Kill Your Heroes

-Chapter Eight-

Catapedaphobia

When they returned to Tazuna's home, they found Naruto waiting for them—or rather, for Sakura—like an eager puppy. His eyes were shining and his expression was animated as he danced from foot to foot. "Tazuna said that the two of you hijacked Gatō's yacht!" he exclaimed almost the instant they'd come in the door, Sakura still in the process of very delicately trying to remove her sandals.

If she'd been less used to Naruto, she might have lost her balance, but she was both tired and growing accustomed to his antics. So instead she only stared at him for a long moment before she slipped the sandal the rest of the way off, aligning them neatly in the genkan.

"I mean, me and Sasuke were busy with Haku," and there was a noticeable dip in his enthusiasm there that she found strange, "so I didn't see, but Tazuna said when you saw that crowd of mercenaries you used some sort of awesome jutsu on them that made them freeze up, then, whoosh, you just took off running, threw him over your shoulder and jumped off the bridge."

He was bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet by this point, while Sakura was trying hard not to relive those moments when she'd had just enough time while flying to decide how much falling was going to hurt.

He swept his hand through the air in sharp diagonal gesture, really into his storytelling by this point. "And then you charge down this beam and leap from it onto the deck of the yacht, where you and Tazuna take on three goons before sailing off in triumph!"

It was a lot more heroic-sounding when Naruto told it than the actual event. The implicit praise left a bitter taste in her mouth, but she still felt a little residual guilt for trying to hit him earlier in the day. So she only shifted so that one hand clutched at her other arm, which had the advantage of controlling the fine trembling of her hands. "It's not—you or Sasuke-kun wouldn't have had any trouble."

And that, she realized with a strange sense of almost alienation from her body, was very close to the truth. Maybe the leap from the bridge and then from the beam to the yacht wouldn't have gone as well for either of them—that was chakra manipulation and mathematics—but if they'd gotten to the yacht, it would have gone very differently. In her mind, she could still see Sasuke-kun cutting down Zabuza's water-clones, quick and breathtaking as a flash of lightning. Naruto, less skilled, but more tenacious, with dozens of shadow-clones at his command that could be cut down without ever leaving scars.

Just as in that moment when Kakashi-sensei had prompted her into a realization of the team's specialization, she was struck with a feeling that she didn't belong. She'd fought men who were thugs, who might not even have been missing-nin, and she was left with flashbacks and nightmares and scars. Sasuke-kun and Naruto had faced down real missing-nin without displaying even a fraction of her clumsy desperation.

They'd wanted to win a fight.

Sakura had just been determined not to die.

She had a sudden, unsettling premonition of her future, Kakashi-sensei's words from that night searing across her mind. Surviving brought more battles. More battles and more difficult ones. Because they wouldn't be genin forever. One day, they would be sent on missions like these as a matter of course, not just because of a less-than-truthful commission.

"Sakura-chan?" Naruto asked her with concern, making her realize she'd gone silent and still. Sasuke-kun was looking at her as well.

Habit was a powerful thing, even in the face of world-shaking events. An instant, false smile replaced her slack expression. "Sorry, I'm a little tired."

With a spluttered apology, Naruto scrambled back out of the way and let her come inside the house. But at that moment, not even the prospect of being confined to the house with Sasuke-kun could brighten her spirits. Because she was starting to understand that this wasn't some sort of horrific training exercise where she could close her eyes and wait for it to all be over. It was her life. And like it or not, she had to live it.

That was what surviving meant.

[Kill Your Heroes]

That night, it wasn't only her nightmares that woke her. She'd wondered blearily why she was awake, because there weren't any of those clinging remnants of terror, when the soft noises she heard resolved themselves into something more like speech, though it was too low for her to make out individual words. But from the footfalls, it was Naruto that Kakashi-sensei ushered outside.

And when she turned over to make herself more comfortable, she found herself catching Sasuke-kun's gaze before he rolled over and stoically pretended sleep.

