DISCLAIMER: Naruto is property of Masasho Kishimoto.

Edited: 01/04/2021

The Leaves of the Tree

13.

Giant toads summons. That's what Naruto got out of their time with Jiraiya.

Sure, his chakra control improved magnificently to the point he could preform most exercises perfectly even without properly waking up, and his pervy jutsu was now so efficient it would land most shinobi in the hospital due to severe blood loss. But truly, the toads were the highlight of it.

Toads.

Sakura patted herself on the back for coming out on top once again, and landing a useful skill rather than… well. Amphibians.

Overpowered taijutsu was the shit.

After Sakura's homicidal display she was almost confident Jiraiya would wash his hands off her. She put a kunai to his neck and cut the skin. Not deeply, but there was some blood involved and a lot of intent to maim. Sakura also swore at him, which Jiraiya normally couldn't stand. Oh, and she put him in the tiniest crater ever made, with her dusty feet. She would've understood and held nothing against him for kicking her butt out of his tutelage. Heaven only knows how Kakashi-sensei would've flipped had Sakura done any of those things to him.

Instead, Jiraiya cracked up for twenty minutes, during which Naruto strongly suspected he'd gone mad. The aging man howled something about 'karma', and repeatedly snickered that 'oh this is gold she'll love this', before ruffling Sakura's hair and telling her to buckle up. He had something fun to teach her.

And it was fun.

The first time Sakura leveled a tree with a single kick, just a little over 48 hours after Jiraiya began teaching her how, she felt incredible. Naruto ran for his life and refused to spar with her from that moment on, so naturally Sakura chased him, demanding he let her see just how far she could throw his ramen-addicted ass. When pressed, Jiraiya grudgingly admitted it'll be months if not years until Naruto had a speck of the chakra control necessary to pull that sort of stunt, too. He could teach Sakura only because she had already achieved near-perfect chakra control on her own. Jiraiya hadn't developed the technique and wasn't an expert in control, himself. He could copy some of it, but he didn't know the basics.

Luckily, Sakura didn't want the basics.

She wanted to bash heads in.

And Jiraiya was glad to let her, cackling like a devil all the way.

"Forehead, what the fuck are you wearing?" Ino asked, and though her tone was completely neutral Sakura could practically smell Ino's dissapproval.

It was the day of the third round, finally. Naruto and Sakura were currently standing in the designated sidelines, bored out of their minds, and waiting for Kakashi-sensei to return with their brooding third teammate. Naruto couldn't wait to summon Gamabunta on top of Sasuke's head, and Sakura was also curious to see how that unfolded. Preferably from a safe distance with a camera in hand, because that explosion would definitely be one for the books.

Naruto was decked out in his favorite yellow tracksuit, sealing scroll thrown over his shoulder and gleaming forehead protector in place. Currently he was talking Hinata's ears off, telling the blushing but smiling girl in detail about the great breakfast Sakura's mother had prepared for them that day.

"Ramen-themed, dattebayo!" Naruto all but squealed in excitement, under Hinata's soft and indulgent smile.

Sakura wore her spandex shorts, an orange shirt Naruto had let her borrow, protective wraps around her knees and hands, and her headband over her forehead, with her hair in a tightly braided bun as per usual. She was in the middle of rolling her eyes at Naruto when Ino's question got her attention.

Ino was eyeing the orange shirt with open horror.

"What?" Sakura blinked.

"It's orange!" Ino hissed. "It's got Naruto's family crest on it!"

"So?"

"There's holes and stains!" Ino said, completely horrified.

"Yeah, that's the point."

"Oh my god, Forehead! What if Sasuke-kun sees?!"

"Screw Teme," Naruto piped up, "yo, Shikamaru, Choji."

"Sup?" Shikamaru managed, clearly not entirely awake yet. Choji hadn't even opened his eyes, Shikamaru was discreetly holding him up with his strange shadow jutsu. Hinata peeked over Naruto's shoulder and waved at the three.

"If Sasuke has a problem, he can lend me one of his," Sakura said flatly. "I'm not ruining my clothes for this."

"Why do you have to ruin any clothes?" Ino growled. "What are you, a brute?!"

Sakura grumbled and Naruto guffawed.

Hinata, who saw Sakura put Naruto through a wall just the day before and consequently destroy a nice long-sleeved blouse, chuckled softly and patted Sakura on the arm.

