A/N: Happy Tuesday!

The metallic clang of swords clashing echoed through the clearing of training ground 3, breaking the serenity of the otherwise tranquil morning. It had been a week since Kakashi had been told that Sakura was now part of his team, a week he had dedicated entirely to training. Team Ro would be placed back on active duty soon, so there was a lot of ground to cover. In addition to all the material Kakashi had given Sakura to study—attack and defense formations, a book on ANBU-specific sign language, the ever-useful Bingo Book—they'd been doing physical training every morning from 6:00-12:00.

This morning, the focus was on sword fighting. Tenzo and Genma were sparring in the endless way of two evenly matched partners who knew all of each other's strengths and weaknesses. Occasionally Genma would throw a barb Tenzo's way, to which Tenzo would respond with an insult delivered in his usual deadpan manner. They seemed to be having fun.

The same could not be said for Kakashi and Sakura.

As morning had crept toward noon, the sun had grown brighter, and Kakashi was beginning to sweat from heat and exertion. He'd allowed the squad to forego masks for that day's session, which resulted in him having to toss his sweat-dampened hair out of his one open eye. Since Sakura was still learning the finer points of using her sword, she wasn't enough of a challenge to require him to uncover his Sharingan—and she might not ever be good enough, if today was anything to judge by.

Sakura, unsurprisingly, was letting her temper get the best of her.

Their swords clashed together as Kakashi darted closer to her. Sakura managed to get hers up in time to block his first two blows, but he drove her sword higher until his third strike was able to throw her off balance, leaving her completely open to his attack. He followed her mistake by swinging his sword down and slapping the flat of his blade against her leg. Hard. Sakura bit out a curse, her voice tense with barely-restrained anger.

She'd received many such corrective blows that day, and Kakashi knew she was going to be sore afterward, if she wasn't already. Kakashi had learned swordsmanship in the same manner. Pain was an excellent motivator. He could remember how angry those lessons had made him and felt some sympathy for her—but not enough sympathy to stop.

As Kakashi delivered another smack after a misstep, Sakura growled and lunged at him, swinging her sword wildly. Calmly parrying her attack, Kakashi ruthlessly disarmed her and then dropped down to sweep her legs out from beneath her. She landed hard on her back, gasping as the wind was knocked out of her, her sword clattering to the ground beside her. When she coughed and angrily began to pull herself back up, Kakashi extended a foot and planted it against her shoulder, shoving her back down.

"What the hell?" she spat as her back hit the ground again.

"Don't bother getting up until you can calm down," Kakashi said evenly, though that made it no less of a command. "You need to control yourself."

Sakura opened her mouth, and Kakashi didn't need the Sharingan to see that she was clearly forming a word that began with an "F", but she managed to stop herself, pressing her lips into a thin line. Good, he thought.

Tenzo and Genma had stopped what they were doing to watch the battle of wills, and Sakura glared at them, demanding, "What the hell are you looking at?"

Less good, his mind added.

Turning his back on her, Kakashi sheathed his sword and walked over to where the team had left their water bottles. Grabbing his, he kept his back turned to the squad as he pulled his cloth mask down to take a drink. He tugged it back into place as he heard Sakura finally pull herself off the ground and then walk up next to him, grabbing her own bottle with slightly jerky movements. She wasn't completely calm, but she was calmer. Progress.

"I'm surprised you're Ibiki's student. You don't seem like it," Kakashi mused, knowing it would irritate her. Just because she was getting calmer didn't mean he wasn't going to push her. If she couldn't learn to control herself, she would be a liability in the field.

She narrowed her eyes as she looked at him, but her voice was only slightly bothered as she asked, "What do you know about Ibiki-sensei?"

Humming thoughtfully, Kakashi let the question linger for a moment before he answered, "I know he's not the type to lose control." When she didn't respond, he turned to look at her. "Why didn't he teach you that?"

Her green eyes hardened. "He did."

His eyebrows raised fractionally. "Are you saying that you used to be worse than this?"

She glared at him for a long moment without answering, and then put her water bottle down and moved back to where they'd been sparring. Picking up her sword, she dropped into a defensive stance and looked at him with an expectant frown.

Dropping his bottle, Kakashi drew his own sword and went to face her. She seemed a bit more focused now. Perhaps his mention of her mentor had reminded her of what she'd learned from him—or maybe she was just mad that he'd implied Ibiki hadn't taught her effectively and wanted to prove him wrong.

Kakashi would soon learn that, while Sakura may have seemed calmer, she'd accomplished that calm by focusing all of her anger into determination to piss him off. It wasn't immediately apparent—she just fought back a little harder than before, her sword glinting in the sun as it danced with his. But then she managed a successful feint that made him block to the right while she delivered a blow from the left—a hard smack with the flat of her blade against the outside of his thigh, just like the ones he'd given her.

