First Arc: VI

Training the next morning was… interesting. I was distracted to begin with, the problem of the mochi weighing on my mind. The issue was that I knew how I'd react to a gift in my previous life, and I knew that there were important social rules for how to react to a gift in Konoha, but I didn't know what they were.

I was seven when my Sasuke-mum died. Seven. I'd never had to deal with being given things like this, and though I'd seen her both receiving things and giving things back in return, no one had ever taught me the guidelines. Who would? It wasn't ninjaing, the academy didn't care. I didn't care, except apparently for how I did and had spent most of the night stressing about it. I think the value of the gift was important, but the mochi were clearly home made, so did I have to make something in return? I couldn't make mochi! Mochi took ages to make!

"Why," I asked Plushie-tan around a mouthful of rice porridge, "do I have so many scrolls of sodding haikus and not a single one of useful life skills? Why did I decide to be such an antisocial prick and not have anyone I could ask about these things? I bet Iruka told Naruto. I bet Naruto knows everything he needs to know about people, that's probably why everyone loves him after the time skip while I end up stravaging around the landscape as the half dressed brooding loner." I upended my bowl and left it in the sink, too stressed to wash it, then ended up washing it anyway because ergh and progressed to staring in panic at the empty mochi box from last night.

"I shouldn't have eaten them," I muttered. "They were probably cursed. We're ninja, I should've checked for poison, do I have to give the box back? I don't want the box. It doesn't match my bentos. What does it mean if I give the box back, is that good? Is that rude? Do I give it to Naruto or Ayame?" I hovered over it, then made a snap decision and shoved it in a drawer.

"Naruto won't notice. He probably doesn't care. It'll be awkward to give him the box."

Halfway out the door I kicked off my shoes and retrieved the damn box. "It's Ayame's box, the mochi were pink and homemade - what if they were for a special event and I just ate them like an uncultured swine? Who just gives people things without warning? Rude people that's who, unthinking assholes who read way too much into people getting pissy at sushi ladies. Maybe I didn't even want mochi, did he think of that?"

By the time I actually made it to the bridge by the training grounds I'd talked myself in so many circles that I turned to Sakura in desperation as the only socially competent person on the team.

"Haruno, what the hell do I do with this," I said, completely interrupting her greeting as I shoved the box at her. It sat innocently on my palm, a perfectly normal white box, and she looked at it like it was a trap.

Because she's smart. Because ninja giving people boxes is dangerous. Why wasn't I more like her. Why hadn't I blown it up with a fireball and avoided this whole mess.

"Um, Sasuke-kun?" she asked. We were early enough that Naruto wasn't here yet, and it would be several hours before Kakashi arrived. She didn't have backup, so she ploughed on with her question. "What, um, what is it?"

"It's Ayame's box," I said, giving it a little shake. How many times can you say box before it sounds ridiculous. Trick question; it sounds ridiculous to start with. Box. "She gave me mochi, and I ate it, and now I don't know what to give her back."

"She gave you mochi," Sakura repeated dangerously, her hands clenching into fists and a vein appearing in her forehead that usually only Naruto could bring out. I guess that answered my question of whether Naruto had given sweets to both of us or just me, but now that my self-preservation instincts were waking up I realised I could have been more subtle in finding out.

"I didn't ask her to," I defended, taking a step back and curling a hand over the box to shield it.

"But you're going to give her a gift in return?"

"I don't want to be rude!"

Sakura took a step towards me. My death became suddenly more imminent, and I regretted. Nothing in particular, just. Regret. "Since when," she said, voice perfectly calm in a way that leaked killing intent, "do you care about being rude?"

"She gave me mochi! And ramen! And she's important to Naruto so I -"

"Naruto?"

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto greeted, bouncing onto the scene with impeccable timing. I shoved the box in my pocket and tried not to look guilty. "Hey, what's going on, bastard? What did you do?"

"We're sparring," Sakura said, cutting across my attempts to deny everything and distance myself from the current situation. "You and me, Naruto. No holds barred." She cracked her knuckles and I barely resisted flinching.

"Wait, really?" Naruto asked. "You were serious about that? Hell yeah, it'll be the best spar ever, believe it!"

The boy had the situational awareness of a dead lemming.

