A/N: AHAHAHHAHA no spoilers but... interesting stuff is finally going to happen in this chapter! (and because of that reason I'm going to have the rest of my notes below)

[chapter 7]

The next day, curiously enough, Kakashi let them sleep in. They'd switched the order of their shifts, with Sakura now going first and Kakashi last, so she'd fully expected their sensei to wake them and drag them off to do their daily training at an ungodly hour.

When she woke up, though, the sun was already high in the sky, and she could hear the waves breaking against the shore outside. There were a few seagulls screeching too, and Sakura spent a few minutes just relaxing and enjoying the surroundings.

Then, knowing there was no going back to sleep, she got out of her bedroll - the room Kakashi had booked had only one bed, which the jounin had immediately claimed, saying that his old age was giving him back problems.

She pulled on her usual long pants and a skin tight shirt. She'd gotten used to not wearing dresses by now, and it was so much easier. No longer did she have to worry about silly things such as making sure it didn't have any wrinkles in it, and on multiple occasions that she'd fallen into a trap Kakashi had set up and been yanked upwards to hang upside down by her ankles, she'd been quite grateful that she hadn't accidentally flashed anyone her underwear.

Looking around, she realized that all the other bedrolls were empty, her obviously having been the last one to awaken. She made her way down to the common area of the inn, finding Kakashi, Naruto and Sasuke already there, chatting quietly over breakfast.

"Good morning," she greeted, sitting down next to Naruto.

Kakashi crinkled his eye. "Ah, our fourth team member is finally here."

Raising a hand, he called out to the nervous looking innkeeper who was drying and putting away the dishes in the attached small kitchen.

"Another plate of breakfast for the young lady," he ordered casually.

The innkeeper nodded before scurrying away and within minutes a steaming plate of food was sitting in front of her. There were eggs and tomatoes and even a few pieces of fish on top of a bed of rice, and it looked delicious

Sakura practically inhaled it. It had been so long since she'd had proper food, she moaned internally, even though she knew it had only been a few days. Cooked rabbit and squirrel was nice, and ration bars weren't disgusting, but they didn't come close to comparing with a homemade meal like this.

Kakashi and the boys watched her in amusement, having already finished their own breakfast. Finally, when she slowed down enough that she could breathe again, Kakashi spoke up.

"We'll be doing something different for training today," he announced cheerfully.

Sakura glanced up from her food in surprise. What other torture regime had he concocted for them today?

"Huh, why?" Naruto asked cluelessly.

Kakashi sighed. "As you may have noticed," he said pointedly. "Our intended destination is separated from us by a large body of water."

"Can't we just take a boat?"

"There are no sailors or fishermen in this area with who we could get a ride."

"Oh," Naruto frowned. "So are we doing more endurance training so we can swim across or something?"

Kakashi smiled sadistically, and Sakura knew that wasn't a good sign. "Something like that," he said vaguely.

By now she'd finished her breakfast - she ate fast when she was hungry - so Kakashi stood up from his seat at the table. "Come with me, my cute little genin. I will show you something that will blow your minds."

Reluctantly, the trio followed him from the inn and back to the beach they had been swimming at the day before.

They stopped at the edge of the sand, feeling the water lap at their toes, but Kakashi kept walking.

"Uh, sensei, where are you going?" Naruto asked.

The jounin just turned his head back, giving them his signature eye-crinkle. He kept walking, and it took Sakura a full five more steps before she realized.

"He's walking on the water," she cried, gasping.

Naruto and Sasuke seemed to come to the same realization, and all three watched their sensei calmly walk on the surface of the sea as if nothing was wrong.

"I know you're all in shock but I'd suggest closing your mouths before something flies in."

Hurriedly, the three clenched their jaws shut, all of them having been staring at him in open-mouthed wonder.

Kakashi took his time, peacefully strolling back towards them, and as he reached the beach again, Naruto threw himself at him, clinging to an arm.

"Teach us, Kakashi-sensei!" He cried. "I want to walk on water too!"

The man smirked. Sakura knew something bad was coming.

"I'll teach you guys," he told them, and Naruto let go of his arm to jump up and down in glee.

"But it's not going to be easy," he warned. "And before you learn how to walk on water you'll have to learn how to walk up trees."

