Tenten scowled at the petite pink-haired girl that was reluctantly revealing herself from behind a tall tree. Hiding in the throwing range where students practiced was dangerous. She was just lucky(?) that no one else was out here training. Certainly Tenten herself would never miss a target, but.. Wait! She was getting off track.

"So," Tenten drawled out, trying to act at least somewhat responsible. "What do you think you're doing, hiding out in a dangerous place like this? Don't you — " Tenten paused. "Hold on. Didn't I see you sneaking into the bathrooms in the sixth year building this morning?"

Sakura's embarrassment was complemented by a bright red blush at that question.

This morning the instructors throughout the school had made a special announcement. "Due to an unfortunate... 'incident'.. the washrooms in the east wing have been closed. We expect the plumbing to be fixed by the end of the day, but for the time being please refrain from using them."

Sakura usually used the east wing restroom — far from her own classroom — as a hiding spot where she could eat lunch in private, away from... well, where she wouldn't be disturbed. This incident had forced her to seek refuge elsewhere.

Of course, she also used the restroom to hide after school, leaving well after the other students had gone home, to avoid other kinds of trouble. However crossing the yard to one of the other buildings wasn't an option, then, as it was too visible to the students going home. Instead, she made her way to one of the back fields and found a place among the trees to hide. She could always tell her parents that she lost track of time in the library.

Unfortunately, she couldn't dodge the girl in front of her quite as easily.

Tenten sighed as she looked at the other girl, and just shook her head. "Look, I don't mind if you want to practice out here, too, but you need to be more careful about where you do it. Just.. stay out of the way of the targets, please."

The pink-haired girl nodded and dashed to the side hurriedly, but oddly enough stayed to watch Tenten for some time. Tenten grimaced in embarrassment every time she missed her mark, with her personal audience there, but pushed the emotion down and kept working. She had a talent for throwing, and weapons in general, but knew she'd still have to work hard to become a truly legendary ninja. She certainly wasn't going to stop due to some minor embarrassment!

By the end of the next week, Sakura had become a regular presence watching Tenten's afternoon practices. Tenten tried to keep something like a conversation going, though the shy girl barely said more than a couple words at a time, if she couldn't get away with just a nod or a shake of the head.

She seemed to enjoy reading and doing homework; she usually had a book on her lap, and easily got lost in her reading, or taking notes. Still...

"Hey! Sakura!"

Sakura jolted up, surprised at the sudden call.

"You're always over there reading. Aren't you training to be a ninja?" Sakura gave a short nod, but Tenten continued almost immediately. "Well, learning stuff's all well and good, but if all you ever do is read books, you're only ever gonna be good for sitting behind a desk. Hardly a real ninja," she finished, with a hint of exasperation. To Tenten, training was Important, with a capital 'I'. She was growing fond of the younger girl, but would be happier if the girl shared her enthusiasm for such things.

Sakura mumbled something, her face down, that Tenten didn't catch. Tenten stared at her a moment, before coming to a decision.

"Right! Come on over here." Tenten dragged Sakura up and over towards the targets. Sakura yelped as her book tumbled to the ground, trying frantically to simultaneously escape Tenten's grasp, recover her book, and make sure no one was around to see her in this state. In the end, Tenten had her way.

"So," Tenten continued, placing her hands on Sakura's shoulders to get her to face the target. "Let's try some throwing, eh?" She smiled encouragingly at Sakura, and handed her several throwing kunai. "Just practice throwing a few. See what it's like."

Sakura glanced longingly over at where her book had tumbled, but gathered her wits and tried to do as she was asked. Good girls do what they're told, whether by her parents, her teachers, or her sempai. She'd try her best.

For several minutes, she continued throwing. Periodically Tenten would call a halt while she gathered up the practice kunai that Sakura had used, and then return them to Sakura, giving her an encouraging smile. A smile that seemed to become stiffer and more forced with each attempt.

After the 10th round, as Tenten jogged back to her, Sakura tried to speak. "Tenten, I— I'm not sure-"

"Ya know what? Throwing's not for everyone." Tenten interrupted her. "Just 'cause I've got a knack for it doesn't mean I should expect everyone to be the same." She gave a self-deprecating little laugh. "Heck, if everyone were good at throwing, then what would my specialty be?" She grinned at Sakura. "How about just a little sparring instead? Something we can do to wind down at the end of the day, eh?"

Sakura relaxed as she smiled up at the older girl, though the smile only seemed half-complete.

"Sakura?" Tenten asked hesitantly, unsure about how to bring this up. Sakura wasn't going to win any awards for her fighting skills, but she did show competence with the forms — enough to show that she paid attention in class. However for the last few days, things had felt.. 'off'. "You have been practicing chakra control in class, right? I mean, you should have had a year or so of that by now."

Sakura nodded her head at that. "Yes. We started with basic imaging, low-stress manipulation, and limited projection last year. Everyone was sufficiently far along that this year we're starting on simple jutsu theory, in preparation for learning the Academy's E-rank jutsu. As long as we continue practicing the chakra control exercises, we should be allowed to start learning our first jutsu next semester," she finished, her eyes bright and her smile much wider than usual. While normally quite soft-spoken, anything that touched on her academic learning quickly had her ready to talk your ears off.