"Shannaro!"

"Sakura-chan, wait -!"

I took a prudent couple of steps away from the beat-down that was happening and, for want of anything better to do, bent over backwards in a handstand. They looked busy, I didn't want to interrupt, flexibility training wasn't going to do itself.

A tree shattered somewhere across the training field, and four dozen Narutos yelled a war-cry in retaliation. I carefully balanced on one finger and started lining up shuriken to fire at the other side of the bridge.

The morning could have gone better, I reflected, but what was important was that no one died and we didn't dwell on our mistakes.

.

"So," Sakura said once everything had calmed down and she'd worked off her rage by beating multiple copies of Naruto to a pulp. "Which one of you is going to tell me what happened last night?"

Naruto, to his credit, didn't stay pulpified for long. The parts of their spar that I'd actually watched were impressive; Sakura used the academy basic with perfect precision and, sporadically, brutal force, but she was slow to react and she tired easily. Naruto on the other hand was sloppy and ineffective in his individual moves, but made up for it by being relentless and surprisingly tricky - even underhanded, which for a ninja was definitely positive. Not to mention his clones, of course, though when she hit them right Sakura could take out three of them in a single blow.

I hadn't seen them spar much in the academy, but if I had to guess I'd say Sakura would win there, but barely. Out here with a much longer spar and no structure or restrictions, I think Naruto came out on top. Maybe if he hadn't had his healing factor it would've been different - I'm pretty sure Sakura got the real him with a punch to the nose that should've broken it - but given that he did have it… Yeah, he was going to be a bitch to fight if he ever sorted out his taijutsu.

As for me, I'd managed to redirect three moving blades midair to different targets with one curving shuriken throw, all while halfway through a twisting backflip off the bridge post. I might not have Sakura's strength or Naruto's chakra, and I was pretty sure I didn't have canon-Sasuke's control when it came to fire jutsu, but I wasn't exactly a slouch in the acrobatics and pointy things department.

"Why?" Naruto asked, tilting his head in confusion. "What happened last night?"

He turned to me for clarification, but I wrinkled my nose and stayed silent. I wasn't… exactly sure what had pissed Sakura off?

Sakura huffed when neither of us provided answers. "You," she said, gesturing roughly at Naruto, "tried to set Sasuke-kun up with your sister. And you," a much more polite palm-first gesture at me, "were calling Naruto by his first name. Explain."

Ah, shit. I did? Naruto perked up instantly. "He did?"

"He told me to," I defended, shifting blame like the champ I was. The first part of her statement registered, and I made a face. "Also, no one's setting me up with anyone. I'm a strong independent ninja-person and I don't need no man. Woman."

Naruto's expression shifted to what I can only describe as a baffled squint. "Wait. Who's setting you up with their sister?"

"No one."

"You are!" Sakura accused. "You're taking advantage of Sasuke-kun's weakness by bribing him with food. You know he's not rational when he's hungry!"

"Hey now," I objected, because that was totally not true.

"I'm not! I don't even have a sister, and if I did she could do better than the bastard!"

"Ouch," I muttered.

Sakura steepled her fingers together and glared at Naruto over them. I seemed to have been forgotten, which, given that the conversation seemed to be a competition of who could insult me most with offhand comments, was more than a bit unfair. "Just to be clear," she said, "Ayame-san is not your sister, she didn't give Sasuke-kun mochi, and you aren't helping her steal his virtue?"

"Oh my god Haruno, why."

"Ayame-neechan's not my sister," Naruto confirmed. "I don't have any sisters, even though if I did she would totally be the best sister because she's pretty and kind and makes ramen, believe it. And she gave me mochi to give to the bastard, but only because I asked her to, and I don't get how a virtue can be stolen but she wouldn't do that because she's nice."

"Oh." Sakura deflated, shoulders drooping. "What kind of mochi was it?"

"Uh… pink?" Naruto hazarded. That didn't seem to be the answer Sakura wanted.

"Strawberry?" she guessed.

"Red bean," I said. They both nodded, which meant they'd remembered I was actually here, which was nice. What was not nice was how Sakura was way too down. Her moods changed fast at the best of times, but even by her standards this felt like an overreaction. "Would strawberry mean something?"