Kakashi pulled back, ignoring the sting in his leg as he narrowed his one open eye at her. She gave him a grin that was all tooth and malice as she fell back into her beginning stance. Ready to regain the upper hand, Kakashi shifted his weight to the balls of his feet and then darted toward her for another attack.

He could hear that Tenzo and Genma had stopped sparring again and were talking quietly with each other by the water bottles. Sakura had stepped up her abilities enough that Kakashi was able to put on significantly more pressure—and when she almost got in another cheap shot he frowned, gritting his teeth in annoyance as Genma teasingly called out, "Careful, Captain, that was a close one."

As Sakura pursued him, Kakashi allowed himself to fall back on the defensive, blocking each of her attacks as his eyes strayed between her moving feet, her striking sword, and her piercing stare. She caught his gaze, and then her eyes flickered to the left. He immediately moved to forestall an attack from that direction, only to have the flat of her blade connect with his right hip.

Fuck. He couldn't believe he'd fallen for that.

Irritation flooded him—though whether at himself or her, he wasn't sure—and without conscious thought he launched back onto the offensive, opening his Sharingan. Sakura fell back under the onslaught, unable to hold her own against a superior swordsman who could see her moves almost before she made them. Soon she was disarmed and on her back again, held fast beneath the point of his sword.

"Well, shit, Captain, it's not fair if you use your magic eyeball," Genma drawled from where he stood on the sidelines. A soft laugh came from Tenzo.

His eyes still on her, Kakashi watched as a curious emotion flashed across Sakura's face, and a "pffft" sound escaped her. She was trying not to laugh—she was obviously highly amused that she'd made him lose his cool. With his left eye still open, he was able to see in great detail the way her eyes sparkled, and the healthy flush that colored her cheeks.

Suddenly uncomfortable, Kakashi turned away. "Switch partners. Genma, you're with me."

Genma dropped his bottle and once again grabbed his sword, muttering, "Should have known I would pay for that."

A few hours later, Sakura grimaced in pain from her sore and bruised muscles as she stood up from her stool at her favorite noodle restaurant, grabbing the bag of food she'd just purchased. After that morning's sword practice, and Kakashi's ruthless corrections, her whole body ached. Sure, she possessed the means to heal herself, but it seemed like a waste of chakra for bruises that would easily heal on their own. She would just take a hot bath later and hope that it wouldn't slow her down too much tomorrow.

Taking to the rooftops, Sakura ran across town and toward the government sector of Konoha. As she reached the headquarters of ANBU's Torture & Interrogation Force, she dropped down and exchanged a nod with the sentry at the door before passing through it. She'd been a regular visitor to the building—specifically, the fourth basement level—for years. That's where Ibiki could usually be found. Several times a month, she would stop by and bring him food, knowing that he often neglected to feed himself when he was busy.

After passing through several doors, three checkpoints, and four stairwells, Sakura moved quickly down a hallway and knocked on an unmarked door. She heard a muffled "Come in" through the door and opened it to let herself inside.

Ibiki looked up from his desk, his scarred face weary. But his expression lightened a little when he saw her, his eyes sharp with humor as he said, "Well, if it isn't ANBU's newest pain in the ass."

"Shut up, sensei," Sakura responded easily as she sat in the chair in front of his desk, setting the food down on a clear spot on top of it. Her relationship with Ibiki had always been an odd mix of disrespect and deference. She wouldn't have it any other way—and though Ibiki liked to give her a lot of shit, she suspected he wouldn't change it, either.

"Careful, or I'll tell your captain to punish you," he said with a crooked smirk. Whenever Ibiki tried to smile, he always looked like a man attempting to do something that he'd never done before. It was one of Sakura's favorite things about him, though she would never tell him that—that might make him stop doing it, and it was rare enough already.

"Too late," she muttered, scowling slightly as she opened the bag and distributed their food.

Ibiki opened the carton she handed to him, splitting his chopsticks and helping himself to a mammoth bite of noodles. He chewed for a while and swallowed before asking, "Hatake giving you a hard time?"

"Yeah." Sakura only picked at her own food, scowling at it as if it was the captain who'd made himself such a thorn in her side. "What's his problem, anyway?" she asked, giving Ibiki a beady look. It was a good bet that he had a lot more information about Kakashi than she did.

Ibiki harrumphed to himself and helped himself to more noodles, chewing thoughtfully. Sakura didn't press him, knowing no amount of pressure would make Morino Ibiki talk before he was ready. Finally, he swallowed and asked, "How much do you know about him?"