Tenten nodded along at the explanation, then asked, "What about physical development? The chakra control exercises should be helping you with your physical conditioning — running faster, hitting harder, that sort of thing. But it doesn't seem like you're using that in our spars. Is your chakra control not good enough for that yet?"

"Oh, no no no! My control is pretty good," Sakura said, waving her hands in front of her to deny that she might be failing any classwork. "The teachers said so, and I've been practicing all I can. It's just.." Here, Sakura trailed off, seemingly unable to explain her problem.

After waiting for Sakura to continue for a few moments, Tenten moved over to her to give her a pat on the back. "Hey, no problem. It can be a bit tricky to get a handle on. Why don't you try using it a bit in our sparring? Might help you work out any problems you're having." Tenten smiled as Sakura nodded in agreement.

Tenten stared at Sakura in mild disbelief, watching as she picked herself up off the ground. Tenten had honestly never considered it possible, but somehow Sakura had gotten worse when using her chakra to enhance her body. Much, much worse.

Sakura never really seemed to push herself too hard in the spars, but even so Tenten could see her speed improve as she applied her chakra. However, as soon as she did so, she seemed to completely lose control of her form. Her strikes were simple and straightforward, and could sometimes miss even if Tenten didn't bother to dodge. She tripped over her own feet any time she tried a kick. An overhand strike with a kunai had her planting her face in the ground.

Altogether, it was rather painful to watch.

Tenten shook her head, moving over to Sakura to help brush the grass off her dress. "Looks like you need to practice on your control a bit more," Tenten grinned at Sakura, without malice. "Like, I dunno, maybe you're not putting enough chakra in, and keeping it steady, all the time?" Tenten half-frowned at that. Chakra theory really wasn't her thing, but she didn't want to be mean about Sakura's mishaps. Well, the girl was smart, she'd probably figure it out soon enough.

Still, Sakura looked rather depressed about the whole thing. Tenten ruffled her hair a bit and gave her a half-hug. "Come on, why don't we take a break, and you can tell me about that new chakra exercise you came up with!"

Sakura's smile gradually returned, as she got the chance to show off her specialty to her sempai. Tenten was the only person who would sit down and listen — really listen — to her when she got excited about her latest discovery or triumph. None of the other students in her class cared about studies, and no adults cared about what a 10-year-old girl could come up with. But Tenten did, and Tenten would listen, because Tenten knew what it meant to work hard, and knew what it meant to achieve something because of that hard work.

Sakura was already bubbling over in excitement, as her grin threatened to split her face.

Tenten sighed as she and Sakura surveyed their little private training area (as they now thought of it). A massive storm had rolled through town a few days ago, knocking trees over, ripping out power lines, flooding the streets. After a bit of recovery, and when the students could finally go back to school, the two of them had found that the shattered tree limbs and collapsed trees had caused more problems than they'd anticipated.

Essentially, the target training area was one huge mess of broken and rotting wood.

"Looks like more cleanup time," Tenten groaned. "And I thought we were done with that by now. Oh well. Ready to get to it?" She glanced over at Sakura, who nodded back, setting her backpack on the ground as they set out to clean the area up. Tenten might gripe about extra work, but that never stopped her from doing it, and Sakura wasn't going to put any less effort into helping out.

"Gah!" Tenten grunted as she dragged a cracked tree trunk to the side. Damn, these things were heavy! It was easy to forget just how dense and heavy wood was, and she had to strain herself quite a bit to move such a large object.

She paused to wipe her forehead with a shirt sleeve, keeping the sweat and dirt from dripping into her eyes, and glanced over to see how Sakura was faring. She expected the younger girl to be working through the smaller branches and rubble, since she had never been that strong.

And then she saw Sakura casually flick the remains of a branch nearly as large as her torso off to the side. Then a few small branches, followed by another that must have weighed a hundred kilos.

Tenten glanced over and saw a rather sizable mound of refuse piling up. Her gaze flickered back and forth, trying to make sense of something that should not have been possible.

"Tenten!" Sakura shouted over to her. "You about done on that side?"

Tenten jolted at being caught slacking off, then quickly grabbed her own tree trunk and started sliding it along again. "Yeah, getting there!" She'd have time to talk this over with Sakura later on.

Sakura's eyes nervously followed Tenten as the older girl gradually circled her. Tenten had picked out some seemingly random bit of one of the collapsed trees and asked her to hold it for a bit. Her arms could barely fit around it, but Tenten had asked her to just hold it out in front of her, so it wasn't quite as awkward. Well, the tree wasn't awkward; Tenten's constant staring at her was.

"You're using chakra body enhancement?"

Sakura nodded. Well, it should be obvious, after all. Holding something this big without chakra to enhance her strength would just be silly.

"Hmm."

