DISCLAIMER: Naruto is property of Masashi Kishimoto. Shefalls holds no claim over any bit of it.

Edited: 29/03/2021

The Leaves of the Tree

11.

Kakashi-sensei had taken Sasuke away as soon as the healers cleared him. That was a little over twelve hours after the official end of the second round. It's been two days since then and there was no sign of either of them returning before the third round began. Knowing Kakashi-sensei, they might be late for that, too.

Sakura would've been furious at this show of favoritism. She worked very hard to earn Kakashi-sensei's favor, was immensely proud of her official spot as his cutest little genin, his darling lil' kunoichi – as he'd mumbled once, drugged up on painkillers and thoroughly out of it, after Naruto dropped a steel beam on his head on accident. She would've gone on a reckless quest to track both of them down to rain fury on their sorry butts, in the form of unholy shrieks and faked sobs, as Sakura learned this method worked very efficiently on her teammates.

'The girl cries? Quick, give her what she wants, maybe she'll stop leaking!'

'As if,' she thought with a brief sneer.

'Morons,' Inner Sakura agreed cheerfully.

But as things stood, Sakura wasn't even a little miffed. Well, she'd experienced a brief flash of murderousness when she was woken up at an ungodly hour by someone smacking her straight on the nose. Then she'd seen who did it and promptly didn't care, too busy cooing over the best summons in the world.

Pakkun had been delegated to watch Sakura and Naruto, and make sure they were ready to kick ass.

Sakura adored Pakkun.

He was tiny. He was soft. He passed gas and burped in people's faces like no other and he put the fear of god into her boys, simply by being significantly faster and having the mouth of a sailor. He licked Sakura's fingertips, snored contentedly on her lap and once bit at Kakashi-sensei's ankle when he tried to dislodge the ninken from his student so she could participate in training. Pakkun had caught that horrible cat Tora for Sakura once, and scared him so much it took the demented feline three months to dare attempt another bid at freedom. He also once peed on Ino's foot when she mocked Sakura's forehead in his presence.

Sakura loved all of Kakashi-sensei's ninken, she really did. The entire pack was an absolute dream. But she truly adored Pakkun.

And Pakkun loved her just as much.

"Oi, whisker-boy, that's the fastest you got?"

Sakura would've laughed at Naruto's expression, but they were on lap fifteen around Konoha and she could barely breathe, let alone make any sort of sound.

"Keep at it Sakura, great job!"

Pakkun woke Sakura at half past three and then commandeered her to get Naruto up. That took significant effort on both their parts and only after forty minutes did they succeed. By succeed Sakura meant Pakkun's patience ran out and he bit Naruto straight on the ass. Naruto woke up screaming and flailing, kicked a laughing Sakura in the shin and nearly threw Pakkun out of his window. Sakura proceeded to sit on his stomach and smack him with a pillow until Naruto came to his senses, while Pakkun, wearing a serious expression but obviously acting in petty vengeance, peed in Naruto's shower. After that chaotic wake-up call, the two found themselves running laps around Konoha as they were used to, but with Pakkun on their heels, insulting Naruto, complimenting Sakura, and nipping the ankles of whoever lagged behind for longer than a moment.

It was worse than survival training, in Sakura's opinion. She hated running with a passion. She hated cardio. She hated sweating. She hated having trouble breathing and getting lightheaded.

Most of all, Sakura hated losing to Naruto.

"Shannaro!" she hollered, speaking the nearly-forgotten word for the first time in many years. With a burst of speed, egged on by Inner Sakura's cheers and her own determination, Sakura broke into training ground 12 three steps before Naruto. She collapsed on her back, sprawled on the ground with her long hair in disarray and dirt sticking to her sweaty skin. Naruto crumbled in a heap to her left, groaned pitifully and offered Sakura a hand to high-five. She barely managed to tap his palm with hers before giving up on any sort of movement.

"Ya won, Sakura-chan," Naruto mumbled, his face burrowed in the grass. "That's the first time."

He was right.

"Won't be the last," she swore breathily, and Naruto gave a tired, happy chuckle.

"What are you two doing?" Pakkun asked dryly. "Get up. Time for taijutsu."

'Maybe Pakkun isn't my favorite, after all.' Sakura thought darkly as the pug ninken unleashed a day of torture on their unexpecting selves.

Day two was worse than day one.

For some reason Sakura thought Pakkun would let up. Maybe it was how he cuddled on top of her stomach when she'd gone to sleep that day. Maybe it was because he woke her at the perfectly acceptable hour of six thirty. She was wrong. So wrong.