[Kill Your Heroes]

Kakashi-sensei opted to stay in the Land of Waves until construction of the bridge was finished, something that was greatly helped along by the fact that the government of the land of Waves had seized Gatō's assets. Despite all his efforts to assure it was never completed, Gatō's ill-gotten gains were going to pay for the construction of the bridge. The only disappointment was that they wouldn't be able to keep all of it—they would eventually have to return at least part of the funds that belonged to his legitimate corporation, but they were spitefully drawing out the bureaucratic process.

Though Gatō himself had died on the bridge at Zabuza's hand, he'd brought in a lot of mercenaries who had grown used to the easy pickings and who hadn't been at that battle. They were being slowly transferred to the mainland, but Team Seven was still serving guard duty on a rotational basis.

Kakashi-sensei took the afternoon shift, which Sakura joined him on when he pronounced her fit enough for light duty—after two days of miserable fever, which had left her totally unable to enjoy her time with Sasuke-kun—and they generally relieved Sasuke-kun and Naruto at whatever point Kakashi-sensei pronounced was midday.

But afternoon was actually the relaxing part of the day, because while he set Sasuke-kun and Naruto on their way with instructions to spar, the results of which he evaluated when they returned Tazuna home at the end of the day, her mornings were graced with Kakashi-sensei's partial attention.

Which, for someone who'd never experienced much of it, turned out to be plenty,

"What Sasuke needs most is practice and Naruto learns best by repetition," he told her as they faced each other in a grassy meadow not far from Tazuna's house. It was not long before dawn and the world was cast in grey light that was less ominous than the last time they'd had a talk like this, though it helped that Kakashi-sensei was far less intense this time as well.

"Pairing them makes good sense for both their learning styles. You, on the other hand, are a genjutsu-type, which comes hand-in-hand with a high intelligence. And you can't come within twenty feet of the Academy as a potential jounin-sensei without hearing the instructors complain about how hard it is to get genjutsu-types engaged in class exercises. Your learning style is just different. Ninjutsu- and taijutsu-types learn best with their bodies, but that busy little brain of yours makes your attention wander if it isn't suitably occupied. Give you a diagram and a demonstration and you learn things easily, so during basic drills you tend to pay more attention to that cute shinobi in the second row than your forms. And, worst of all, you're smart enough to figure out the least amount of effort you can put into anything and still be praised for it."

Sakura blushed at the accuracy of that assessment. Drill, when they weren't doing new maneuvers or anything particularly difficult, had been something she'd done with minimal effort and concentration. And she had spent a lot of time eyeing Sasuke-kun during it.

But then Kakashi-sensei was speaking again and unlike her exercises in the Academy, she gave him her full attention. "I don't want you to take away from this that drill is unimportant. Because it is. Building muscle memory can save your life in combat situations. But it's a poor fit for you, so we're going to try things a little differently in your training. And now that we have some sensei-and-Sakura time, we can continue where we left off. Movement."

"Just movement?" Sakura asked hesitantly.

"Your taijutsu style is textbook Academy standard," Kakashi-sensei replied flatly. "Frankly speaking, it's like off the rack clothing. Because it's been designed to fit everyone, it doesn't fit anyone well, though it'd be just fine if you weren't in a combat squad. And if you were male, it might work regardless if we put enough effort into it. But your strength isn't ever going to be in height, reach, or weight. Your advantage is going to be in chakra manipulation, so it's a little bit pointless to teach you anything new until we find your limits there." Then he smiled, glancing over at her. "Also, I think it's a little bit early in the healing process to think about any intense taijutsu training."

Sakura allowed herself a cautious sigh of relief at that, but then another thought occurred to her. "And genjutsu?" she prodded.

Kakashi-sensei made a thoughtful sounding hum. "I'll make you a deal, Sakura-chan. If you have enough energy left to have trouble sleeping at night, I'll teach you a genjutsu. But," he said, holding up a finger, "only one per week. The rest of the time, you can distract yourself by considering how they might be applied in the field. Knowing one jutsu and knowing how and when to use it is more valuable than ten you don't."