She glanced over at me and hummed instead of answering. "And you… You call him Naruto now? And you call Kakashi-sensei Kakashi. That's… That's good. Um."

I frowned. I hadn't even noticed that I'd called Kakashi his first name. It was too ingrained from knowing him as a character, and I hadn't spent enough time with him as a person to separate the two. A bit like how my mum was my mum instead of Mikoto, but Fugaku was Fugaku because he hadn't featured in my Sasuke-memories as much more than a vaguely disapproving authority figure.

But that wasn't really something I could say, so I went for a different explanation. "He's Sharingan no Kakashi. It's how everyone knows him, it's what he's famous as."

"Sensei's famous?" Naruto asked, but I waved him off. Sakura was being weird, and I wanted to know why.

"Oh," she said again, and shrunk in on herself further. "It makes sense. You're going to be really strong, so it's good they gave you a good sensei." She looked between me and Naruto miserably, and it clicked.

Hadn't that been a big thing in the story, that Naruto and Sasuke had their epic friendship rivalry and kept getting stronger and Sakura got left behind? I chewed my lip as I tried to work out if we were doing that. I didn't think we were? Maybe she was just being insecure. Why was she being insecure. Should I leave her to it? She got over it before, didn't she? Should I say something?

She pulled herself together enough to give us both a frail and clearly fake smile.

"Us," I said, scowling. "Gave us a good sensei. And being famous doesn't make him a good teacher, he's still a dick." I waited for her to call me out on my rudeness, but she just nodded distractedly. I made a frustrated sound and leaned forward to catch her attention. "You're the team leader," I said, perhaps more harshly than I meant to. "If we're going to be strong then you are too. All three of us." I turned my scowl on Naruto as well, because this was important, and waiting for character development to happen naturally was boring and annoying and took too long. "Because we're a team."

"Yeah, believe it!" he cheered on cue, leaping forward and grabbing both me and Sakura in one-armed strangled holds. I pitched forwards with a startled hrrk, shoulders rising instinctively as I squashed the urge to stab him and roll out of danger. "We're going to be the best team ever and Sakura-chan's going to be the best team captain and we'll all be famous like sensei and it'll be the best!"

"You mean it?" Sakura said, eyes as wide and startled as I felt. I was glad I wasn't the only one to react badly to hugs. Was this a hug? It still felt like an assault. Sakura was doing better than me at not flinching though, so maybe the surprise was for show and she actually felt no fear.

"What he said," I choked out, prying Naruto's arm off me and sitting back. "Haruno -"

"Sakura," she interrupted. She nodded, chin rising stubbornly. "If we're a team, then you should call me Sakura, Sasuke-kun."

Ugh. Seriously? Now I wouldn't be able to pass off using Naruto's name as a one off, I'd have to be friendly to both of them.

Actually, no. It was just a name. I could still be as much of an asshole as I liked, just an asshole on first name terms with them. I could live with that. "Sakura," I conceded, then hurried to add before she and her fantasies could get any ideas, "but only because you're my teammate."

She still blushed. Damnit.

.

The team dynamic felt odd for the rest of the day. Not bad odd, in fact probably good odd, just… confusing odd. Both Sakura and Naruto stuck way too close, finding apparently unending delight in the way I had to use their first names every time I spoke to them. Even when I snapped at them and took physical steps back to put some space between us they followed me, and it was like my glares had suddenly lost all effectiveness.

I didn't like it.

Worse, their good mood was infectious, and Kakashi was in fine form because of it.

"I'm not a puppy," I ground out, scowling up at him and picturing, vividly, what exactly I would do with the three shuriken in my fist if he turned his back on me for just a second.

"Well you're a bit short to be a full dog just yet, Sasuke-kun," he chirped. "Keep eating your vegetables though and you'll soon grow up big and strong!"

"It's ok, bastard! Me an' Sakura-chan will keep you safe even if you stay shrimpy forever."

I transferred the scowl to Naruto. "Keep me safe?" I hissed dangerously. "I don't need you to keep me safe. And I'm not shrimpy!"

"But Sasuke-kun," Sakura protested, practically skipping in place as she turned back to us. "We're a team, and teams look out for each other!"