Giving up on her food, Sakura sighed and placed her carton back on the desk. "I know he's a hardass. I know he's got a Sharingan, even though he's not an Uchiha, which is really weird." Frowning, she thought for a moment. "I know the stuff in his Bingo Book entry—Copy Ninja, over a thousand jutsu. Other than that, he's pretty much a mystery."

Humming thoughtfully, Ibiki leaned back in his chair. "You're too young to know this, but he's got a reputation worse than yours. 'Friend-Killer Kakashi.' He's the only surviving member of his first team." Frowning slightly, he added, "You actually have a lot in common, Black Widow," his tone sardonic and more than illustrating how he felt about such nicknames.

Sakura frowned back at him, processing what he'd said. Without thinking, she blurted, "Well, why isn't he—" Cutting herself off, she flushed in embarrassment.

Ibiki raised an eyebrow at her, clearly amused. "Why isn't he what? As angry as you?"

Sakura made an irritated face at him. "I was going to say, 'a mess like I am'," she admitted.

Ibiki let that statement hang in the air as he ate some more of his food, and Sakura finally began to eat hers. She'd begun to think that he had no more to say on the matter when he suddenly spoke again. "He's a mess all right."

Sakura looked up from her food, waiting for him to continue.

Ibiki seemed uncharacteristically hesitant, which Sakura thought she understood. He was the kind of man who lived according to a code, and loyalty to his comrades was at the top of that code. Revealing Kakashi's problems to her—even if they were problems that were common knowledge amongst the older shinobi of Konoha—would make him feel like he was being disloyal.

Finally, he sighed. "We all have scars, Sakura. Not all of them are visible. All I'll say is that Kakashi has more than most. He just deals with it differently than you."

Sakura mulled over his words as she chewed her food. She was surprised when Ibiki had one more thing to add.

"He's a good soldier. He'd die before he'd let anything happen to his subordinates. He'd die for a lot of things." Ibiki leaned forward slightly, meeting her eyes with an intense look. "Maybe too many things. You're going to have to look out for him."

Sakura swallowed her food, letting Ibiki hold her gaze for a long moment before she finally responded. "Yes, sensei."

That afternoon, Kakashi was happily ensconced in the branches of a tree not far from his apartment building, reading Icha Icha Tactics for the twenty-eighth time, when he was interrupted by the sound of feet running up the trunk. He inwardly sighed as Genma jumped up beside him on the branch.

"You really should be less predictable," Genma said, smirking around his trademark senbon.

"You really should be less annoying," Kakashi replied in a bored voice.

Ignoring the insult, Genma stretched, looking up through the branches of the tree as he announced, "I was thinking we should go out tonight. All of us."

Kakashi pointedly lifted his book a little higher, so his whole face was covered. "No."

"Look, Tenzo and I have had a long time to get used to you, and each other." Genma was speaking in a smooth, convincing tone now. "Sakura's got to hit the ground running if she's going to become a real part of this team."

"What does that have to do with going out?"

"She's refused to come out with us since that first night. Says she's too busy studying all the stuff you gave her." Genma's voice held more frustration now. "It's important, Kakashi—teambuilding. What better way is there to get to know someone than by drinking with them? Besides, you've seen how tightly wound she is. She needs to have some fun."

Kakashi sighed, dropping his book slightly to stare at him. "Tell her to have fun, then. What does this have to do with me?"

"She's the kind that's not so good at having fun." Genma let a beat pass before continuing. "Not unless it's an order."

"Forget it, Genma." Kakashi returned his attention to his book. "Convince her to go on your own."

There was a long silence, long enough that Kakashi could almost believe that Genma had gone, if it weren't for the quiet clicking sounds of teeth against senbon. When Genma spoke again, his voice was lower, serious. "I know you've got a chip on your shoulder about her, but it wouldn't kill you to get to know her a little better. She thinks you hate her."

Kakashi stared unseeing at Icha Icha Tactics as his mind returned to that morning, and the way his eyes had lingered on Sakura, almost as if without his permission. Frowning slightly beneath his mask, he affected an aloof tone. "That's fine."

A quiet snort of derision came from Genma, and without another word, he dropped out of the tree, leaving Kakashi alone once more.

At home that night, Sakura spent a full hour fruitlessly trying to direct her chakra through her body and to her forehead, in order to reproduce Tsunade's seal. Every day, she devoted five percent of her chakra and some of her time toward the effort. She'd made some headway, and she could feel that she'd begun to store the chakra in a way that was close to what she needed, but she hadn't really achieved anything yet besides a mountain of frustration. After an hour passed with no mark miraculously appearing on her forehead, she had turned to studying instead.