"Just, trust me," Sakura muttered.

"Oi, Pinky!" Jiraiya's voice dragged Sakura's gaze to the crowd, where he lounged on a seat with a busty bimbo on either side, like some great mafioso. Her eyebrow ticked in annoyance. "Nice getup!"

Sakura flipped him off.

"That's my girl!" Jiraiya cackled. "Make me proud, Naruto!"

"Pervy-sage!" Naruto yelled, waving excitedly. "You'll cheer for us, right?!"

Jiraiya saluted them and wagged his eyebrows suggestively.

"Believe it, 'ttebayo!" Naruto fist bumped the air, and Sakura pinched the bridge of her nose, praying for strength.

"Who's the hedgehog?" Ino asked dryly.

"Ah, Jiraiya-sama," Sakura slapped on the honorific on instinct. It was one thing to badmouth Jiraiya to his face, she'd earned the right to do it, but Sakura couldn't quite bring herself to disrespect a revered hero in public. Not quite yet at least. Maybe once she made jonin she'll run her mouth.

"No way," Shimarau raised an eyebrow. "That's the Sannin?"

"Yep," Sakura rolled her eyes. "Even without what we've told you, he's exactly what you're thinking."

"No way," Choji echoed.

"Way," Naruto nodded, "we were surprised, too. He's insane."

"He's a menace to society," Sakura contradicted.

"You both sound suspiciously fond of him," Ino drawled.

'He taught us to smash!' Inner Sakura cheered, 'he has our eternal admiration!'

'With limitations,' Sakura thought.

"Eh," She said with a shrug, "he grows on ya."

'Like fungus,' Inner Sakura added, and Sakura did her best not to focus too much on that mental image.

"Well, he knew my mom," Naruto said flatly, "and he admits it, unlike everybody else."

"That, too," Sakura hummed.

Shikamaru and Choji abruptly woke up and Ino's jaw dropped. Hinata, too, looked surprised. And so Sakura and Naruto found themselves retelling verbatim everything Jiraiya has ever mentioned about Uzumaki Kushina during the two weeks he'd been talking about her. There wasn't much, but it was still better than absolutely nothing.

The third round began with a bang – literally.

The first match was between two foreign nin – one a little redhaired girl from Kusa with square glasses, and the other a lanky sort of creep with that strange headband Sakura couldn't recognize, marked with a single note. Before the bespectacled girl could even make a single step the dude opened his mouth and let out the loudest yell Sakura ever heard. The shockwave alone was enough to send the girl flying straight into the arena wall and losing consciousness. It was too brief to leave any fort of impression, on either contestant.

"Lame," Ino said dryly.

"Yeah, just like our duel's gonna be!" Kiba mocked from his place a few feet to their right. He'd been paired against Ino, and their match was third of the day. He'd been consistently grating on the girls' nerves since then, bragging about how easily his victory would be achieved. "No offence, Ino, but I'm gonna pound you. I'll take you on a date as compensation, yeah?"

"The day I date you, dog-breath, is the day I grow a dick," Ino drawled. "You know, to replace that lil' peanut you've got."

Sakura buried her head in Naruto's shoulder and snorted, while Naruto looked at Ino in open admiration. Kiba wasn't his favourite person lately, with his snarky attitude, and the way Ino had just rendered him completely speechless put her firmly in the top ten of Naruto's 'beloved idol' list.

"Tenten-nee!" Choji called, completely ignoring his surroundings. "Good luck!"

"Oh, it's Tenten's turn?" Sakura promptly straightened up – only to lean over the railing alongside Naruto and cheer loudly for their friend.

Tenten had walked onto the arena, and was eyeing up her opponent – who'd made a dramatic entrance, gliding to the ground on top of a gigantic fan. It was one of the weird Suna nin, Sakura noted. Sabaku no Temari, according to the proctor overseeing the fights. She was older then them, that much was obvious, and pretty, with golden hair and sharp green eyes. But the scorn in them coupled with her mocking expression, took away any sort of appeal she could've had.

"Sabaku no Temari," Naruto said, "that's a weird name."

"She's the Kazekage's daughter," Shikamaru drawled.

"How do you know?" Ino asked.

"Sabaku," Sakura said flatly. "Come off it, Pig. They taught us that at the academy. The children of the Kazekage clan in Suna are all titled 'Sabaku'. It's their literal name."