Sakura sweat-dropped. Was she doing it wrong? She did a quick internal review, but her chakra was stable and steady, just as it should be, flowing through her body without any turbulence. The turbulence had been tricky to fix. She had been almost certain that that was what caused her so many problems when she was fighting, yet her spars against Tenten had never really improved.

Tenten stopped in front of her, fingers on her chin as she contemplated something. She then shook her head and turned to walk away. Sakura took a step forward. "Tenten! I—"

"Keep holding it up!" Tenten barked out. Sakura jerked back and brought the log back up in front of her, after almost having let it go as she tried to find out what was going on. She watched as Tenten started digging amongst the piles of tree limbs that had been stacked up.

"Tenten..." Sakura whined pitifully. It had been several minutes now, and her arms were feeling a little numb. She'd watched as Tenten dug out several more log stumps and shaved off some of the broken bits with a small blade. At her complaint, Tenten looked at her, then grabbed one of the chunks of wood and started heading towards her.

Was she going to change which one she needed to hold? She started to drop the one she'd been holding, but then at Tenten's disapproving stare brought it back up in front of her. It really was starting to get annoying.

And then Tenten dropped her own stump on top of the one Sakura was already holding.

Sakura's eyes bugged out. "What? Wait, why did—"

"Just hold onto it for a minute," Tenten called back as she returned to her stump collection.

And then returned with another stump. And a third. With the fourth, Sakura was seriously struggling to stay upright, and keep her hands from hitting the ground. She clenched her teeth and did her best, though, and after a few seconds stretched out to an eternity, Tenten finally patted her shoulder and said, "That's enough, I think." Sakura let the pile topple over as she collapsed onto the ground.

"What was that for?" Sakura yelled out, though it came out more as a raspy choke as she tried to regain her breath.

She heard nothing, until a thump on the ground made her look up. Tenten stood over her, holding up a downed sapling that was a few inches across and had been stripped of branches.

"Have you ever used a staff before?"

Sakura shook her head. The Academy only taught basic hand-to-hand and a few small weapons, though she'd seen dancers at the festival use them in elaborate ways.

"Well, try using this." Tenten emphasized 'this' by lifting the sapling and tamping it back into the ground. "Don't worry about anything fancy. Just swing it around a bit and try to hit me."

Sakura groaned and stood up. There were times she really questioned why she stuck around with the weapons-obsessed girl. "Yeah, I'm just gonna rip a tree out of the forest and start beating people over the head with it," she muttered under her breath.

Regardless, she grabbed the sapling and let Tenten back up a few steps. She lifted up her 'staff' and tried to figure out how she was supposed to hold it. She'd only seen Tenten practice with one a couple times, but tried to imitate that form as best she could remember.

Sakura stepped forward with an overhand swipe, which Tenten easily sidestepped. That was followed by a horizontal swing, which caused Tenten to hop back a step. A few more swings like that, and then she tried poking (or, wait, 'thrusting') with it. As she got a little more comfortable with it, Tenten stopped dodging as much, and started blocking with her short sword. Sakura was pretty sure Tenten could still have easily dodged, so clearly she was testing something.

More swings, swipes and thrusts, and Sakura started to have a bit more fun with it. Really, it was the first time she could remember having a spar with Tenten that actually felt somewhat like a real fight. Sakura's enjoyment was easily seen in the grin spreading across her face. Even if she wasn't 'good', at least she wasn't falling on her face!

Sakura's antics got more elaborate, spinning in pirouettes, rolling the staff across her back, and generally being quite showy. The staff danced in her hands, flicking back and forth with hardly any effort. Oh, her form sucked, and Tenten easily defended against her wild swings, and never actually attacked her, but she felt like she was doing more in this one fight than in any fight in the last two months she'd been friends with the sharp-tongued weaponmaster.

A brief memory flittered across her mind, and she switched up her hold on the staff, bringing it up above her head, and then slamming it into the ground. It was supposed to make a loud 'crack' when the staff impacted the floor, to startle or intimidate the enemy, she guessed. Unfortunately, while it did crack, it wasn't the crack she expected. When she lifted the staff back up, she found that the poor sapling had snapped in two.

Still, she grinned at Tenten as the other girl approached, also smiling.

"Well Sakura, I think we know what your specialty is now," Tenten said, as she gave the pink-haired girl a very sound hug. "Let's go talk to my dad."

Author Notes

So this story sprung from the idea of, what if Team 7 were more like what we see in Kishimoto's special/cover artwork, and less like the dysfunctional crew we see in the manga itself? I can't add a link here, but if you go to my profile page, and the thread that it links to, the first post of that thread links to the original post with the art in question.

After some pondering, I came up with an idea of how that might happen, and decided to try to put that to paper. Congratulations, my first ever publicly posted fanfic.

I put a lot of effort into getting inside the characters' heads, but much of what's shown is only what comes out on the surface. A lot of the underlying reasons may end up glossed over, or not even shown, but hopefully they'll still feel real to the reader. If you read the above-mentioned thread, there are more detailed backgrounds and various notes. I don't want to fill up the bottom of each chapter with author's notes describing why I made each given choice.