weaponized sand, or a puppet, or taijutsu faster than her eye could follow.
All of her academy teachers had been satisfied with her progress. No one had ever given her anything but positive feedback that she'd wrapped around herself like protective armor. And when she'd been grouped with Sasuke, for one shining moment, she'd felt invincible before discovering her armor was no more effective than scissors against rock when faced with real ninja in the real world.
The academy, she realized, had been a glorified daycare. And her teachers had been cruel to praise her, for raising her in an insulated bubble of simulations where the worst that could happen was receiving a failing grade.
Sakura remembered the case of the little girl next door who had been born with a weak heart. Her parents had been fiercely protective of her, sheltering her in a house that was perfectly sterile. Sakura had only seen her once—there'd been a viral cold going around one winter—and she'd been helping her mother carry the groceries up when there was a sudden commotion down the street. When she'd joined the group of neighbors peering curiously at the house that rarely had any visitors, she saw a man running frantically down the street with a small girl in his arms.
Later they found out that the little girl had died. Her immune system had never developed a resistance to the strain of common cold that her parents had unwittingly brought into the house.
She was like that little girl—sheltered to the point that brief exposure could kill her.
"Is that all?" Tsunade-sama prodded. "Because I think you left out a few things. Like how you're easily distracted, easily intimidated, lacking in self-confidence, unable to give a thorough report to your superior." She punctuated each flaw with a tap of her red fingernails against the table.
As it turned out, Tsunade-sama was just as adept at pulverizing people with her words as she was with her fists. If Sakura had approached this appointment with a tiny spark of hope kindling in her chest, it had just been doused to extinction by an unrelenting firehose. She couldn't help the shameful burning in her cheeks and found herself unable to stand up to the scrutiny of Tsunade-sama's piercing gaze. This had been a mistake.
"I apologize," she said haltingly. "I didn't mean to waste your time."
Tsunade-sama snorted. "You're just a house cat, a fresh academy grad. A waste of time is what I expected." But then she must have decided she'd satisfied her quota of scathing remarks for she leaned back in her chair and let the hardness in her eyes fade just enough for Sakura to risk glancing back up again.
"Sakura," Tsunade-sama said, voice softening incrementally. "Tell me why you're here. If you're interested in healing and medicine, I genuinely applaud you and encourage you, but you're better off going to medical school. We have the best medical program in the five nations, you know."
"I know," Sakura said. "But I didn't ask to meet with you because I want to be a doctor. I—" Her throat constricted around her voice.
"Then what is it?"
"Naruto," she said, and if her voice sounded slightly mangled, Tsunade-sama was merciful enough not to react. "He told me about what you did to Orochimaru."
"Ah. Brat and his big mouth," Tsunade-sama said knowingly. "What exactly did he tell you?"
Emboldened by the hint of satisfaction curling in Tsunade-sama's lips, Sakura elaborated, "He said you were sneakier than he thought you were. That you pretended you were going to heal Orochimaru and then you ruined him. I… I want to be able to do something like that."
"And how," Tsunade-sama asked, "do you expect to do that?"
Sakura blinked, the skin around her eyes feeling strangely tight. "I know I'm not strong. I could train my entire life and never be strong enough to take on someone like Orochimaru. But I've seen what happens to strong ninja," she said softly. "I know there's a price to pay for strength and that even the strongest ninja can't fight forever. Eventually they'll need to stop to rest and heal. And when that happens…"
She squashed down the insecurity creeping inside her threatening to force her head down, looking up at Tsunade-sama's piercing gaze.
"I want to be there," Sakura finished. The next time Sasuke is injured. When Sasuke starts to go blind from relying on his Sharingan, she thought, but instead said, "This much, I think I can do."
You're just a housecat, Tsunade-sama had said. Something unassuming and ordinary, but capable of exterminating pests.
She'd done her research in the days leading up to this, had considered the tools kept in a medic-nin's kit that she could add to her arsenal. Poison, a sharp chakra scalpel piercing the heart smooth as butter—those would be her claws, not a ball of crackling lightning or a sphere of swirling chakra.
