Chapter 3

A large, indignant yawn escaped her body for being woken up at such an inhumane hour. Bleary, emerald eyes sleepily slid to the window, groaning in annoyance when she observed that the sun had yet to rise. She would definitely not have time to visit the hospital today, but had planned for that last night.

She kept her visit to the training grounds brief and simple the night before, not wanting to exhaust herself before her first exercise with her teammates. Right after, she prepared a letter to drop off to the hospital addressed to her mom, updating her on the details of her new team and their exercise, explaining why she wouldn't be able to make her usual morning visit.

Sakura stretched her arms above her head, yawning again in an attempt to expel the grogginess from her body. She haphazardly forced herself into her training gear, hopping into her socks and shoes so that she wouldn't have to sit back down and face the risk of being tempted back into sleep.

Sakura Haruno really valued her sleep.

With a resigned sigh, she grabbed the neatly folded envelope containing her letter and opened the door to the crisp, morning air, willing the weights to lift from her eyelids.

Now, considering the personal strength in which Sakura mustered to wrench herself out of the comfort of her bed, she found her mood increasingly sour almost three hours later when they were still without a sensei.

Though his tardiness was hinted at during the team's first meeting, she thought it was an isolated incident.

A vein bulged in her forehead as she tapped her foot, the excitement of her nerves replaced by impatience and disbelief.

This man really is a sadist!

"Man, this sucks, dattebeyo!" Naruto whined. "5 in the morning, my ass! I coulda totally gone for ramen!"

Sakura wholeheartedly agreed - she could've done much more than sit around if she had known that he was going to be hours late, again. She had done her stretches three times over, not wanting her muscles to stiffen up with inactivity and not knowing when to stop since his arrival time was a mystery. She wasn't about to let her sensei's tardiness affect her performance.

By her fourth round of stretches, Naruto joined her out of boredom, plopping next to her and reaching for his feet while grumbling under his breath about a certain silver haired jounin. Sasuke, on the other hand, deemed himself above stretching, and settled for sharpening his weapons.

Sakura glanced in his direction as she pulled her right arm behind her head. "You know, Sasuke, you're subject to muscular pains too."

He didn't even look up from his kunai. "Hn."

Emerald eyes rolled. The Uchiha's pride knew no bounds.

Naruto grinned at her reassuringly. "Don't you worry, Sakura-chan! Once he pulls a muscle and humiliates himself, I'll jump in and save the day, dattebeyo!"

Sasuke slowed in his sharpening, the quip seeming to irk the Uchiha. After a few seconds of pause, he slowly put his weapons back in their holsters and began to stretch as well.

Sakura stifled a giggle at the rivalry between the two - it was almost romantic. She kept her gleeful expression hidden by quickly moving to tuck her head between her arms as she stretched both hands to reach for her feet.

Sasuke's pride was obviously fragile - she didn't want to scare him off with her laughter and have him stop stretching.

The group stretch was the state in which their sensei found their team, and upon hearing his arrival, Naruto and Sakura jumped up in simultaneous outrage, "YOU'RE LATE!"

Kakashi dismissed their anger with a wave of his hand and a merry eye crinkle. "Well, a black cat crossed my path, you see, so I had to take the longer route-"

Upon seeing his students' increasing annoyance, the jounin stopped, cleared his throat awkwardly, and pulled out a clock timer. He rested the clock on a stump, setting the arms to 12.

He watched the gazes of his students slowly change from fury to curiosity as they watched his movements. With a jingle, he pulled out two sets of bells from his pocket. "There - the timer is set to noon. Your assignment is to take these from me. Those who fail, don't get lunch."

In response, Naruto and Sasuke's faces fell as their stomachs grumbled in protest.

Sakura, on the other hand, had eaten breakfast anyway and sighed a breath of relief. She had thrown up her meal during multiple training occasions, and in her opinion having food to throw up was infinitely better than dry heaving.

Naruto groaned at the prospect of completing an exercise on an empty stomach. Not only that, lunch wasn't guaranteed. "Mou, so that's the reason you had us skip breakfast. That's cheap, sensei…"

"If you fail to get a bell, you will be tied to that stump and I'll eat my lunch before your very eyes," Kakashi continued… with what Sakura could swear was a small smile.

His obvious joy at their grief was overshadowed by her sudden realization. "There are two bells… which means…"

Kakashi's mask shifted as his smile grew wider. "Yes - at least one will be tied to the logs. That person will be disqualified for failing the mission and be sent back to the academy."

Sakura's mind raced as she processed the information, her heart rate increasing with both anticipation and anxiety. Being sent back to the academy wasn't too big of a threat - she knew that she would simply excel once more. It would definitely be a setback and definitely not preferable, but nothing she couldn't remedy.

Her eyes assessed her sensei - he didn't seem to have any ill intent, other than his tendency toward sadism. He wasn't going to beat them to the ground, it seemed, so at least there was a level of safety to this exercise.

Often, with Hasao, she couldn't be completely sure that he was void of killing intent, but deep down she knew she could trust him. This mentor, on the other hand, was completely different. He seemed pleasant enough on the outside, but she couldn't feel like she could trust him whatsoever. To Kakashi, she was replaceable. If she didn't pass his test, she had a feeling that he wouldn't hesitate to toss her to the side.

Emerald eyes shifted over to her teammates, and found the two boys completely enraptured in the peril that lied behind Kakashi's challenge. Because they found danger in his threat, they completely withdrew into self-interest.

Sakura bit at her lip in thought. The fact that there could only be two victors in the best scenario would make teamwork exceptionally difficult. She turned her attention back to the jounin that was slowly pitting them against one another. His sadism seemed to run much deeper than she initially thought.

She was yanked out of her thoughts when Naruto suddenly drew out a kunai in response to a personal jab Kakashi had thrown in. Her thoughts had been so focused on formulating a plan of action that she hadn't been paying attention to the exchange at hand.

By the time she understood what was happening, Naruto had already lunged forward. She reached out to yank him back, but she was too late - Kakashi had already began moving. His speed was impeccable, and Sakura's brain quickly realized she wouldn't reach her teammate in time.

Her hand quickly switched to the ends of her headband, yanking the engraved hitai-ate free from her hair and used the momentum from her own step to whip out.

Just as Kakashi pushed Naruto's hand behind the blond's own head, forcing Naruto to point his kunai at the back of his own neck, Sakura managed to catch the tip with the fabric of her headband. She violently snapped her wrist back at herself, pulling the kunai from Naruto's hand before Kakashi could use it for his own purposes.

With the jerk of her headband, the weapon flew out of Naruto's hands and past Sakura's own head, centimeters away from clipping her ear.

Sakura landed ungracefully on her elbows, but managed to force her body to roll so that her joints wouldn't take the full brunt of her weight. Once she looked up again, Kakashi was staring at her with an expression of light surprise.

The emotion was shown for a fraction of a second, quickly replaced with the jounin's usual relaxed complexion.

Once she realized he wasn't going to proceed with something else, Sakura breathed a sigh of relief. It was an accomplishment of complete luck, no thanks to her lack of awareness.

Kakashi hummed thoughtfully, releasing Naruto's hand from his firm grasp. "I didn't say to start. But at least you came at me with the intention to kill."

Sakura blinked.

It hadn't even started yet?

She gave Naruto a dirty look, dusting the grass off her elbows as she got off the ground. "Why'd you start on your own, baka? I thought the test started because you suddenly attacked!"

Kakashi's eye crinkled. "It seems like… I'm finally starting to like you guys."