To be honest, this interested Sakura even more than walking on water. While both seemed useful, walking up trees sounded like what all the shinobi did to travel through the treetops, or to jump from roof to roof in the village itself. She'd always wanted to learn how to do that.

"No problem! I'll get it right away," Naruto promised with an exuberant thumbs up to their teacher.

The silver-haired man just smiled, as if he knew something they didn't, and led them away from the beach and to the outskirts of the forest a few kilometre away.

They watched as he showed them how to theoretically do it - you just gathered the right amount of chakra at the bottom of your feet and you'd stick to the bark - and then demonstrated, walking horizontally up the trunk to the very top and then back down again.

"Me first!" Naruto demanded. Impatiently, he rushed at the tree. Sakura watched as he took four or five steps up and then was thrown back, the bark underneath his sandals exploding in splinters.

She tried not to, she really did, but she burst out laughing. Naruto glared petulantly up at the tree from where he lay sprawled on the ground.

Kakashi looked very amused.

"I think I'll leave you three to it," he said. "Stay here until you can walk using chakra all the way to the top of the tree."

He threw three kunai at the ground in front of their feet, and Sakura almost jumped in surprise.

"Use these to mark how far up you get."

Then the jounin sent them a dark glare, and she could literally see a cold aura seeping out of him.

"Oh, and… I'll know if you come back before you've completed the exercise," he threatened, and Sakura shivered.

All three genin hastily agreed, and suddenly the aura was gone.

"Well, I'll be off then! I need to catch up on some reading," Kakashi said brightly, giving them a last eye-crinkle.

"He's probably off reading his porn again," Naruto muttered mutinously as they saw their sensei's gravity-defying hair finally disappear from view.

Sakura laughed but didn't respond, instead picking up the kunai Kakashi had thrown at her and walking to the base of a tree a little bit away from the two boys.

Contemplatively, she looked up. Deciding to test it with her hands first, she channelled chakra to her palm. It was easier to channel chakra to your hands than to your feet, meaning she'd have more control.

Cautiously, she pressed her hand to the bark of the tree and then tried to remove it. There was a little resistance, but not much, as if she was dragging her hand through syrup. She channeled more chakra to her palm, seeing it begin to glow lightly. It didn't concern her much, since she knew that unlike jutsu, chakra she simply moved around her body wouldn't be lost to her.

The reason ninja could perform moves much more physically complicated than civilians was because of the ability to reinforce their limbs with chakra. While for some, like Naruto and Sasuke, this resulted in the loss of some chakra, since they couldn't control it enough not to let some of it diffuse into the surroundings, the Academy instructors had always told her that she had near perfect chakra control, meaning she could reinforce her limbs without any chakra loss at all.

Theoretically, if she was in a purely taijutsu against either of the boys on her team, she would be able to outlast them until they passed out from chakra exhaustion. Of course, in a real fight she would've collapsed way before then, but that wasn't the point.

Sticking her hand against the bark of the tree again, this time she found that try as she might, she couldn't move it. Perfect.

Experimenting, she tried moving chakra to the bottom of her feet and placing it against the tree. Slightly surprised, she noted that it hadn't worked, as she'd felt a bit of resistance as she moved her foot away, but it hadn't stayed. She frowned. She'd used the exact same amount of chakra as with her hand, so what had gone wrong?

Looking down at her boots, she realized she probably hadn't used enough chakra. While her palms were bare, she wore combat boots on her feet, meaning her chakra would have to pass through that too.

Sending a bit more chakra down, she tried again, almost crying out in excitement when it worked.

Then came the next step. With one foot stuck to the tree and the other still on the ground, she carefully jumped up and put both feet against the trunk. She shrieked as she felt herself falling a bit and instinctively grabbed the tree with her arms as well.

She now found herself in a rather odd position. With a start, she realized her feet were actually still stuck to the tree. The falling sensation she'd felt had only been because of gravity pulling her upper body down.

Slowly, she released her arms from around the tree and stood up, tightening her core to keep from falling backwards.

It was hard, but the training with Kakashi must have been good for something, because she felt tight muscle where before there had been none.

Cautiously at first, she took small steps up the tree. The in-between steps were the hardest, where only one leg was attached to the tree, the only thing keeping her entire body from falling.

Then, slowly starting to get the hang of it, she threw caution to the wind. It was easier if you ran or jumped, she realized.