"Well excuse me for having better things to do –"

"Making kissy faces at Teme doesn't count," Naruto said without looking away from Tenten's rapidly escalating fight. "Tenten's not gonna make it."

"No way!" Sakura blinked and focused on the battle. "But Tenten's been on a ton of missions. She trains very hard."

"Doesn't matter," Shikamaru murmured. "That Suna chick – she's no genin."

After observing the fight for a while longer, Sakura had to agree. Tenten had unraveled her entire scroll and emptied all her pouches. She had a blade in each hand, was panting with exertion and had already littered the ground between them with a large variety of weapons – all meant to pierce Temari. Not only wasn't the Kazekage's daughter hurt, but she also hadn't even budged from her spot. Her fan was on the ground beside her, still closed, and as Sakura watched, Tenten unleashed another wave of sharp projectiles only for Temari to literally wave them away with only one piece of her fan briefly unfolding.

"Fuuton," Sakura hummed. "It's your chakra nature, right Naruto?"

"Yeah," Naruto nodded. "But I can't use it like that."

"I don't think even Asuma-sensei can," Choji noted quietly, "he's a fuuton type, too."

"She's not using it," Sakura clarified, "not really. She – she's toying with Tenten. She'd bored."

It was so one sided it was both humiliating and painful to watch. Especially for Sakura, because of more than one reason. First of all, both she and Tenten were from civilian clans. Sure, Sakura's father made chunin at the age of twenty, but he only bothered with it to have permission to marry her mother. He'd not been on a mission since then – nearly thirty years ago. Second, like Sakura, Tenten had no special jutsu in her arsenal and no bloodline limit. Third, both of them existed in the shadow of their spectacular teammates and worked themselves into the ground in an effort to escape from it. Sakura saw firsthand just how determined Tenten was to be worthy of notice, to be as useful and impressive as the boys on her team. Lee-san didn't have any chakra, but he was a beast at taijutsu and Hyuuga Neji – he was the strongest youngster in the entire Hyuuga clan, according to Hinata and Hanabi. A literal monster in the making.

But most of all, Tenten was Sakura's friend, who'd supported her through hardships, hung out with her during the good times and constantly cheered her on.

When Temari finally opened her fan completely, after draining everything Tenten had, Sakura felt her heart squeeze painfully at the sight of the miniature tornado swipe up her friend, toss her about like a rag and then discard her, sprawled unconscious with her back unnaturally bent over the edge of Temari's fan. Temari shook Tenten off, like she was something dirty, and walked away – not even sparing her crumpled opponent a glance, as the proctor announced her the victor.

"She'll pay for that," Ino hissed, her blue eyes like twin blocks of ice. "You hear me, Shika? Trash her!"

Shikamaru 'tsked' unhappily, but something about his frown told Sakura he'd already planned an easy defeat of his scheduled opponent – Shino – and was working on a strategy against the Suna kunoichi. Even if Shikamaru won't win against her, he'll make sure to humiliate the bitch.

"The next round will now begin! Yamanaka Ino from Konoha and Inuzuka Kiba, also from Konoha, please enter the arena!" the proctor called.

Kiba swaggered off, smirking cockily, and waving at the crowd.

"Beat his ass, Ino-Pig," Sakura said, her eyebrow ticking in annoyance at the display.

"Don't worry, Billboard Brow," Ino cracked her knuckles menacingly before climbing over the railing and beginning to descend along the wall, in a fantastic display of chakra control.

"Everybody shut up!" Naruto demanded, "I need to commit this to memory!"

'Damn straight!' Inner Sakura snickered. 'Pig's pissed! It's gonna be spectacular!'

It was spectacular.

It was a heavenly display of watching the most chauvinistic bully of their graduating class getting his ass handed to him by Konoha's reigning beauty queen – aged under fifteen.

Ino didn't even let Kiba run his mouth after their handshake. She pounced, like an enraged cat, and leveled Akamaru with a kick to his sensitive nose, taking both opponents by surprise. Akamaru had never been the target of an attack before, due to his unassuming appearance. The puppy may have been cute and friendly, but he was Kiba's best weapon and Ino was never weak towards fluffy things. As an enraged Kiba tried to take a swing at her, Ino ducked, pivoted, and then very dramatically kneed him straight in the balls.

This was enough to win the fight, but Sakura only knew one person more vindictive and spiteful than her Inner Self – the one who taught her how to be this way. Yamanaka Ino.