She was too far away to reach so I swiped a foot out at Naruto instead and sent him tumbling backwards into a tree. He deserved it, I reasoned, and relished his surprised squawk. He'd nodded, he knew what he was letting himself in for.

He also disappeared in a puff of bunshin smoke and a replacement dropped out the branches to grin at me. "Fuck's sake, how many of you are there?"

"The Naruto clone army is unending and unstoppable, believe it!"

I dispatched that one with a kunai between the eyes. It died, still grinning, and the next one skipped forward to ask Sakura as team leader if we could stop for snacks soon, Sasuke-bastard was getting cranky.

My eye twitched and I barely stifled a growl. No wait, why stifle. Repression is bad for the soul. Let the growl out, feel your anger be released into the void.

"There there, Sasuke-kun," Kakashi said, patting me on the head. I aimed my fistfull of shuriken at his crotch and smirked in satisfaction at the shunshin-leaves he left floating gently downwards in his wake.

"Alright, team!" he announced, reappearing on the path in front of us. "Today's mission is a rescue mission. You need to find the daimyo's wife's little Tora-chan and deliver her safe and sound back to her loving family." He tossed a d-rank scroll at Sakura and waved us a lazy salute. "Remember, Tora-chan's safety is paramount. Bye!"

"A rescue mission!" Naruto enthused, hopping in place as he waited impatiently for Sakura to read the scroll. "Hey bastard, you hear that? They've finally recognised how great Team Seven is, the daimyo must've personally requested us!"

"It's still a d-rank," I pointed out. "She probably left Tora at the playground and needs someone to pick her up."

"It says here she's lost somewhere in the woods behind the palace," Sakura said, scrunching her nose in concentration as she read. "Um, but I think… Tora-chan's a pet?"

"A pet?" Naruto asked. "The daimyo's wife has a pet tiger? That's amazing."

"Oh," I said, remembering. "It's a cat. That makes sense."

Naruto wobbled on the edge of deflating, then settled in to inspirational pose number two with his hand pointing decisively forward. "Then we'll do the best cat rescue Konoha's ever seen! No creature is too small for the heroes of Fire Country, the great Team Seven! No one gets overlooked or left behind and that includes the cats, believe it!"

"Do you actually have to say believe it after everything you say, or do you choose to do it on purpose?"

"It'll be a great training exercise," Sakura said, completely ignoring me. Rude. "We can fan out and keep in touch and use the search patterns they taught us in the academy, and if we practice our stealth as well we'll find her in no time."

"The quietest ninjas ever, believe it!"

They high fived, and I was left to appreciate the absurdity of the situation by myself for all of three seconds before they both turned to me with their hands up expectantly.

"I'm not high fiving you."

"We're a team, Sasuke-kun!"

And because it's my narrative and I can, I'm going to cut scene here, and leave you believing that I did not, in fact, high five them.

.

Psych, you read that and thought I did. I actually didn't. They got me with a fist bump instead.

.

Tora, it turned out, was easy to find. We'd split to cover a grid pattern, each of us with a small walkie-talkie radio that Kakashi had apparently given Sakura this morning, and I found Tora by virtue of walking quietly and keeping my eyes open.

I felt vaguely cheated.

"I thought you were meant to be a demon cat and really good at hiding," I grumped, looking up in the branches of the tree with an eyebrow raised. Tora startled, clearly only just now noticing me - at least one of Team Seven can actually achieve peak sneakiness, and it's not Sakura or Naruto - and flattened herself against the branch, fur standing on end and tail lashing furiously behind her.

I rolled my eyes and flopped down to sit between the roots.

"You're not stuck," I told her. "This tree is easy climbing. I'm not coming to get you." Then, to complete the picture of nonchalance and calm, I leaned my head back against the bark and closed my eyes.

I didn't stop watching her, of course. I stretched out with the same sense I used to find replacement objects for kawarimi, hovering just close enough to her that I'd feel it if she tried to run. It wasn't a chakra sense, I don't think; it worked on chairs, logs, Kakashi's Icha Icha - it was just like reaching out with my fingers and grabbing something, except instead of fingers I used chakra, and instead of grabbing I yanked something towards me and switched places with it. All I was doing now was… not yanking.