WIthin minutes, she'd reached the top of the tall tree she'd chosen, and with a smile on her face she marked the top branch with the kunai Kakashi had given her.

From up here, she could see Sasuke and Naruto struggling below, and the sight made her puff up in pride.

"Up here, losers!" she called playfully, and both boys looked up.

Sasuke just looked displeased and Naruto swung his fist playfully at her.

"Just you wait, Sakura!" he yelled up at her. "I'll get there before the bastard."

She stuck her tongue out. "Well, you have fun trying! I'm going back to the inn to relax." she called down. Maybe she'd go swimming again, she thought. She could grab her swimsuit from her room and then head out. It'd be nice to float among the waves in peace.

Going down was easier, now that she'd gotten the hang of it, and soon she was standing at the base of the tree again. She patted it fondly on the bark.

"Thanks, ," she said politely, even though she knew she must be going crazy to talk to a tree. Still… She'd gotten it on her very first try. That must've counted for something.

Then, with a last wave to Naruto and Sasuke who had only made it a couple metres up the tree, she skipped back to the inn they were staying at, whistling all the way.

As she got closer, a devious thought came to her. Maybe she'd surprise Kakashi-sensei! He probably wouldn't be expecting them back for a while, and this way she could make him see that she wouldn't be the one holding them back.

With this in mind, she recalled their lessons back at the Academy and training on subterfuge. You had to suppress your chakra signature, she remembered. And walk silently. She'd been good at both. The first because of her excellent chakra control and the second because she'd always been light-footed.

So she suppressed her chakra to an almost nonexistent level - except not completely non-existent, because that was a dead giveaway that there was someone sneaking up on you - and crept towards the house.

As she reached the door she paused, a grin on her face.

"Hi, Kakashi-sensei," she yelled, throwing the door open.

Sakura froze.

All the blood drained from her face and her smile disappeared. She took a few shuddering steps backwards and she knew she was shaking.

Why had she thought this would be a good idea?

"O-Oh. I-I'm sorry," she stuttered, almost silently.

Inside the room, her sensei was splattered in blood. He was kneeling on the floor next to the innkeeper who'd been so scared of them. A pool of blood surrounded both of the,.

Her brain, wired to see everything, even the smallest detail, noticed that the innkeeper - she hadn't even learned his name - was missing several fingers and one of his eyes had been gouged out. Several flaps of skin were hanging off and his right arm was twisted at an unnatural degree.

Kakashi had been torturing him.

The sight almost made her throw up her breakfast.

Kakashi turned to her, and his eyes were nothing like they usually were. Eyes, because he'd pulled his headband up to reveal another eye, blood red with three tomoe spinning through it.

"Sakura," he growled through gritted teeth. "I thought I told you to only come back once you'd walked to the top of the tree."

"I-I did," she whispered after a moment, and she thought she saw his eyes flash in disbelief.

Then, without even looking down, he slit the innkeepers throat. The blood gushed out in a spurt and Sakura doubled over, heaving the contents of her breakfast onto the floor. It was terrible, her stomach felt like it was giving in on herself, and worse was the smell of vomit that joined the strong stench of blood already permeating the room.

Kakashi just narrowed his eyes, and picked up a package of what looked like papers and files from the ground. In one quick movement, he rolled it up and stuffed in a pocket of his standard-issue pants.

He stood up from where he'd been crouched and suddenly he was behind her, closing the door of the inn so that it was only the two of them in the room.

Sakura scrambled away in fear. Was he going to kill her too? Who was this man.

Kakashi sighed, running a hand through his spiky hair and pulling his headband back down to cover his sharingan eye. But his hand was covered in blood and it stained his hair red.

"Relax, Sakura," he ordered.

She couldn't stop shaking and watching him with wide, fearful eyes. Her eyes kept roaming to the now dead man lying on the ground.

She almost threw up again.

"Sakura."

Kakashi was standing in front of her now, and she could feel his hands on her shoulders.

"Deep breaths," he said calmly, his one visible eye looking into hers. His sudden touch had brought on a new wave of panic, but as the minutes ticked by she felt her heartbeat slow down and her mind clear slightly.

Taking a few deep, trembling breaths, she looked up at her sensei, doing her best to avoid looking at the dead man lying nearby.

"I-I don't u-understand," she managed to get out.