She nodded and her eyes fell to the large sack at Kakashi-sensei's side. "What's that, sensei?"

"Training tools. But before we get to them, let's see if we can't teach you how to jump from high places without doing any permanent damage to your joints, ne? It's sort of a pity that we're out of the village. I think you're one of the few who'd actually benefit from some of the reference texts. But no help for that. I'll just explain as we go along."

Unlike her teachers at the Academy, Kakashi-sensei wasn't quick to praise her. Though it wasn't that he was quick to scold or correct, either. It was mostly that he would explain briefly what he wanted her to do, demonstrate it once, and then leave her to untangle the particulars on her own while he napped nearby. It was the least "guided" set of guided exercises she'd ever participated in.

At first she was resentful of this approach, until success taught her that the overly detailed lectures of her former teachers were a crutch she didn't need. And, some part of her acknowledged, given how he'd collapsed before and how often he was awake in the night with his students, maybe the extra sleep was a good idea if things went sour.

She found quickly that working through each chakra manipulation on her own was far more rewarding than being hand-fed every single thing, which had been an enormous source of her frustration with Naruto in the Academy. She'd always mastered things like this quickly, which made it irritating to have to wait for the teachers to coach the slowest students through the exercises over and over. Her patience would quickly be spent and her mind would wander to other, more appealing things, like how perfect Sasuke-kun's profile was.

Not here. As soon as she'd suitably mastered one thing, Kakashi-sensei foisted another on her. Having mastered leaping from limb to limb very quickly, she moved on to leaping from heights with more caution. Her recent experience was riding her heavily and her slightly cautious approach to learning physical things made her work her way up to more extreme heights gradually.

But as the heights increased, she grew more uneasy, making simple mistakes that made her land harder or more awkwardly than she should have. She lost confidence with each of them and a sick feeling grew in her stomach. After one particularly bad landing, she crouched down and wrapped her arms around her legs, cradling her chin on her knees.

This isn't working, she thought to herself. Soon she'd really screw it up, get herself hurt again, and then where would she be?

But she was already taking all the precautions she could think of and working under the most controlled conditions she could manage. And still she was afraid and a part of her mind, a very small part, separate from that fear knew it was the reason she kept faltering.

Closing her eyes, she tried to imagine what Kakashi-sensei might do to help her.

And then sighed, because "help" and "Kakashi-sensei" still sounded a lot like antonyms, especially when it came to coaxing her through her personal fears. So she turned her imagination on her teammates, being stonewalled again when it came to Sasuke-kun. If Sasuke-kun was afraid, she doubted he would ever admit it. And he'd probably find some way to push it to the side and perform perfectly regardless.

That left only Naruto.

But while she had a good idea what Naruto might do, she didn't know if she could scrape together enough courage to do it.

Or if it was even a good idea.

Because Naruto would find the tallest tree around and pitch himself from the top, consequences and fears be damned.

But if she could make it and do it without getting hurt, anything else on this island would be a shorter jump. And, compared to the trees at home, there was nothing that grew here that was overwhelmingly tall. Somewhere deep in the recesses of her memory, she could vaguely remember lectures about overcoming fear by confronting it directly, even though she didn't know if it should be applied to flinging herself from high places.

Even though a part of her knew it was stupid, stupid, she dragged herself to her feet and forced herself forward, trepidation growing with each step. But pride pushed against a desire for the fear to just be over and almost before she knew what she was doing, she scaled a likely looking tree and balanced herself on the very tip, having learned during their branch leaping session how to infuse chakra into surfaces that wouldn't normally support her weight. And before sense could catch up, she jumped.

Sakura choked on her scream on the way down, branches rushing by slapping at her exposed arms, but she was too concerned with the ground rushing up to meet her feet. Bad idea was the loudest fragment of thought rushing through her mind, but it was whipped away quicker than the limbs.