I didn't say it was a very useful sense. Kawarimi was an e-rank jutsu, basic enough to be taught before we'd even been properly introduced to our chakra; I didn't expect any bastardisation of the technique to be much use in the wider world. It was what I had though - kawarimi, illusion bunshin, henge. Immolation jutsu, inexpertly modified into a keep-warm jutsu with a small chance of burning side-effects. Grand fireball, given enough time, enough arm protection, and a lot of vaseline to salvage the damage it did to my lips.

Listed out like that it was a bit pants, to be honest with you. Kakashi would teach Team Seven tree walking and water walking, and, if the chunin exams went the same way, he'd teach me an A-rank assassination technique. I'd already tried looking for scrolls left around the clan compound and come up with a whole load of metaphors for how the changing seasons represented people getting older and dying, but very little that I could use in the way of actual ninjutsu. If there was a Konoha central library full of instructions then I didn't know about it, and the only other source I could think of was the forbidden scroll Naruto'd stolen from the Hokage.

I was trying to get stronger to keep myself alive and eyeballed, not commit suicide by chakra exhaustion. Or death god sacrifice. Or whatever other stupidly reckless techniques the scroll contained.

How did canon-Sasuke do it? Was I missing something he'd found? Was he also pants until he'd unlocked his sharingan? I didn't like the idea of relying on it. Best case scenario, I got the fancy eyes, used the fancy eyes with no bad side effects, and managed to keep them secret from the entire world for evermore. Or at least until I met up with Itachi. Worst case scenario, they drove me mad, everyone knew I had them and tried to take them from me, and by using them as a crutch I destroyed my ability to fight or learn new things without them.

Or died. I should probably put died in the worst case scenario list.

My mouth twisted, tugging the lip I was chewing out from between my teeth. From one perspective, it'd be better for the story if I died and took my eyes with me than let them fall in the wrong hands. That was a depressing thought though, so I resolved not to think it. If I died I'd be dead. If that happened then the rest of the story could go fuck itself because I wouldn't be there to care.

"Oh, hush," I muttered to Tora. She'd crept closer once it was clear I wasn't going to leap on her, and was now perched on the branch just above me. I tipped my head back and opened my eyes in a slow blink so I could better pout at her. "I'm not a bad person. I just have priorities. You'd do exactly the same thing if you were in my situation."

"Mrrr," Tora disagreed, and stepped down on my shoulder with all the elegance of a noble princess. A rather fat and fluffy noble princess with a tail that ended up directly up my nose, but still. Elegant.

"Yeah yeah, laugh it up. This is why I replaced the quasi-antagonist in the story and not the hero." She butted my hand imperiously until I started petting her, scritching behind her ears and ignoring the claws she was kneading into my leg. I shifted to give her a better lap for sitting on and, subtly, to reposition her away from certain areas.

Just because I didn't like the penis didn't mean I wanted it stepped on, ok.

"God, can you imagine if I had been the hero? Canon-Sasuke and Sakura and me as Naruto? The world would be doomed. Hell, canon-Sasuke and Naruto and me as Sakura, that wouldn't be any better." I pulled a face at the thought. I just… wasn't hero material. My job as Sasuke was to stay out the way and let Naruto and Sakura be awesome, and I was fine with that. The world would be easier if they were fine with that too, but they were being confusing and clingy and I didn't know how to make them stop.

"At least you're straightforward," I said to the now purring puddle of fur in my lap. "You just want me because I'm comfy, right?"

"Bastard!" Naruto yelled, appearing out the trees with a sudden flail of orange and sending me leaping for the canopy. "Sakura-chan, I found him!" He vanished in a puff of smoke, leaving me crouched on a branch that was technically too thin to support my weight, one hand cradled protectively around Tora and the other bristling with sharp things in a defensive formation.

"What the fuck," I mumbled, straining with my senses to see if there were any more of him. Where the hell had he come from? I thought he wasn't sneaky. I mean, yes, pranks, but seriously? How distracted was I?

Tora's sharp yowl of protest brought me back to the present, and I adjusted my grip to be less restrictive for her. "Sorry. It's ok, he won't hurt you. He just startled me." She wriggled out of my arms and stood on my shoulders, claws digging painfully into my collar. Apparently it gave her a better position to arch her back and hiss from. "I know," I commiserated. "He's always that loud. Sometimes I wonder if he has hearing problems."