Slowly, Kakashi guided her by her shoulders to turn her away from the scene before her and to face him instead.

"The Hokage assigned me a solo mission," he stated without any hint of emotion. "I had not expected you back so early."

He was quiet after that.

"I-It wasn't that hard. I got it on m-my first try," she said. She didn't even know what she was talking about anymore, just that she had to say something. "Naruto and S-Sasuke are still trying, I think."

Kakashi just creased his visible eye in what she assumed to be the same smile he always gave her, but this time it filled her with no comfort at all.

"I should've expected you to pick it up quickly. Your teachers all remarked on your excellent chakra control."

It didn't sound like a compliment.

"I-I'm sorry," she whispered again. Her wandering eyes caught sight of the dead innkeeper's body again and she jerked her head back to face Kakashi, fighting down horror.

Ever so slowly, the jounin lifted the headband hiding his other eye. She looked down, refusing to meet his eyes, but his quick hands captured her jaw, forcing her to meet the swirling gaze of his sharingan.

"Sakura," he said again. He'd been saying her name a lot, she remarked distachedly.

Kakashi's sharingan was swirling, and the blood-red of it's colour was so captivating. She couldn't look away, no matter how much she wanted to. All her instincts were screaming at her to flee, but she knew it was impossible. For some reason, the hypnotic circles traced by the tomoe in his eye were calming, hypnotizing.

"You will not speak a word of this to Sasuke or Naruto," he ordered.

Sakura found herself nodding.

"This man," he gestured to the dead innkeeper, "was a traitor to our village."

"O-okay," she mumbled.

"Despite what you saw today, I am still your jounin-sensei," Kakashi said seriously. "You have no reason to fear me."

He let go of her and she stumbled back, falling against the door. She covered her face with her hands refusing to look. She felt like a child again, believing that if she couldn't see something, it didn't exist.

When Kakashi's hand came to rest upon her head, she jerked backwards from the contact, banging her head against the door behind her in a clash that made her eyes tear up.

"It would be best if you waited in your room while I clean up," he said quietly.

With an assured grip, the jounin helped her shuddering form up from the ground and guided her out of the room, avoiding the body and the slick blood covering the ground. Sakura kept her eyes firmly closed the entire time.

Within minutes, she was at the door to the room they had rented out from the innkeeper - the dead innkeeper - the night before. Kakashi gently peeled her hands away from her eyes and opened the door for her, giving her a firm push inside.

"Try to forget about everything," he ordered, as he closed the door behind him.

Sakura tried, she really did, but she could feel the hum of chakra as Kakashi moved around on the floor below, probably using various jutsu to get rid of all the evidence.

The floor was covered in blood. A quick water jutsu would wash that out. The corpse on the floor. No bloodline, nothing valuable to learn anymore. A snap of fire and soon enough it'd be gone. The room might smell a bit odd for the next day, but well, nothing a gust of elemental wind couldn't clear out.

All the Academy drilled information ran through her head as she tried to visualize what Kakashi was doing.

The taste of bile was still on her tongue. She quickly ran over to the adjoined bathroom and rinsed her mouth with water.

Her reflection in the mirror stared back at her. Pale, smooth, creamy skin. Soft, pink tresses cascading down from behind her headband. Emerald green eyes.

For a moment, another image flashed before her eyes.

Blood, running like tears down her skin. Hair, matted with the viscous fluid. Eyes, gouged out. Hollow, gaping caverns in the places where her eyes should've been. Her hands rose automatically to her face and she stifled a scream. Half her fingers were gone, cut off to leave only bleeding stumps of flesh protruding from her hand.

She blinked and the image was gone.

As if in a trance, she moved away from the mirror and backed out of the washroom. She was in shock, she thought vaguely. She was seeing hallucinations.

She needed to calm down.

They'd gone on a class fieldtrip before, to Torture and Interrogation. It had been meant to scare those not fully committed away from the ninja path, and to remind the others of what happened to those who betrayed the village.

They'd seen men down there, cut up worse than the innkeeper a floor below her. She'd thrown up back then too.

But this had been worse, somehow. Torture and Interrogation had felt like a scene from a movie, but this felt real.

Angrily, she punched one of the walls. Her knuckles ached in protest and cracks ran from where she'd contacted the plaster but a bit of her tension drained away.