For the first time since they sat down, Tsunade-sama smiled. It wasn't the sort of charming, pretty smile that Sakura and Ino had practiced in the mirror, but rather the sort of smile a shark might give if it were feeling friendly towards its prey. "Tell me, Sakura," she said. "What is the purpose of a diagnosis?"
The question blindsighted Sakura who had half been expecting another verbal assault laying out all the various reasons why a distinctly unextraordinary ninja like Sakura shouldn't try so hard to be extraordinary. "Um," she responded intelligently. "To identify the problem?"
"And to come up with a treatment plan," Tsunade-sama finished, eyes glinting. "Listen, I'm not going to hold your hand and walk you through every step of the way. You've diagnosed your weaknesses and now I expect you to be resourceful enough to come up with your own solutions."
She gave Sakura an expectant look. "So tell me. How do you fix this?" she asked, waving vaguely in Sakura's direction.
Sakura found herself once again in front of the memorial stone. It made an attractive picture, and if she were any sort of artist, she might have attempted to capture the way it absorbed all the sunset hues of soft fuchsia fading into lavender and orange. Someone, maybe a genin following the instructions of a D-rank mission, had recently mowed the patch of grass that she sank into. It was the soft, lush, dark green variety that was perfect for daytime naps, not the itchy yellow kind.
It felt nice. After days of lounging around the house, it felt nice to feel something organic under her fingers and to inhale the fresh air into her dusty lungs. She resisted the childish urge to tear the neat, manicured grass into pieces with her fingers and instead wrapped her arms around her knees.
That was how Kakashi-sensei found her, chin resting on her knees and studying the names on the stone.
He approached, shuffling his feet and not looking all that surprised that he had to share his favorite hiding place with her as plopped down on the grass next to her.
"Sakura," he greeted after a prolonged moment of silence.
"Kakashi-sensei," she greeted back.
"Someone told me you decided to apprentice yourself to the Hokage," he said conversationally.
"Oh. Yes." she said meekly. Was that wrong? Was she supposed to inform her sensei? She wasn't sure of the proper protocol to follow for ninja who lost their teammates.
"And would you mind clarifying the reason for your confused Sensei?"
Was he mad? She peeked at the twenty-five percent of his face that was visible. He didn't look mad, but then again, he never looked like anything other than vaguely bored or vaguely disappointed.
And because he was preternaturally capable of reading minds, his eye crinkled happily as he reassured her, "I'm not mad, Sakura. I just thought you should know this doesn't change the fact that you're my favorite student."
"I'm your only student, Sensei," she muttered. Something squeezed her heart painfully at the words and she went back to staring at the stone.
There was another measure of silence that would've been broken up by a scoff from Sasuke or whining from Naruto if they'd been there. She missed them, she realized, and the thought filled her with sudden helpless anger at Sasuke for ruining everything.
"You know I wouldn't give a cool speech about the importance of not leaving your teammates behind if I weren't prepared to prove it," Kakashi-sensei remarked breezily as if he didn't notice the way his favorite student trembled. "I haven't left you behind, Sakura-chan."
He reached over to ruffle her hair, making her look up at him. "Unless you think I'm trash," he said nonchalantly. The hand ruffling her hair stilled and dropped to his side. "I suppose I couldn't blame you if you did," he said in the same casual voice.
She whirled on him, horrified by the angry tears prickling her eyes. "You—" she started, but couldn't find the words. For a brief moment, she entertained the perverse notion of asking him the accusatory question that had been creeping inside her mind for the past several days. Why? How could you fail? There was a tiny part of her locked up in a dark corner that wanted to make him squirm with guilt for failing. But she dropped the idea almost immediately, ashamed. What good would that do?
"You owe me a cool jutsu," she muttered instead, gathering her knees back into her arms.
"I suppose I do," he acknowledged.
What a sad, funny pair they made—almost a pair of orphans without teammates. Sensei was one of those strong ninja, but she knew better than most that he wasn't infallible. She remembered the sheer horror in his eyes when he'd been caught in Zabuza's water prison. And that look on Kakashi-sensei's face had almost been worse than the situation itself because it meant he was afraid. Afraid because he couldn't save them and no one could.
Yes, Sensei was strong but he wasn't infallible.