Instead, everything became about chakra. In those long, painful seconds, she'd never been so sharply aware of it. Not the ease with which it could flow and ebb, shift and change, nor the sheer possibility inherit in it. It should seem impossible that this thing inside her could break mountains, conjure fire, shape the very air, but if it couldn't, she was about to get a very visceral definition of the term comminuted fracture, which was another broken fragment of thought that rocketed around in her head.

Her heart seemed to be falling at a different rate than the rest of her, as it seemed lodged in her throat, and her breakfast was struggling to shove its way past it. But as long as the fall felt, it was over quickly, her trembling fingers touching softly against the prickly blanket of pine needles that blanketed the forest floor. She'd been crouching lightly, dispersing the force of impact through her body just as Kakashi-sensei had shown her, but she toppled forward onto her knees and breathed in great, gasping breaths.

Kakashi-sensei landed next to her without even disturbing the pine needles at his feet. "Ahh...Sakura-chan?"

She managed to out a somewhat strangled noise of acknowledgement.

There was a long pause, as if Kakashi-sensei couldn't decide quite what to say to her. "...did you have a nice fall?"

"That—that was terrible, Kakashi-sensei!" she gasped.

"Mah, mah," he said. "You landed safely. But what were you trying to do?"

She made a stumbling explanation, which had Kakashi-sensei staring skeptically down at her. "...and did it work?"

"No," she said very firmly. Then, "...maybe."

That earned her a head-pat, which was beginning to make her feel like a favorite pet rather than a favored student. It hadn't escaped her that Kakashi-sensei only did it to her habitually.

"...want to try it again?" he asked.

[Kill Your Heroes]

When she'd gotten falling down to an art that no longer fazed her, which took her the better part of a week and left her with just enough restlessness near the end to earn her the Magen: Kokoni Arazu no Jutsu—which Kakashi-sensei had introduced rather unimpressively as the weakest of the environment genjutsu—they moved on to something else.

Running.

But nothing so passé as assigning her laps. This morning found them on the veranda, the faint light of morning just enough for her to read the topographical map he'd weighted with stones, that curious bag back at his side again.

"So," Kakashi-sensei said, tapping one of the smooth stones idly against the map, "rules. No climbing trees, no weapons, you'll need water walking, so that's allowed. No forfeit accepted. Your task is to get from here," he said, pointing to where Tazuna's house was, to another point not quite all the way across the cluster of islets, but close, "to here."

"That's it?" Sakura asked quizzically as she tried to memorize the map. "Do I have a time limit?"

"Not a time limit as such, but..." Kakashi-sensei's voice trailed off. "Well, I guess you might call it incentive to give it your best, ne?" He wasn't looking at her, but his tone of voice had shifted dangerously and Sakura had to fight off a shiver. "Here, go stand across the yard. Wait until I give you the signal."

Now wary, her heart thumping just that little bit quicker in her chest, Sakura did as she was told. The peaceful atmosphere had vanished, replaced instead by that kind of ominous stillness right before a storm breaks. There was no particular reason why she should feel like something terrible was about to happen, but already her palms felt sweaty and her breathing was uneven.

Kakashi-sensei bit his thumb, hands shifting through handsigns so quickly none of them registered, but when he slapped his hand down against the wood, she couldn't fail to miss the three dogs that remained when the smoke cleared. "After five minutes," he said calmly, as if there wasn't an enormous bulldog glowering at her from just behind his shoulder, "I'll send Shiba, Urushi, and Bull after you. And Sakura? They do bite. Now, go."

She bolted.

A/N: The only scenario in which the Sakura-obsessed-with-Sasuke is a whole lot of fun is if you imagine the scene where she somehow magically intuits his desire to leave the village and shift it from this earnest-desire-of-the-heart thing and transform it to her outing herself as a yandere. That would be hilarious. But as this isn't were this is going, I'm trying very hard to recall that at one time, very, very early in the series when everything was shiny and full of promise and life lessons and plot, I actually shipped them. So, selective amnesia applied boldly to canon is serving me well here.