Kakashi had a reason for killing the innkeeper, she told herself. The man had been a traitor to her village.

"The girl is a potential threat if kept alive."

"She must be disposed of."

They'd accused her of being a traitor too.

She wasn't dead.

Sakura immediately pushed the jumbled mess of thoughts out of her head, trying to collect herself.

What did she know?

Kakashi had said that the Hokage had given him a separate mission. Was that why he'd been asked to stay back?

But he hadn't just killed the innkeeper, he'd tortured him. She remembered Kakashi picking up a package of files from the bloody floor - the image was stuck in her mind, she couldn't get it out. The dead man, his fingers and eye gone.

He'd said the innkeeper was a traitor to Konoha, but what could he have done? He was a civilian, Sakura was sure of it. No ninja could have such an undeveloped chakra system.

A knock sounded at the door to the room and she jumped, her heart pounding.

Kakashi opened the door soundlessly and stepped inside. He had somehow cleaned himself. His uniform was now as pristine as always and all traces of blood were gone from his hair.

His back was slouched and his hands were stuffed into his pockets, and he looked the exact same as he always had, but Sakura didn't think she would ever be able to unsee the image of him calmly slitting the innkeepers throat without even looking.

He sat down on the bed - the only one in the room - next to her, and she tensed imperceptibly. It didn't pass by Kakashi's notice, and he frowned.

"I can't explain anything to you, Sakura," he said. "Not yet."

She forced herself to relax. "I know," she breathed out.

He only nodded. "It had to happen."

"I know," she said again.

Kakashi sighed, before slowly, ever so slowly, reaching out and draping an arm over her shoulders.

He was just Kakashi, her sensei, she told herself.

She leaned into his comforting gesture, wrapping her arms around his waist to turn it into a makeshift hug.

"What type of ninja am I?" she found herself crying. "I can't even deal with this."

The jounin awkwardly patted her on the back.

"Shh, Sakura. It's ok," he murmured. "You're just a genin, you shouldn't have had to see that."

"B-But I'm going to have to do that at some point, right?" she said. Her face was pressed against his shoulder.

"Not for a while," Kakashi promised.

They didn't speak after that. They just sat there wordlessly on the bed, Sakura's silent sobs the only sound in the small room. Kakashi rubbed comforting circles on her back.

God, she was pathetic wasn't she.

She drew in a few deep, shivering breaths.

"I'm sorry," she apologized.

For crying on your shirt. For coming back when I shouldn't have. For being weak.

Naruto and Sasuke would've been able to handle it. They wouldn't have broken down like she had over the sight of a dead man.

Kakashi gently pried himself free of her embrace.

"I should've been more careful, Sakura," he said. "I'm sorry you had to see it."

She knew how awful she must look, with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes and muscles still shaking slightly.

Funny, she thought distantly, that her vanity was coming back at a moment like this.

She was a coward, she knew. Dying a quick, painless death would be easier than torture. If she were ever captured, she wondered if she would spill village secrets at the first hint of pain.

Did that mean she wasn't loyal? Was she the traitor that Councilor Shimura had accused her of being.

She didn't want to think about it.

She closed her eyes and looked down. "I know that being a ninja isn't all fun and games and cool techniques, like Naruto seems to think. I'm not stupid."

She thought she saw approval in his gaze, but maybe that was just her mind playing tricks on her.

"Take the rest of the day off. We'll continue with training tomorrow."

Sakura nodded.

A/N: Right! So I've been planning this chapter for a while, but I'm a bit worried about how I portrayed the characters. I know that at the beginning of the show Sakura hasn't really had much exposure to the "real" ninja life. When she finally does sort of get some experience in the forest of death, it isn't really like this, so I'm not sure how well I did. I was just sort of going along how I think a teenager would react if they came home to find their teacher torturing/murdering someone, but then again, this is the Naruto world and they're obviously a lot more desensitized towards all that. Still, she does come from a civilian family so maybe it's reasonable? Let me know what you think. Also, not sure how well I wrote out Kakashi's character in regards to the entire situation, but let me know what you think about that too, I guess.

Anyways, I really hope you enjoyed the chapter, and reviews/favs/follows always make me smile, so if you liked my work I would really appreciate it! Thanks so much and have a great rest of your summer break (if you're on one right now).