"Sakura," Kakashi-sensei said after a while. "You don't have to do this. Someone with your skills could pursue, say, a lucrative career in medicine. As a doctor, not as a combat medic," he added.
"I know," Sakura answered. "That's what my parents want me to do."
"That would be the sensible thing to do and you know it."
It was funny. She'd never before shared an interaction with Kakashi-sensei that could be classified as a conversation. But here they were, having a legitimate conversation that single-handedly managed to exceed the word count of all their prior interactions combined.
"I know," she repeated. "I know that the Village needs more doctors than children playing ninja. I know it's a noble career and that I could do a lot of good. So maybe I'm being selfish. It's just…"
She swallowed dryly. "I need to… correct this," she continued, turning to catch Kakashi-sensei's gaze and willing him to understand because surely he must. "I was wrong, Kakashi-sensei. I was wrong. And I can't just leave it like that."
"Hmm." It was just a low flat hum delivered without any change in expression, but it made Sakura drop her eyes to her hands.
"I can't stand knowing he's out there thinking he won," she said quietly. "He doesn't deserve it."
Kakashi-sensei only responded with another flat hmm that was accompanied by the same appraising look he'd been wearing since he'd found her. She couldn't tell what he was looking for, but she imagined that her words didn't exactly match her unimpressive appearance.
"Well, Sakura," Kakashi-sensei said at last. "It appears your sense of justice is in good working order—"
"I—what?" she snapped. "It's not about justice."
"—and I'll know exactly where to point fingers if we start seeing Justice for Naruto posters," Kakashi-sensei continued over her. "All in all, I'm inspired. You know, in Icha Icha Violence, Masako-chan says something almost exactly word for word after the death of her lover but then of course she meets her therapist Eiji-san and—"
"—Can you just, ugh!" Sakura ran an exasperated hand through her hair and muttered something under her breath about the unfairness of the gods who saw fit to assign as her sensei the most infuriating being in all the five nations.
Kakashi-sensei chuckled. "I know how you feel, Sakura," he said after a pause. The amusement in his eye faded to something soft and sober when he looked back at the stone. "I really do."
And well, he was the only person in the Village who had the right to say that. She couldn't deny that he probably understood how she felt better than she did. After all, he was the one who'd had to drag Naruto's body all the way back home and admit to the Village how badly he'd failed. She'd heard the rumors. She'd heard one of the elders mutter like father like son.
"You could at least pretend to care then," she said sullenly.
"Ah, you're right. But maybe you could loosen up and humor a sad old man once in a while," said Kakashi-sensei. "All work and no play makes Sensei a dull boy."
"You can't be an old man and a dull boy at the same time."
Kakashi-sensei chuckled again. "Right you are, Sakura-chan. What would I do without you? I'd be all kinds of mixed up.
"You're awfully chatty today, Sensei."
"I just thought you could use a friend, Sakura."
"Me? Sounds more like you need a friend, Sensei."
He clutched at his heart dramatically. "I have friends, you know," Kakashi-sensei protested.
"Sensei, you have precisely nine friends, all of whom are contractually obligated to show up when summoned," Sakura bit back, unable to prevent the corners of her lips from curling up.
Kakashi-sensei drooped. "Ow. You're a mean one, Sakura-chan," he said. It appeared, contrary to his default settings, that Sensei was in fact capable of a myriad of expressions as he somehow managed to convey a pout just by the quirk of his brows.
"I'm not wrong though," Sakura said.
His single eye curled up cheerfully as he remarked, "You know people say dogs are man's best friend. You shouldn't disregard the wisdom of your peers so easily."
Sakura just shook her head and hid her smile behind her hair. She knew what Kakashi-sensei was doing and the thought that he was actually trying to comfort her made her feel warm inside. Of course, because he was Kakashi-sensei, he had to be all weird and wasn't capable of doing things normally like offering her a hug. Although, she considered, she'd probably find it even stranger if he did offer to hug her.
She would just have to accept that things would never be normal again. Nothing could change the fact that Naruto would never again be around to pull a stupid prank. Nothing could change the fact that Sasuke was a murderer. But maybe her life would go on even in the absence of her team.