'I… I can't believe this,' Sakura thought, her face red from concentration as sweat trickled into her hair line. It was absolutely gross – getting sweat in her hair.

At least today she had the time to braid it back.

Pakkun had dragged Sakura and Naruto to one of the cliffs surrounding Konoha – just outside its walls, still within the permanent patrol circles of ANBU. A perfectly safe spot, overlooking a nice valley. Then he had them hang upside down from a flimsy branch, right above a very steep drop. There were sharp rocks at the bottom, of course. Whenever the branch shook, Pakkun cackled, and Sakura was almost entirely convinced by this point that it wasn't Pakkun at all. This was Kakashi-sensei, hiding beneath some sort of twisted henge, and he was torturing them for fun. He'd finally lost the last screw holding his sanity together after what happened in the Forest of Death. The one flaw to her hypothesis was how unimpressed Pakkun had been by Naruto's pervy-style jutsu. It never failed to work on Kakashi-sensei, but Pakkun was as uninterested in the half-naked fake women as always.

"Focus of your chakra, dumbass," Pakkun advised Naruto, who'd clung to the branch for dear life after he lost concentration to cast his little trick.

"Stop shaking the branch, Naruto!" Sakura hissed, as her own chakra began to slip due to the unsteady base.

"We're gonna die! Gonna die!" Naruto wailed.

"Do that jutsu again and I'll save ya!" hooted a male voice.

Something about that voice rubbed Sakura the wrong way. She had the sudden urge to wack its owner with something heavy and hopefully deal lasting damage. It made her skin crawl, the roots of her hair tingle and her teeth almost shudder. Even Inner Sakura gave pause to wonder just why they suddenly wanted to pummel a total stranger.

Sakura had her answer in less than two minutes, when Naruto and she were safely deposited on solid ground, and the leering old man before them expectantly waited for a repeat show.

'Ah,' Sakura thought. 'It's my pervert-identification sense.'

'Seems so,' Inner Sakura greed sagely.

'Wait, what the fuck?!' Sakura grabbed the nearest object – a palm sized rock – and threw it at the man's head. It hit him smack on the forehead and left a very obvious bruise behind.

"That's sexual assault, you creep!" Sakura screeched and Naruto scrambled to stand behind her.

"You tell him, Sakura-chan!" Naruto squeaked, thoroughly disturbed. No one ever asked him to repeat the pervy jutsu before. The suggestive leer was just the cherry on top of the 'hell-no-get-away' vibe the geezer had going on.

"Hey, young lady," the weirdo leveled Sakura with a flat look. "Throwing rocks at senior citizen's rude, you know."

"Harassing kids is worse!" Sakura picked up another rock and took aim.

"Yo, Sakura," Pakkun gave her a look. "No need for that. That's gonna be your teacher for a little while."

Sakura gaped and Naruto chocked on air.

"Come again?" she demanded.

"Kakashi arranged it," Pakkun shrugged, and how he managed that was absolutely beyond Sakura. "The old pervert's late, but he's here for you two."

"Oi, I had a long distance to cover," said old pervert picked at his ear, completely unashamed.

"Oh my god," Naruto grabbed Sakura's shoulder's and pulled her back. "Kakashi-sensei sold us! He sold us to this weirdo!"

"Don't be ridiculous," Sakura hissed, but at this point she was almost ready to believe Naruto got it right, for a change. "Kakashi-sensei wouldn't sell me, I'm his favorite."

And her parents would hire the whole of Konoha's shinobi force to hunt his ass if he ever dared. Sakura had complete faith Kakashi-sensei wouldn't risk it for those reasons alone.

"What a mess," The perverted stranger rolled his eyes, flipped his ridiculously long white hair over his shoulder and struck a frankly stupid dramatic pose. Sakura very briefly realised that something about him reminded her a little of how Naruto was, before she'd trained him up. "Listen up, ungrateful brats! I'm the amorous ninja from Mount Myoboku! The magnificent Toad Sage, Jiraiya-sama!"

Pakkun nodded his head in agreement, confirming the weirdo's words.

"Fuck no," Naruto deadpanned.

"Yeah, that's a bad lie," Sakura agreed.

They knew who Jiraiya was. Everybody knew who Jiraiya was. Student of the Third, master of the Fourth. Greatest fuinjutsu expert alive. The only one of the Sannin who appeared in every possible book. The only one still actively loyal to Konoha. The only one openly spoken about, recognized, and acknowledged in any way. There was no way in the Seven Hells of Ashura that this old weirdo of a pervert was in fact one of Konoha's mightiest heroes.