Scrambled footsteps heralded their approach again. Nothing so crass as snapping twigs - we had been brought up in the trees - but neither of them were making any attempt to be subtle, and I shifted to a sturdier branch so Tora would feel safer. Her claws were a few very short inches away from my jugular, it seemed sensible. She crouched, digging in tighter to my shoulders, and mrowled a warning directly in my ear.

"Sasuke-kun!" Sakura called, skidding to a halt at the base of the tree. "What happened, where were you? Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," I said, keeping my voice calm and level. "Why, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong?" Naruto echoed. "You disappeared! Off the comms! We couldn't find Tora-chan and then we couldn't find you, we thought you'd been eaten by tigers!"

I blinked, then fished in my pocket for the walkie talkie. It was flashing red at me. Tora spat at it and tried to bat it out my hand until I held it out of her reach. "Sorry," I said, "I think I had it on mute." I pressed the button on its side with my thumb and it crackled to static life, cutting off again into silence as soon as I stopped pressing.

Oops. I'd thought it was like a phone.

Sakura made a wordless sound of frustration below me while Naruto flapped and tried to calm her down. "It's fine, Sakura-chan, he's all fine. He's even got Tora-chan! Mission success!"

"You!" Sakura shouted in response, glaring up at me. "How am I supposed to team captain you to fame if you aren't where you're meant to be? We're going to the Hokage. Bring the cat!"

She whirled in a storm of pink and started stomping off in the direction of the tower. I blinked after her, thrown for a complete loop. Wasn't she meant to be… giggly? What?

"C'mon, bastard!" Naruto chivvied when I didn't come down fast enough. "Kakashi-sensei's not here so Sakura-chan's responsible. You have to do what she says! I mean, she's team leader, you always have to do what she says. But now you have to doubly do what she says. How did you catch Tora-chan, anyway? Did you use the plan Sakura-chan made?"

"Not really." I dropped smoothly to the floor with a hand up to steady my passenger. She nipped my finger in protest and walked down my chest until I had to carry her properly or drop her - and the shirt she wasn't letting go of - on the floor. "I just waited under her tree until she sat on me. Also, what do you mean Kakashi's not here? He's been watching us from the village."

"How would he watch us from the village? There's forest in the way, he can't see us."

I… didn't actually have an answer for that. Huh. Maybe Sakura was right and she had been left as the one responsible. That seemed… negligent? Nah, Kakashi was probably just watching us via jutsu instead. He was tricky like that, who knew what nefarious ways he had to spy on people.

"Boys!" Sakura demanded sharply, and I resettled Tora in my arms and trotted alongside Naruto to catch up.

...

Interlude: Kakashi and the Sandaime: the return of the nosy bastards.

"And how is Team Seven getting on, Kakashi?"

"All still alive last I checked, but they're meant to be hunting Tora this afternoon so who can really say."

"Hm. I'm told they went out for a team dinner last night. I'm glad they're settling into a cohesive unit. I even hear that young Sasuke dressed up for the occasion, and was quite vehement in his defence of Naruto. Though it is a shame; I rather liked Emiyo-san's sushi."

…

"How nice it would be, Kakashi, to get reports on my newest genin from their senseis instead of from second hand village gossip. Truly a novel experience in my old age."

"Hm? Oh, Sasuke's doing alright. He's fine."

"Kakashi."

"He understands the theory of teamwork better than I was expecting him to. The application could do with some improvement though. A lot. Anything, really."

"Hm. And Naruto and Sakura, how are they taking it?"

"They… At the moment, they're unwilling to leave him out, but by constantly working on his own he's establishing patterns of behaviour that will be difficult for them to break in the future."

"I see. Well, that'll have to change, won't it? It would hardly be fair to them to be left on an unbalanced team."

"Hai, Hokage-sama."

"Change a bit faster, perhaps, than being left to discover it on their own."

"... Hai, Hokage-sama."

"Oh, and if you'd submit the written reports next time then we can avoid this whole rigmarole, hm? Think how much easier that would make my life."

"But think how much harder it would make mine."

"Kakashi."