Shifting her attention to her ANBU sign language book, Sakura strove to focus on the pictures it contained, but her thoughts kept drifting back to her conversation with Ibiki. It was unusual for him to talk about something as personal as another shinobi's problems, but he'd obviously thought it was important. The years had taught her to trust his instincts.

It hadn't always been that way—at first, she'd hated him. They'd met roughly one year after Anko and Naruto had been killed. Sakura had been placed on several teams in that time, but her growing anger with anything and everything around her had resulted in a poor performance on every team. Worse, her parents had decided that she was too much to handle and told her to move out. Although a teenager living alone wasn't a completely unusual thing in a ninja village, Sakura had been devastated. After that, she'd been floating in a sort of limbo, doing little but poking around the village and getting into fights—and getting into a fight was precisely what she'd been doing the day she'd first met Ibiki.

It all started with a genin from the class before her calling her Black Widow as she'd walked by. They'd butted heads before, but he'd waited until he had backup to really start something with her. When she'd responded by taking a swing at him, he'd attacked—and so had his friends. Ibiki had walked by right around the time Sakura had disappeared under a veritable dogpile of young ninja.

He'd waded in like they were nothing more than rowdy puppies, shoving the other kids away from her. When she'd immediately tried to leap on the ringleader again, he'd lifted her by the collar of her shirt, letting her flail ineffectively in the air. She remembered the metallic taste of her split lip, the ache of her bruised knuckles.

The first words he'd said to her had been a sharply amused, "Do you really want to lose that badly?"

"Shut up!" she'd screamed, her eyes filling with angry, unshed tears as she uselessly swung her fist at him. "I'll kick your ass too!"

And Ibiki—undoubtedly the meanest-looking shinobi in Konoha, and arguably the most feared—had thrown back his head and laughed.

After that, he'd dragged her to his office and thrown her in a chair, shoving her back into it every time she'd tried to leap out. When she'd finally worn herself out and was somewhat calm, he'd sat down across from her and held her eyes with his own, before saying words that would become very familiar to her: "If you let them make you angry, they'll use it to control you."

She'd stared at him sullenly for a long moment, and finally, in a very small voice, responded, "I don't know how to stop."

At her admission, something like approval had passed over his face, and he'd merely answered, "I'll teach you."

Her life had changed for the better after that. Ibiki had taken her under his wing and helped her begin to harness her anger and make it into something useful. Just as importantly—if not more so—when she had finally broken down and wept over the loss of her teammates, it had been Ibiki who had found her and stayed with her, silently offering his companionship when she felt that the world had abandoned her.

He'd also been the one who had eventually noticed her excellent chakra control and recommended her to Tsunade's tutelage. Sakura had never gotten very close to Tsunade, however—Tsunade didn't approve of how uncontrollable Sakura's temper was—but Ibiki's calm presence had remained an important force in her life.

So, when Ibiki had something to tell her, she listened. And while Tsunade had told her that one of her jobs was to keep Kakashi safe, Sakura hadn't fully accepted the extent of the issue until Ibiki's warning. But if he thought that Kakashi might be a danger to himself, then she believed him.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the door, and she scowled slightly to herself, pretty sure that she knew who it was. Ever since that first day, Genma had been pestering her to come out with him and Tenzo, even though she kept rejecting them. Putting down her book, she got up and strode to the door. When she threw it open and saw Genma and Tenzo, she immediately said, "No."

"I haven't even asked you anything yet!" Genma said in a wounded tone.

"I'm busy," she replied, rolling her eyes. "The captain gave me a lot of things to study."

"Oh, fuck studying, he'll never be satisfied anyway. Come and drink! It's good for you!" Genma followed his statement up with a lazy grin.

Sakura was unimpressed. "No, it isn't."

"It's good for team morale!" Genma insisted.

"He's just going to keep pestering you about this," Tenzo said casually, as if the outcome of the conversation didn't really matter to him.

"Too bad," Sakura said heartlessly, and shut the door in both of their faces. As she made her way back to the couch, she could hear Genma's muffled complaints on the other side of the door, and the sound made her smile a little in spite of herself.

The smile fell away from her face as her thoughts soon turned back to what Ibiki had said. The information he'd given her had shown that her role on the team was going to be more complicated than just following orders, although that shouldn't have surprised her, given the veto power that Tsunade had given her.

While her ultimate goal was still to find Sasuke and make him answer for his crimes, her path to that goal lay with ANBU, and that meant her role on this team was important. And it was becoming clear that the most important part of her duties was to keep Kakashi alive.

She was determined to do what it took to protect her captain—even if the person she had to protect him from was himself.