Before the proctor's amused gaze, Ino trapped Kiba in her family's Mind Transfer Jutsu and proceeded to beat the absolute daylight out of him, with his own fists. She ripped out his hair, scratched his face, made him wedgie himself. It was the most hilariously horrifying thing Sakura had ever beheld. Most of all it was petty, childish, and entirely inappropriate for the occasion.

It reminded Sakura just why she loved Ino so much.

By the time Ino was properly satisfied and marched out of the arena, Naruto was on the floor, a wheezing mess, Shikamaru had long looked away, completely embarrassed by his teammates shameless tenacity, while Choji chuckled softly under his breath. Over by the teacher's stands Asuma-sensei was hiding his face in his hands while Kiba's jonin instructor Kurenai-sensei laughed and elbowed him in the side.

Kiba was hauled off by a team of medics, Ino was pulled to the side by a heavily blushing Inoichi, undoubtedly, to be reprimanded for improper use of secret clan teachings. Sakura gave her best friend a discreet thumbs up for the performance and was rewarded by a salacious wink – obviously, Ino wasn't at all repentant. Sakura snickered as Inoichi leveled a sharp smack to the back of his daughter's head and the two descended into an argument.

Not for the first time Sakura found herself wishing her own father were a little bit more like Inoichi. While she had no doubt that Kizashi loved her very much, Sakura's dad never actually talked to her. He insisted on treating Sakura like a little girl and flat out refused to discuss anything remotely serious in her presence. Inoichi has somehow found the perfect balance between protecting Ino and also grooming her into adulthood, and they had a remarkably close bond as a result of it. Sakura's father coddled her, and more often than not Sakura felt that he was a beloved stranger.

Sakura was so caught up in her own thoughts she completely lost track of the matches happening below. She probably would've stayed unfocused till the rector called for a break, had Naruto not yelled a loud, horrified 'no', echoed by a shrill scream in Ino's voice and a gasp from Choji. From the crowd of spectators a childish voice screeched 'onee-sama!'.

Sakura snapped to attention and immediately looked for the threat. She followed Naruto's wide blue eyes and found herself gasping, covering her mouth with trembling hands and automatically chanting a denial in her head.

Because in the arena was Hinata – cute, kind, soft, absolutely loveable Hinata – and there were three sharp blades skewering her through her torso. Blood stained Hinata's usually pristine clothes and it poured in an alarmingly thick trail out of her nose also. A moment later, Hinata coughed up more blood, swayed and crumpled to the floor.

Above her stood Sabaku no Kankuro, eyeing what looked like the remains of a puppet critically and clicking his tongue in disapproval.

"Damn, broke my prototype," was all he said before he used Hinata as a steppingstone on his way out of the arena, just as a team of frantic medics rushed in.

"What a disappointment," said an unfamiliar baritone coldly from behind, and Sakura twisted around just in time to grab Naruto's arm and stop him from lunging at Hyuuga Neji.

"What did you say?" Naruto demanded.

"That she is a disappointment," Neji drawled, unrepentant. "She always was. Just another weakling lucky enough to be born in the Hyuuga's main branch. Otherwise she would've been tossed out years ago, for being such a waste of space."

Sakura's eyes widened and inside her, Inner Sakura was struck speechless by anger. She never knew anyone could be so… so…

"You spiteful piece of shit," Sakura heard herself say.

"I'll make you pay for saying this!" Naruto snarled simultaneously, drowning Sakura out with his aggression. "Hinata's ten times better than you'll ever be asshole!"

"Oh?" Neji sniffed condescendingly. "You think so? I heard you're the dead last of your class. Figures you'd approve of her."

"Well this dead last is about to rip you a new one," Sakura said coldly and gestured towards the match board.

They'd loaded up the names of the contestants going up after the midday break. First, were Naruto Uzumaki versus Hyuuga Neji. Immediately after them, was Sakura's own fight, against one Yakushi Kabuto.

Neji looked decidedly unimpressed. He gave Naruto a half-hearted onceover, scoffed and walked away.

"Naruto," Sakura said, "you better take the stick out his ass and beat him with it."

"Believe it," Naruto grumbled. "That jerk is going down, dattebayo! For Hinata-chan!"

'For Hinata, Shannaro!' Inner Sakura agreed ferociously.

'Damn straight.'