No way.

It turned out that yeah way, it wasn't a lie. The great sage Jiraiya was also the world's biggest, most shameless pervert, with no code of honor whatsoever, no boundaries and zero intention of ever stopping. He also took it personally that Naruto wouldn't repeat his pervy jutsu. And apparently having a rock slammed into his forehead by Sakura during the whole confusion was insulting too. Go figure.

In retaliation to his new charges' disobedient ways, Jiraiya brought up two sharp pillars from the ground and had them balance right on top – or risk a very painful fall… into an improvised fucking swamp Jiraiya made out of nothing and then filled with the nastiest smelling liquid Sakura had ever been unfortunate enough to sniff. Toad gunk, he'd called it, with a maniacal grin. Still fresh.

Jiraiya made them balance on those pillars for close to six hours. While Sakura and Naruto concentrated, cursed, and couldn't quite believe their shitty luck – as this sort of thing just never happened to Naruto, Jiraiya made camp. He pulled out a notebook and pen, positioned the oddest set of binoculars in existence just so, and then proceeded to scribble down unknown things while cackling like a raving lunatic. He probably was a raving lunatic. As was Kakashi-sensei, for leaving them in this madman's hands.

Pakkun lazed in the shade and chewed on an annoyingly squeaking luxury toy Sakura had bought just for him, with her precious savings. No one came to save them.

Sakura and Naruto had been abandoned to the dogs.

When Sakura crawled back home that day, she couldn't feel her legs. Her chakra pathways burned, and her muscles screamed at her in protest for staying in such an uncomfortable position for hours on end. Unlike her impromptu lurking in the Forest of Death, this time Sakura had no adrenaline or anger to back her up and give her the drive she lacked. To fire up her determination. She also didn't have the luxury of passing out as soon as it was done. This time Sakura felt the exhaustion quite keenly, along with a potent need to make sure Jiraiya paid for it.

Naruto was so far gone after their training, Sakura carried him on her own back and deposited him at her mother's dining room table, because she was concerned he might die before they made it to his apartment. Her mother took one look at the two of them, snorted in disbelief and proceeded to order an obscene amount of food from the closest restaurant. Mebuki dragged both genin upstairs, told them to bathe and put on something clean before they made her retch (they'd inevitably fallen into Jiraiya's horrid concoction eventually). Half an hour later, Sakura dragged herself downstairs, clad in her fluffiest pajamas and with a towel wrapped around her head. Naruto was again sat by the dining table, this time chewing slowly on a dumpling and positively melting under Mebuki's aggressive fretting.

'Mom really does like Naruto, huh?' Sakura wondered, as Mebuki carefully smoothed Naruto's damp hair out of his face and tsked at his bewildered expression.

'Yep,' Inner Sakura relied eagerly, 'definitely more than she does Mistress Uchiha. Think we can get her to officially adopt our dumbass, so we can keep him on a leash forever?'

'Naruto's not a pet,' Sakura argued, but the whole adoption thing had merit. If Naruto were theirs, no civilian would ever bully him again. Mebuki would slaughter them. Financially, of course. Her mother wasn't violent.

'Even if they don't, we could,' Inner Sakura decided, just as Naruto noticed Sakura and sent her his trademark bright smile, a little worn around the edges from exhaustion.

'We already did,' Sakura decided. 'He's ours. Kakashi-sensei's ours. Sasuke's ours.'

'Madame Rage ain't shit.'

'He's still ours!'

Inner Sakura scoffed, but didn't carry on. Team 7 really was theirs. Just as Sakura had claimed Ino, Tenten, Lee-san and Hinata as theirs, too. Shikamaru and Choji were Naruto's, and Sakura wasn't ever going to lay any sort of claim over Guy-sensei. Honestly speaking, Sakura was beginning to suspect that once she'll figure out what made Jiraiya tick, other than naked women, she might claim that walking mess, too. Even if only out of spite.

Sakura loved her people. She treasured each and every one of them. If her only way of getting stronger was to train under a lecherous bastard old enough to be her grandparent, so be it. She'll train and she'll excel, and when the time comes she'll hunt down that yellow-eyed creep Orochimaru and put his head on a spike for hurting what was hers.

But before any of that, she was going to give the local bathhouses an anonymous tip that a pervert was on the loose, and they should tighten security. Oh, and put up some wanted posters of her newest teacher. And give Ino the information so that every kunoichi in town was warned.

Hey, Jiraiya started playing dirty first. He shouldn't blame Sakura for being much better at it.